existence, and which they require----' Oh! Madame la Marquise, this is
preposterous. By proving too much you prove nothing.--My dear boy,"
said the old man, laying the document on his knee, "where is the
mother who ever lacked heart and wit and yearning to such a degree as
to fall below the inspirations suggested by her animal instinct? A
mother is as cunning to get at her children as a girl can be in the
conduct of a love intrigue. If your Marquise really wanted to give her
children food and clothes, the Devil himself would not have hindered
her, heh? That is rather too big a fable for an old lawyer to swallow!
--To proceed.

"'That at the age the said children have now attained it is necessary
that steps should be taken to preserve them from the evil effects of
such an education; that they should be provided for as beseems their
rank, and that they should cease to have before their eyes the sad
example of their father's conduct;

"'That there are proofs in support of these allegations which the
Court can easily order to be produced. Many times has M. d'Espard
spoken of the judge of the Twelfth Arrondissement as a mandarin of the
third class; he often speaks of the professors of the College Henri
IV. as "men of letters"'--and that offends them! 'In speaking of the
simplest things, he says, "They were not done so in China;" in the
course of the most ordinary conversation he will sometimes allude to
Madame Jeanrenaud, or sometimes to events which happened in the time
of Louis XIV., and then sit plunged in the darkest melancholy;
sometimes he fancies he is in China. Several of his neighbors, among
others one Edme Becker, medical student, and Jean Baptiste Fremiot, a
professor, living under the same roof, are of opinion, after frequent
intercourse with the Marquis d'Espard, that his monomania with regard