This property, on which the Phellions had long had their eye, cost
them eighteen thousand francs in 1831. The house was separated from
the courtyard by a balustrade with a base of freestone and a coping of
tiles; this little wall, which was breast-high, was lined with a hedge
of Bengal roses, in the middle of which opened a wooden gate opposite
and leading to the large gates on the street. Those who know the
cul-de-sac of the Feuillantines, will understand that the Phellion
house, standing at right angles to the street, had a southern exposure,
and was protected on the north by the immense wall of the adjoining
house, against which the smaller structure was built. The cupola of the
Pantheon and that of the Val-de-Grace looked from there like two
giants, and so diminished the sky space that, walking in the garden,
one felt cramped and oppressed. No place could be more silent than
this blind street.

Such was the retreat of the great unknown citizen who was now tasting
the sweets of repose, after discharging his duty to the nation in the
ministry of finance, from which he had retired as registration clerk
after a service of thirty-six years. In 1832 he had led his battalion
of the National Guard to the attack on Saint-Merri, but his neighbors
had previously seen tears in his eyes at the thought of being obliged
to fire on misguided Frenchmen. The affair was already decided by the
time his legion crossed the pont Notre-Dame at a quick step, after
debouching by the flower-market. This noble hesitation won him the
respect of his whole quarter, but he lost the decoration of the Legion
of honor; his colonel told him in a loud voice that, under arms, there
was no such thing as deliberation,--a saying of Louis-Philippe to the
National Guard of Metz. Nevertheless, the bourgeois virtues of
Phellion, and the great respect in which he was held in his own