he even entered the shop of M. Vachelier, the younger, and while he bargained with him for rhubarb, he endeavored to form an opinion of his moral and physical qualifications. M. Vachelier was a handsome lad, tall, well made, but with an unmeaning face, a wandering eye, slow and solemn in his movements, in fine, a booby. Lafrenais questioned him, tried to engage him in conversation, easily succeeded, and was soon convinced that the individual before him was a person of no value, destitute of intelligence, a parade horse, who might appear very handsome at the head of his troop on a review day, but who, in a moment of danger, would the least resolute National Guard of his company. prove Somewhat encouraged by this scrutiny, the Doctor returned home, and postponed, until the morrow, the decisive interview which was to take place between himself and Madame Baudelot. The latter approached him with tears in her eyes.

"My dear Doctor," she said, "if you knew how wretched I am, you would pity me. There are two men whom I love more than all the world the first is my confessor-the second is you. I wish I had two daughters to give them; but I have but one; besides, the priests do not marry, and as for you-"

"Does M. Baudelot refuse me his daughter's hand?" cried Lafrenais, with a trembling voice.

"Mon Dieu! no; you know very well that Baudelot does just as I wish."

"Well, then! why it is Marie who refuses to be your wife." "And her reasons?" inquired Lafrenais, boldly.

Madame Baudelot was a good-hearted soul, loquacious, and ill able to envelope her thoughts in the folds of those happy circumlocutions, which spare us the pain of using the true word; she was, at first, greatly embarrassed to say why her daughter refused the young physician; at last, she passed her plump, round hand over Lafrenais' shoulder, and tapping him gently upon the back, she said—

"It is because you know-you comprehend?"

"It is because I am hump-backed!" said the Doctor, in a tone of grief.

'You have hit it!" said Madame Baudelot, “that is it! Marie will not espouse a hump-back. Ah, if I were in her place, I would not do as she does, I assure you; I would marry you in spite of your hump; I do not know a man who is to be compared to you, let him be straight as he may."

This common-place consolation of the well-meaning Madame Baudelot was far from being able to banish the Doctor's grief. His first wish was that he might be allowed to convince himself of mademoiselle's repugnance to him; he had an interview with the young girl; she confirmed what her mother had said; she had not a particle of love for him. Lafrenais left Madame Baudelot's house in despair; hurried home, provided himself with two or three rouleaux of louis, and, without giving a thought to his patients, he went to the office of the Rue Montmartre, and entered the first diligence, in which he found a vacant seat, and to which the horses were already harnessed; he did not even inquire whither it was going; it went to Lyons. In this city he changed his vehicle, and from stage to stage, from peril to peril, he at last found himself in Rome. He had made the journey, frantic with grief and love, his head perpetually concealed in his hands, and pondering incessantly upon his accursed hump, which had deprived him of the love of the only

person who could ever make an impression upon his heart. If he had not been a physician-if he had not been convinced, that, at his age, his misfortune was irremediable, he would have hurried to some hospital, and there subjected himself to the tortures of an orthopedic bed. But heaven alone could heal him; and heaven does not amuse itself with straightening a vertebral column, for the sake of bringing about a match between a young girl and a Doctor of the Faculty of Paris. Science has this advantage- it prevents us from forming useless wishes, and from yielding to delusive hopes.

Rome, the eternal city, the city of the Cæsars, and the metropolis of Christendom, offers, at every step, the most hallowed traces, precious vestiges of the past, which would naturally excite a singular interest in a man like Lafrenais. The beauty of the Roman dames is also celebrated. Lafrenais saw nothing, neither the Coliseum nor St. Peter's, nor the Roman dames; he left Rome without even having seen the Pope.

"I must return to Paris," he said to himself, "to the quarter SaintMartin, to the Rue Grenetat. I shall see her, at least."

And he threw himself into a diligence, and journeyed, post haste, to Paris, paying double guides all along the road, and teeing every postil lion, solely for the pleasure of seeing a young girl, who did not love him, and who mocked at his hump.

When he reached Paris, Lafrenais found mademoiselle Baudelot married. The young girl was now Madame Vachelier; she dwelt in the Rue des Lombards, in the house of her husband, the druggist, and mademoiselle Justine, the pretty chambermaid, had followed her young mistress.

II.

