During the day Combarieu, although a red-hot Republican, sent his little girl to the Sisters; but he went out every evening with a mysterious air and left the child alone.  The concierge even uttered in a low voice, with the romantic admiration which that class of people have for conspirators, the terrible word “secret society,” and asserted that the printer had a musket concealed under his straw bed.

These revelations were of a nature to excite M. Gerard’s sympathy in favor of his neighbor, for the coup d’etat and the proclamation of the Empire had irritated him very much.  Had it not been his melancholy duty to engrave, the day after the second of December—­he must feed his family first of all—­a Bonapartist allegory entitled, “The Uncle and the Nephew,” where one saw France extending its hand to Napoleon I and Prince Louis, while soaring above the group was an eagle with spreading wings, holding in one of his claws the cross of the Legion of Honor?

One day the engraver asked his wife, as he lighted his pipe—­he had given up Abd-el-Kader and smoked now a Barbes—­if they ought not to interest themselves a little in the abandoned child.  It needed nothing more to arouse the good woman, who had already said more than once:  “What a pity!” as she saw little Rosine waiting for her father in the lodge of the concierge, asleep in a chair before the stove.  She coaxed the child to play with her children.  Rosine was very pretty, with bright eyes, a droll little Parisian nose, and a mass of straw-colored curly hair escaping from her cap.  The little rogue let fly quite often some gutter expression, such as “Hang it!” or “Tol-derol-dol!” at which Madame Gerard would exclaim, “What do I hear, Mademoiselle?” but she was intelligent and soon corrected herself.

One Sunday morning, Combarieu, having learned of their kindness to his child, made a visit to thank them.

Very dark, with a livid complexion, all hair and beard, and trying to look like the head of Jesus Christ, in his long black blouse he embodied the type of a club conspirator, a representative of the workingmen.  A Freemason, probably; a solemn drunkard, who became intoxicated oftener on big words than on native wine, and spoke in a loud, pretentious voice, gazing before him with large, stupid eyes swimming in a sort of ecstasy; his whole person made one think of a boozy preacher.  He immediately inspired the engraver with respect, and dazzled him by the fascination which the audacious exert over the timid.  M. Gerard thought he discerned in Combarieu one of those superior men whom a cruel fate had caused to be born among the lower class and in whom poverty had stifled genius.

Enlightened as to the artist’s political preferences by the bowl of his pipe, Combarieu complacently eulogized himself.  Upon his own admission he had at first been foolish enough to dream of a universal brotherhood, a holy alliance of the people.  He had even written poems which he had published himself, notably an “Ode to Poland,” and an “Epistle to Beranger,” which latter had evoked an autograph letter from the illustrious song-writer.  But he was no longer such a simpleton.