By a coincidence in nowise extraordinary in Paris, two hearses were waiting at the door, and two coffins standing under the archway; Cibot’s funeral and the solitary state in which Pons was lying was made even more striking in the street.  Schmucke was the only mourner that followed Pons’ coffin; Schmucke, supported by one of the undertaker’s men, for he tottered at every step.  From the Rue de Normandie to the Rue d’Orleans and the Church of Saint-Francois the two funerals went between a double row of curious onlookers for everything (as was said before) makes a sensation in the quarter.  Every one remarked the splendor of the white funeral car, with a big embroidered P suspended on a hatchment, and the one solitary mourner behind it; while the cheap bier that came after it was followed by an immense crowd.  Happily, Schmucke was so bewildered by the throng of idlers and the rows of heads in the windows, that he heard no remarks and only saw the faces through a mist of tears.

“Oh, it is the nutcracker!” said one, “the musician, you know—­”

“Who can the pall-bearers be?”

“Pooh! play-actors.”

“I say, just look at poor old Cibot’s funeral.  There is one worker the less.  What a man! he could never get enough of work!”

“He never went out.”

“He never kept Saint Monday.”

“How fond he was of his wife!”

“Ah!  There is an unhappy woman!”

Remonencq walked behind his victim’s coffin.  People condoled with him on the loss of his neighbor.

The two funerals reached the church.  Cantinet and the doorkeeper saw that no beggars troubled Schmucke.  Villemot had given his word that Pons’ heir should be left in peace; he watched over his client, and gave the requisite sums; and Cibot’s humble bier, escorted by sixty or eighty persons, drew all the crowd after it to the cemetery.  At the church door Pons’ funeral possession mustered four mourning-coaches, one for the priest and three for the relations; but one only was required, for the representative of the firm of Sonet departed during mass to give notice to his principal that the funeral was on the way, so that the design for the monument might be ready for the survivor at the gates of the cemetery.  A single coach sufficed for Fraisier, Villemot, Schmucke, and Topinard; but the remaining two, instead of returning to the undertaker, followed in the procession to Pere-Lachaise—­a useless procession, not unfrequently seen; there are always too many coaches when the dead are unknown beyond their own circle and there is no crowd at the funeral.  Dear, indeed, the dead must have been in their lifetime if relative or friend will go with them so far as the cemetery in this Paris, where every one would fain have twenty-five hours in the day.  But with the coachmen it is different; they lose their tips if they do not make the journey; so, empty or full, the mourning coaches go to the church and cemetery and return to the house for gratuities.  A death is a sort of drinking-fountain for an unimagined crowd of thirsty mortals.  The attendants at the church, the poor, the undertaker’s men, the drivers and sextons, are creatures like sponges that dip into a hearse and come out again saturated.