Lafrenais saw Madame Vachelier again; he was introduced to her husband, and became the physician and friend of the family. This unfortunate adventure had taught him the disadvantage of not being formed like the rest of the world. He was hump-backed; he could not please; every mother kept her daughters out of his way; no young girl would accept him for a husband, unless it might be one as ill shaped as himself. This thought discouraged him; it increased his melancholy and his passion; he loved the young wife more and more every day. A discovery which he was not long in making, augmented the sadness into which he had fallen. Madame Vachelier did not love her husband; she had accepted him because he was rich, from motives of convenience, perhaps merely to escape the importunities of Lafrenais, who was at great favorite of Madame Baudelot, her mother, and whom the latter would have preferred to M. Vachelier for her son-in-law. This thought haunted Lafrenais incessantly; it augmented both his grief and his love. As we have said, the young physician had thoroughly studied all the branches of his art. Richerand, Bichat, Grimaud, were his favorite authors; and although it has been remarked, and, perhaps, with more wit than truth, that physiology is nothing but the romance of medicine, Lafrenais was a firm believer in the influence of temperament, and the predominance of such or such a system of organs. Every man, according to his views, was brought into the world with a particular disposition, the development of which is favored or repressed by the circumstances in which the individual is placed, and, above all, by manners, climate, education and custom, which constitute a second nature.

Lafrenais was very skilful in this science, and it had enabled him to

form an accurate judgment of M. Vachelier, the druggist, and captain of the National Guard. Wherefore did he not subject Mademoiselle Marie Baudelot to the same analysis? Wherefore, at least, when the young girl had espoused M. Vachelier, and when he had lost all hope, did he not study the lines of that face, which so charmed him—the deep and ardent glances of those eyes which he adored? It was because love had blinded him, and because, in spite of his intelligence and his reason, Lafrenais nourished in the depths of his soul the secret hope that he might one day soften the heart of Madame Vachelier. If his senses had not been captivated, his mind enslaved, his reason obscured, he would have carefully examined this young woman. Her narrow forehead, her thick lips, her small chin, although it was furnished with a dimple, would have indicated to him the violent passions and the sensual appetites of Madame Vachelier, whose mind, courageous even to hardihood, was exempt neither from the craft nor the resolution necessary to conceal her projects. Lafrenais would then have fled this dangerous woman, and instead of cursing his lot, he would have congratulated himself upon having escaped the snare into which M. Vachelier had fallen. But love is blind; it changes everything-it embellishes everything.

"What brilliant and passionate eyes!" said the young physician to himself; "her forehead is narrow, it is true, but it is the forehead of the Venus de Medicis; she contracts her brows like Juno, her lips are smiling like those of Thalia. Ah, M. Vachelier, M. Vachelier, of what a treasure have you robbed me! Was it not enough to be a captain in the National Guard?"

We will leave Dr. Lafrenais to his amorous regrets, in order to occupy ourselves with the interior of Madame Vachelier's household.

Mademoiselle Marie Baudelot was not a physiognomist; she was utterly ignorant of physiology-she had never studied the moral qualities of M. Vachelier, neither had she been attracted by his physical advantages. She had espoused him in the hope of governing him at her will, in spite of his epaulettes and his long sabre. At the expiration of three months her object was attained, and Madame Vachelier found herself mistress of the house. Although far from being industrious, she was an active woman; she loved to meddle with her husband's affairs, passed a great part of her time in the shop, learned the prices of the drugs and their use, sold, bought, made bargains with the wholesale dealers, and thus assumed the place of M. Vachelier, in the establishment, while the latter, resigning himself to his gross appetites and his love of repose, sat long at breakfast, and was very fond of taking his siesta, luxuriously, upon the divan in his saloon. Vachelier was rich, and he thought neither of augmenting his fortune, nor of the prosperity of his business; but, on the one hand, he coveted municipal honors; on the other, he loved the pleasures of the table like an alderman, and fortune had placed him in such a position that he could gratify the latter of these tastes, while, at the same time, the road of ambition remained open to him. His project was to resign his rank of captain in the National Guard, the duties of which were too laborious for his indolence, and to obtain the appointment of municipal councillor of his arrondissement. His own influence, and the credit of M. Baudelot, his father-in-law, assured him an easy path; and, seated upon his divan, with his eyes half closed, he built, like Alnascar, his castles in the air.

'I shall enter the municipal council," he said to himself; "from that to the general council, is but a step. My devotion to the august family

of the Bourbons is well known; the Duchess of Angouleme honors me with her patronage. I stand well with my curate, I shall have the cross; I shall then be named adjunct to the mayor, that will lead me to the Chamber of Deputies. Once deputy, and the mayor of my arrondissement, sick, dead, or called to other duties, and I shall be named mayor: a useful mayor, a necessary deputy, when combined in one and the same person, is a treasure, and they will refuse nothing to such a man. Once mayor, once deputy, Vachelier, my friend, and you will be a peer when you please."

The ambition of the druggist did not stop short of this; but while he rocked himself in his dreams, he became, day by day, a stranger to his shop, the control of which was completely usurped by his wife. Madame Vachelier sold, bought, and changed the clerks in the shop, without even mentioning the matter to her husband; and thus it often happened that when Vachelier, after having dreamed that he had just delivered a speech in the Chamber of Peers, descended to his shop, he recognized neither his cashier nor his book-keeper; his wife had dismissed the old ones and had engaged new. As it is customary in commercial houses to admit the principal clerks to table, Vachelier, at times, found himself dining with an unknown guest; and when he inquired of his wife the name of the gentleman with the good appetite, who sat on his left

"It is one of our travelling clerks," she would reply; "he is very skilful in the business."

