The bitterness of this jest will only be understood by those who remember the deluge of engravings, screens, clocks, bronzes, and plaster-casts produced by the idea of the Soldier-laborer, a splendid image of Napoleon and his heroes, which afterwards made its appearance on the stage in vaudevilles.  That idea, however, obtained a national subscription; and we still find, in the depths of the provinces, old wall-papers which bear the effigy of the Soldier-laborer.  If this young man had not been Giroudeau’s nephew, Philippe would have boxed his ears.

“Yes, I was taken in by it; I lost my time, and twelve thousand francs to boot,” answered Philippe, trying to force a grin.

“You are still fond of the Emperor?” asked Finot.

“He is my god,” answered Philippe Bridau.

“You are a Liberal?”

“I shall always belong to the Constitutional Opposition.  Oh Foy! oh Manuel! oh Laffitte! what men they are!  They’ll rid us of these others,—­these wretches, who came back to France at the heels of the enemy.”

“Well,” said Finot coldly, “you ought to make something out of your misfortunes; for you are the victim of the Liberals, my good fellow.  Stay a Liberal, if you really value your opinions, but threaten the party with the follies in Texas which you are ready to show up.  You never got a farthing of the national subscription, did you?  Well, then you hold a fine position:  demand an account of that subscription.  I’ll tell you how you can do it.  A new Opposition journal is just starting, under the auspices of the deputies of the Left; you shall be the cashier, with a salary of three thousand francs.  A permanent place.  All you want is some one to go security for you in twenty thousand francs; find that, and you shall be installed within a week.  I’ll advise the Liberals to silence you by giving you the place.  Meantime, talk, threaten,—­threaten loudly.”

Giroudeau let Philippe, who was profuse in his thanks, go down a few steps before him, and then he turned back to say to his nephew, “Well, you are a queer fellow! you keep me here on twelve hundred francs—­”

“That journal won’t live a year,” said Finot.  “I’ve got something better for you.”

“Thunder!” cried Philippe to Giroudeau.  “He’s no fool, that nephew of yours.  I never once thought of making something, as he calls it, out of my position.”

That night at the cafe Lemblin and the cafe Minerve Colonel Philippe fulminated against the Liberal party, which had raised subscriptions, sent heroes to Texas, talked hypocritically of Soldier-laborers, and left them to starve, after taking the money they had put into it, and keeping them in exile for two years.

“I am going to demand an account of the moneys collected by the subscription for the Champ d’Asile,” he said to one of the frequenters of the cafe, who repeated it to the journalists of the Left.

Philippe did not go back to the rue Mazarin; he went to Mariette and told her of his forthcoming appointment on a newspaper with ten thousand subscribers, in which her choregraphic claims should be warmly advanced.