considerable; he discovered the address of the old man only three days
before his death; and the furniture of the deceased merely sufficed to
bury him and pay his debts. A friend of this useless uncle gave a
couple of hundred louis to the poor fortune-hunter, advising him to
finish his legal studies and enter the judiciary career. Those two
hundred louis supported him for three years in Paris, where he lived
like an anchorite. But being unable to discover his unknown friend and
benefactor, the poor student was in abject distress in 1833. He worked
then, like so many other licentiates, in politics and literature, by
which he kept himself for a time above want--for he had nothing to
expect from his family. His father, the youngest brother of the dead
uncle, has eleven other children, who live on a small estate called
Les Canquoelles. He finally obtained a place on a ministerial
newspaper, the manager of which was the famous Cerizet, so celebrated
for the persecutions he met with, under the Restoration, on account of
his attachment to the liberals,--a man whom the new Left will never
forgive for having made his paper ministerial. As the government of
these days does very little to protect even its most devoted servants
(witness the Gisquet affair), the republicans have ended by ruining
Cerizet. I tell you this to explain how it is that Cerizet is now a
copying clerk in my office. Well, in the days when he flourished as
managing editor of a paper directed by the Perier ministry against the
incendiary journals, the 'Tribune' and others, Cerizet, who is a
worthy fellow after all, though he is too fond of women, pleasure, and
good living, was very useful to Theodose, who edited the political
department of the paper; and if it hadn't been for the death of
Casimir Perier that young man would certainly have received an
appointment as substitute judge in Paris. As it was, he dropped back
in 1834-35, in spite of his talent; for his connection with a
ministerial journal of course did him harm. 'If it had not been for my