[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





ZIBELINE

By PHILIPPE DE MASSA



BOOK 2.


CHAPTER XIII

THE INDUSTRIAL ORPHAN ASYLUM

When the prefectoral axe of the Baron Haussmann hewed its way through the
Faubourg St. Germain in order to create the boulevard to which this
aristocratic centre has given its flame, the appropriation of private
property for public purposes caused to disappear numerous ancient
dwellings bearing armorial devices, torn down in the interest of the
public good, to the equalizing level of a line of tramways. In the midst
of this sacrilegious upheaval, the Hotel de Montgeron, one of the largest
in the Rue St. Dominique, had the good fortune to be hardly touched by
the surveyor's line; in exchange for a few yards sliced obliquely from