The future peer of France would then cast his eyes upon his plate; and although his wife's conduct greatly displeased him, he opened his mouth only to eat, and dined with as good an appetite as his new clerk. It is impossible that a woman, who governs her husband so easily, should not despise him, Madame Vachelier, who had no love for her husband, was accustomed to regard him as beneath the lowest of her domestics, and to treat him accordingly. The example of her mother was of great service to her. Vachelier endeavored, once or twice, to resume his place in his shop; his wife soon regulated that, and the captain in the National Guard was requested to attend to his company.

In the meanwhile Madame Vachelier received into her house a new travelling clerk, M. Jules Regnauld. He was a handsome lad of twentyeight years, with black hair, dark complexion, and strongly marked features; gay, bold, always with a refrain upon his lips; combining the puns of M. de Bievre with the songs of Beranger, and the legerdemain tricks of M. Comte, with the practice of the various social games. Jules Regnauld had twenty times traversed France in all directions; he was acquainted with the shores of the Mediterranean; he had gone in search of gums, even to Upper Egypt, of coffee, even to Mecca, and had everywhere found adventures, which he recounted to each one he met, introduced into every conversation, speaking loud, imposing his opinion, and almost his will upon all those with whom he came in contact, and this, always laughing and frisking, without appearing to care for that which he desired most, that which he demanded, almost with despotic authority; in other respects, he was commonplace, sometimes rude, but at heart ever frank and honest. M. Jules Regnauld was to travel on business for the establishment; but before leaving Paris, it was necessary that he should render himself familiar with the usual operations of Vachelier's house; that he should learn the number and credit of his correspondents, that by living in the house for some months, he should acquaint himself with the nature of his business. M. Jules then took up

his abode with M. and Madame Vachelier, and shared in the meals of the family. A week had not elapsed before he managed everything, before the sceptre of the drug shop, which had fallen to the distaff, had passed from the hands of the young wife into those of the travelling clerk. This event took place without Madame Vachelier's perceiving it, and as the most natural thing in the world.

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Bourgeoise," said Jules Regnauld, when he saw a customer enter the shop, "let me manage; it is an acquaintance; I know how to talk to this sort of people. Go, I say, go and wile away your time over the books. I was at the exchange yesterday-I know the price currentthis individual would only outwit you; with me there is no danger."

And taking Madame Vachelier gently about the waist, he would whirl her half round, and then turn to sell the bags of pepper or indigo. This conduct did not displease the young woman. "Here is a man," she thought to herself; sembled him!"

"Ah! if M. Vachelier re

She was never weary of contemplating the manly face, the proud and regular features, and well-shaped form of Jules Regnauld. The latter, always gay and good humored, did not remark the interest with which Madame Vachelier looked upon him; that which he had remarked was the pretty face and handsome eyes of Mademoiselle Justine, the chambermaid, who, in the house of the rich, but plain-fashioned M. Vachelier, was oftener busied with the details of the kitchen than with madame's toilette. M. Jules found means to be always at Justine's heels; he met her everywhere, in the dining-room, in the corridors, in the cellar, which, with druggists, is oftener stocked with bottles of essence, or hampers of resin, than with wine. He so contrived it that his assiduities escaped all eyes, even those of Madame Vachelier. Justine favored these manœuvres, and still the passion of Madame Vachelier for the handsome travelling clerk, increased from day to day; it became, at last, so ardent and so violent, that M. Jules Regnauld perceived it, and resolved to escape her importunities. He took leave of Justine, promised to return faithfully to her, and informed Madame Vachelier that he could not remain longer in Paris; that he needed change of scene, to inhale the air of the high-roads, and see the shore of the Mediterranean again. Madame Vachelier endeavored to oppose his departure, but the travelling clerk had provided himself with the means of acting according to his will.

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Bourgeoise," he said to her, no nonsense; I must go; it is for the good of the establishment; it is not in the Rue des Lombards that I can ply my trade and earn my wages."

"I need you here," replied Madame Vachelier, addressing her sweetest smile to Jules Regnauld; "we will defer your journey for a month, two months-we will see by-and-bye."

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By no means! I am off, and this evening; I have orders from headquarters, bourgeoise."

"Orders! and who here can give orders except me?" cried Madame Vachelier.

"Who?" replied the travelling clerk, "why, bourgeoise, I have seen the bourgeoise, and we have tuned our flutes together. Adieu, then, bourgeoise, I leave Paris this evening, at six o'clock, at the diligence office, precisely."

Madame Vachelier entered her husband's apartment, who, having been consulted by Jules Regnauld, had, in fact, directed him to set out. It was not that the good man was in the least degree jealous; on the con