assuredly be against him, and his own lawyer confirmed the statement.
Gazonal, though commander of the National Guard in his own town and
one of the most capable manufacturers of the department, found himself
of so little account in Paris, and he was, moreover, so frightened by
the costs of living and the dearness of even the most trifling things,
that he kept himself, all this time, secluded in his shabby lodgings.
The Southerner, deprived of his sun, execrated Paris, which he called
a manufactory of rheumatism. As he added up the costs of his suit and
his living, he vowed within himself to poison the prefect on his
return, or to minotaurize him. In his moments of deepest sadness he
killed the prefect outright; in gayer mood he contented himself with
minotaurizing him.

One morning as he ate his breakfast and cursed his fate, he picked up
a newspaper savagely. The following lines, ending an article, struck
Gazonal as if the mysterious voice which speaks to gamblers before
they win had sounded in his ear: "Our celebrated landscape painter,
Leon de Lora, lately returned from Italy, will exhibit several
pictures at the Salon; thus the exhibition promises, as we see, to be
most brilliant." With the suddenness of action that distinguishes the
sons of the sunny South, Gazonal sprang from his lodgings to the
street, from the street to a street-cab, and drove to the rue de
Berlin to find his cousin.

Leon de Lora sent word by a servant to his cousin Gazonal that he
invited him to breakfast the next day at the Cafe de Paris, but he was
now engaged in a matter which did not allow him to receive his cousin
at the present moment. Gazonal, like a true Southerner, recounted all
his troubles to the valet.