a woman sixty-six years of age, on an annuity of about four thousand, at a period when ten per cent could easily be got for an investment.  So one morning Madame Descoings fell at the feet of her niece, and with sobs confessed the state of things.  Madame Bridau did not reproach her; she sent away the footman and cook, sold all but the bare necessities of her furniture, sold also three-fourths of her government funds, paid off the debts, and bade farewell to her appartement.

CHAPTER II

One of the worst corners in all Paris is undoubtedly that part of the rue Mazarin which lies between the rue Guenegard and its junction with the rue de Seine, behind the palace of the Institute.  The high gray walls of the college and of the library which Cardinal Mazarin presented to the city of Paris, and which the French Academy was in after days to inhabit, cast chill shadows over this angle of the street, where the sun seldom shines, and the north wind blows.  The poor ruined widow came to live on the third floor of a house standing at this damp, dark, cold corner.  Opposite, rose the Institute buildings, in which were the dens of ferocious animals known to the bourgeoisie under the name of artists,—­under that of tyro, or rapin, in the studios.  Into these dens they enter rapins, but they may come forth prix de Rome.  The transformation does not take place without extraordinary uproar and disturbance at the time of year when the examinations are going on, and the competitors are shut up in their cells.  To win a prize, they were obliged, within a given time, to make, if a sculptor, a clay model; if a painter, a picture such as may be seen at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; if a musician, a cantata; if an architect, the plans for a public building.  At the time when we are penning the words, this menagerie has already been removed from these cold and cheerless buildings, and taken to the elegant Palais des Beaux-Arts, which stands near by.

From the windows of Madame Bridau’s new abode, a glance could penetrate the depths of those melancholy barred cages.  To the north, the view was shut in by the dome of the Institute; looking up the street, the only distraction to the eye was a file of hackney-coaches, which stood at the upper end of the rue Mazarin.  After a while, the widow put boxes of earth in front of her windows, and cultivated those aerial gardens that police regulations forbid, though their vegetable products purify the atmosphere.  The house, which backed up against another fronting on the rue de Seine, was necessarily shallow, and the staircase wound round upon itself.  The third floor was the last.  Three windows to three rooms, namely, a dining-room, a small salon, and a chamber on one side of the landing; on the other, a little kitchen, and two single rooms; above, an immense garret without partitions.  Madame Bridau chose this lodging for three reasons:  economy, for it cost only four hundred francs a year, so that she took a lease of it for nine years; proximity to her sons’ school, the Imperial Lyceum being at a short distance; thirdly, because it was in the quarter to which she was used.