his heart and, unable to face the accusation, he had thus
terminated his wretched existence.

Colonel Demarion revisited the little tavern, and on several occasions
occupied the haunted chamber; but never again had he the honor of
receiving a midnight commission from a ghostly visitor, and never again
had the landlord to bemoan the flight of a non-paying customer.

PICHON & SONS, OF THE CROIX ROUSSE.

Giraudier, _pharmacien, premiere classe_, is the legend, recorded in
huge, ill-proportioned letters, which directs the attention of the
stranger to the most prosperous-looking shop in the grand _place_ of La
Croix Rousse, a well-known suburb of the beautiful city of Lyons, which
has its share of the shabby gentility and poor pretence common to the
suburban commerce of great towns.

Giraudier is not only _pharmacien_ but _proprietaire_, though not by
inheritance; his possession of one of the prettiest and most prolific of
the small vineyards in the beautiful suburb, and a charming inconvenient
house, with low ceilings, liliputian bedrooms, and a profusion of
_persiennes_, _jalousies_, and _contrevents_, comes by purchase. This
enviable little _terre_ was sold by the Nation, when that terrible
abstraction transacted the public business of France; and it was bought
very cheaply by the strong-minded father of the Giraudier of the
present, who was not disturbed by the evil reputation which the place
had gained, at a time the peasants of France, having been bullied into a
renunciation of religion, eagerly cherished superstition. The Giraudier
of the present cherishes the particular superstition in question
affectionately; it reminds him of an uncommonly good bargain made in his
favor, which is always a pleasant association of ideas, especially to a
Frenchman, still more especially to a Lyonnais; and it attracts
strangers to his _pharmacie_, and leads to transactions in _Grand
Chartreuse_ and _Creme de Roses_, ensuing naturally on the narration of
the history of Pichon & Sons. Giraudier is not of aristocratic
principles and sympathies; on the contrary, he has decided republican
leanings, and considers _Le Progres_ a masterpiece of journalistic
literature; but, as he says simply and strongly, "it is not because a
man is a marquis that one is not to keep faith with him; a bad action is
not good because it harms a good-for-nothing of a noble; the more when
that good-for-nothing is no longer a noble, but _pour rire_." At