sure, the President told me he lived in this part of the town--'having
for her solicitor Maitre Desroches'--Desroches! a pettifogging jobber,
a man looked down upon by his brother lawyers, and who does his
clients no good--"

"Poor fellow!" said Bianchon, "unluckily he has no money, and he
rushes round like the devil in holy water--That is all."

"'Has the honor to submit to you, Monsieur the President, that for a
year past the moral and intellectual powers of her husband, M.
d'Espard, have undergone so serious a change, that at the present day
they have reached the state of dementia and idiocy provided for by
Article 448 of the Civil Code, and require the application of the
remedies set forth by that article, for the security of his fortune
and his person, and to guard the interest of his children whom he
keeps to live with him.

"'That, in point of fact, the mental condition of M. d'Espard, which
for some years has given grounds for alarm based on the system he has
pursued in the management of his affairs, has reached, during the last
twelvemonth, a deplorable depth of depression; that his infirm will
was the first thing to show the results of the malady; and that its
effete state leaves M. the Marquis d'Espard exposed to all the perils
of his incompetency, as is proved by the following facts:

"'For a long time all the income accruing from M. d'Espard's estates
are paid, without any reasonable cause, or even temporary advantage,
into the hands of an old woman, whose repulsive ugliness is generally
remarked on, named Madame Jeanrenaud, living sometimes in Paris, Rue
de la Vrilliere, No. 8, sometimes at Villeparisis, near Claye, in the