can ever be excused, it might be on the score of his persistent
kindness in succoring a woman of whose favors he had once been proud,

and in whose house he was hidden when in peril of his life.
This woman, celebrated under the Directory for her liaison with one of

the five kings of that reign, married, through that all-powerful
protection, a purveyor who was making his millions out of the

government, and whom Napoleon ruined in 1802. This man, named Husson,
became insane through his sudden fall from opulence to poverty; he

flung himself into the Seine, leaving the beautiful Madame Husson
pregnant. Moreau, very intimatelyallied with Madame Husson, was at

that time condemned to death; he was unabletherefore to marry the
widow, being forced to leave France. Madame Husson, then twenty-two

years old, married in her deep distress a government clerk named
Clapart, aged twenty-seven, who was said to be a rising man. At that

period of our history, government clerks were apt to become persons of
importance; for Napoleon was ever on the lookout for capacity. But

Clapart, though endowed by nature with a certain coarse beauty, proved
to have no intelligence. Thinking Madame Husson very rich, he feigned

a great passion for her, and was simply saddled with the impossibility
of satisfying either then or in the future the wants she had acquired

in a life of opulence. He filled, very poorly, a place in the Treasury
that gave him a salary of eighteen hundred francs; which was all the

new household had to live on. When Moreau returned to France as the
secretary of the Comte de Serizy he heard of Madame Husson's pitiable

condition, and he was able, before his own marriage, to get her an
appointment as head-waiting-woman to Madame Mere, the Emperor's

mother. But in spite of that powerful protection Clapart was never
promoted; his incapacity was too apparent.

Ruined in 1815 by the fall of the Empire, the brilliant Aspasia of the
Directory had no other resources than Clapart's salary of twelve

hundred francs from a clerkship obtained for him through the Comte de
Serizy. Moreau, the only protector of a woman whom he had known in

possession of millions, obtained a half-scholarship for her son, Oscar
Husson, at the school of Henri IV.; and he sent her regularly, by

Pierrotin, such supplies from the estate at Presles as he could
decently offer to a household in distress.

Oscar was the whole life and all the future of his mother. The poor
woman could now be reproached with no other fault than her exaggerated

tenderness for her boy,--the bete-noire of his step-father. Oscar was,
unfortunately, endowed by nature with a foolishness his mother did not

perceive, in spite of the step-father's sarcasms. This foolishness--
or, to speak more specifically, this overweening conceit--so troubled

Monsieur Moreau that he begged Madame Clapart to send the boy down to
him for a month that he might study his character, and find out what

career he was fit for. Moreau was really thinking of some day
proposing Oscar to the count as his successor.

But to give to the devil and to God what respectively belongs to them,
perhaps it would be well to show the causes of Oscar Husson's silly

self-conceit, premising that he was born in the household of Madame
Mere. During his early childhood his eyes were dazzled by imperial

splendors. His pliant imagination retained the impression of those
gorgeous scenes, and nursed the images of a golden time of pleasure in

hopes of recovering them. The natural boastfulness of school-boys
(possessed of a desire to outshine their mates) resting on these

memories of his childhood was developed in him beyond all measure. It
may also have been that his mother at home dwelt too fondly on the

days when she herself was a queen in Directorial Paris. At any rate,
Oscar, who was now leaving school, had been made to bear many

humiliations which the paying pupils put upon those who hold
scholarships, unless the scholars are able to impose respect by

superior physical ability.
This mixture of former splendor now departed, of beauty gone, of blind

maternal love, of sufferings heroically borne, made the mother one of
those pathetic figures which catch the eye of many an observer in

Paris.
Incapable, naturally, of understanding the real attachment of Moreau

to this woman, or that of the woman for the man she had saved in 1797,
now her only friend, Pierrotin did not think it best to communicate

the suspicion that had entered his head as to some danger which was
threatening Moreau. The valet's speech, "We have enough to do in this

world to look after ourselves," returned to his mind, and with it came
that sentiment of obedience to what he called the "chefs de file,"--

the front-rank men in war, and men of rank in peace. Besides, just now
Pierrotin's head was as full of his own stings as there are five-franc

pieces in a thousand francs. So that the "Very good, madame,"
"Certainly, madame," with which he replied to the poor mother, to whom

a trip of twenty miles appeared a journey, showed plainly that he
desired to get away from her useless and prolix instructions.

"You will be sure to place the packages so that they cannot get wet if
the weather should happen to change."

"I've a hood," replied Pierrotin. "Besides, see, madame, with what
care they are being placed."

"Oscar, don't stay more than two weeks, no matter how much they may
ask you," continued Madame Clapart, returning to her son. "You can't

please Madame Moreau, whatever you do; besides, you must be home by
the end of September. We are to go to Belleville, you know, to your

uncle Cardot."
"Yes, mamma."

"Above all," she said, in a low voice, "be sure never to speak about
servants; keep thinking all the time that Madame Moreau was once a

waiting-maid."
"Yes, mamma."

Oscar, like all youths whose vanity is excessively ticklish, seemed
annoyed at being lectured on the threshold of the Lion d'Argent.

"Well, now good-bye, mamma. We shall start soon; there's the horse all
harnessed."

The mother, forgetting that she was in the open street, embraced her
Oscar, and said, smiling, as she took a little roll from her basket:--

"Tiens! you were forgetting your roll and the chocolate! My child,
once more, I repeat, don't take anything at the inns; they'd make you

pay for the slightest thing ten times what it is worth."
Oscar would fain have seen his mother farther off as she stuffed the

bread and chocolate into his pocket. The scene had two witnesses,--two
young men a few years older than Oscar, better dressed than he,

without a mother hanging on to them, whose actions, dress, and ways
all betokened that complete independence which is the one desire of a

lad still tied to his mother's apron-strings.
"He said MAMMA!" cried one of the new-comers, laughing.

The words reached Oscar's ears and drove him to say, "Good-bye,
mother!" in a tone of terrible impatience.

Let us admit that Madame Clapart spoke too loudly, and seemed to wish
to show to those around them her tenderness for the boy.

"What is the matter with you, Oscar?" asked the poor hurt woman. "I
don't know what to make of you," she added in a severe tone, fancying

herself able to inspire him with respect,--a great mistake made by
those who spoil their children. "Listen, my Oscar," she said, resuming

at once her tender voice, "you have a propensity to talk, and to tell
all you know, and all that you don't know; and you do it to show off,

with the foolish vanity of a mere lad. Now, I repeat, endeavor to keep
your tongue in check. You are not sufficientlyadvanced in life, my

treasure, to be able to judge of the persons with whom you may be
thrown; and there is nothing more dangerous than to talk in public

conveyances. Besides, in a diligence well-bred persons always keep
silence."

The two young men, who seemed to have walked to the farther end of the
establishment, here returned, making their boot-heels tap upon the

paved passage of the porte-cochere. They might have heard the whole of