“I can only tell you one thing, Jacques, that to live and die together, you will always find me ready.”

“Come, dry your eyes,” said he, with profound emotion.  “Do not let us play the children before these men.”

Some minutes after, the coach took the direction to Jacques’s lodging, where he was to change his clothes, before proceeding to the debtors’ prison.

Let us repeat, with regard to the hunchback’s sister—­for there are things which cannot be too often repeated—­that one of the most fatal consequences of the Inorganization of Labor is the Insufficiency of Wages.

The insufficiency of wages forces inevitably the greater number of young girls, thus badly paid, to seek their means of subsistence in connections which deprave them.

Sometimes they receive a small allowance from their lovers, which, joined to the produce of their labor, enables them to live.  Sometimes like the sempstress’s sister, they throw aside their work altogether, and take up their abode with the man of their choice, should he be able to support the expense.  It is during this season of pleasure and idleness that the incurable leprosy of sloth takes lasting possession of these unfortunate creatures.

This is the first phase of degradation that the guilty carelessness of Society imposes on an immense number of workwomen, born with instincts of modesty, and honesty, and uprightness.

After a certain time they are deserted by their seducers—­perhaps when they are mothers.  Or, it may be, that foolish extravagance consigns the imprudent lover to prison, and the young girl finds herself alone, abandoned, without the means of subsistence.

Those who have still preserved courage and energy go back to their work—­but the examples are very rare.  The others, impelled by misery, and by habits of indolence, fall into the lowest depths.

And yet we must pity, rather than blame them, for the first and virtual cause of their fall has been the insufficient remuneration of labor and sudden reduction of pay.

Another deplorable consequence of this inorganization is the disgust which workmen feel for their employment, in addition to the insufficiency of their wages.  And this is quite conceivable, for nothing is done to render their labor attractive, either by variety of occupations, or by honorary rewards, or by proper care, or by remuneration proportionate to the benefits which their toil provides, or by the hope of rest after long years of industry.  No—­the country thinks not, cares not, either for their wants or their rights.

And yet, to take only one example, machinists and workers in foundries, exposed to boiler explosions, and the contact of formidable engines, run every day greater dangers than soldiers in time of war, display rare practical sagacity, and render to industry—­and, consequently, to their country—­the most incontestable service, during a long and honorable career, if they do not perish by the bursting of a boiler, or have not their limbs crushed by the iron teeth of a machine.