investment of the ten thousand francs she still kept of her savings,
from which she obtained an interest of seven per cent. Joseph wished
to emulate his mother's devotion. He dressed like a bailiff; wore the
commonest shoes and blue stockings; denied himself gloves, and burned
charcoal; he lived on bread and milk and Brie cheese. The poor lad got
no sympathy, except from Madame Descoings, and from Bixiou, his
student-friend and comrade, who was then making those admirable
caricatures of his, and filling a small office in the ministry.

"With what joy I welcomed the summer of 1818!" said Joseph Bridau in
after-years, relating his troubles; "the sun saved me the cost of
charcoal."

As good a colorist by this time as Gros himself, Joseph now went to
his master for consultation only. He was already meditating a tilt
against classical traditions, and Grecian conventionalities, in short,
against the leading-strings which held down an art to which Nature _as
she is_ belongs, in the omnipotence of her creations and her imagery.
Joseph made ready for a struggle which, from the day when he first
exhibited in the Salon, has never ceased. It was a terrible year.
Roguin, the notary of Madame Descoings and Madame Bridau, absconded
with the moneys held back for seven years from Madame Descoings's
annuity, which by that time were producing two thousand francs a year.
Three days after this disaster, a bill of exchange for a thousand
francs, drawn by Philippe upon his mother, arrived from New York. The
poor fellow, misled like so many others, had lost his all in the Champ
d'Asile. A letter, which accompanied the bill, drove Agathe, Joseph,
and the Descoings to tears, and told of debts contracted in New York,
where his comrades in misfortunes had indorsed for him.