to live but two years, but which secured his services. From that
moment he renewed his connection with the minister's enemies; he
joined the party who were working for the fall of the Government; and
as soon as his pickaxe had free play, it fell.

This paper had now for six months ceased to exist; he had failed to
find employment of any kind; he was spoken of as a dangerous man,
calumny attacked him; he had unmasked a huge financial and mercantile
job by a few articles and a pamphlet. He was known to be a mouthpiece
of a banker who was said to have paid him largely, and from whom he
was supposed to expect some patronage in return for his championship.
Marcas, disgusted by men and things, worn out by five years of
fighting, regarded as a free lance rather than as a great leader,
crushed by the necessity of earning his daily bread, which hindered
him from gaining ground, in despair at the influence exerted by money
over mind, and given over to dire poverty, buried himself in a garret,
to make thirty sous a day, the sum strictly answering to his needs.
Meditation had leveled a desert all round him. He read the papers to
be informed of what was going on. Pozzo di Borgo had once lived like
this for some time.

Marcas, no doubt, was planning a serious attack, accustoming himself
to dissimulation, and punishing himself for his blunders by
Pythagorean muteness. But he did not tell us the reasons for his
conduct.

It is impossible to give you an idea of the scenes of the highest
comedy that lay behind this algebraic statement of his career; his
useless patience dogging the footsteps of fortune, which presently
took wings, his long tramps over the thorny brakes of Paris, his