Your old friend,
De Balzac.




PIERRETTE



I

THE LORRAINS

At the dawn of an October day in 1827 a young fellow about sixteen
years of age, whose clothing proclaimed what modern phraseology so
insolently calls a proletary, was standing in a small square of Lower
Provins. At that early hour he could examine without being observed
the various houses surrounding the open space, which was oblong in
form. The mills along the river were already working; the whirr of
their wheels, repeated by the echoes of the Upper Town in the keen air
and sparkling clearness of the early morning, only intensified the
general silence so that the wheels of a diligence could be heard a
league away along the highroad. The two longest sides of the square,
separated by an avenue of lindens, were built in the simple style
which expresses so well the peaceful and matter-of-fact life of the
bourgeoisie. No signs of commerce were to be seen; on the other hand,
the luxurious porte-cocheres of the rich were few, and those few
turned seldom on their hinges, excepting that of Monsieur Martener, a
physician, whose profession obliged him to keep a cabriolet, and to