534 THE MASS OF THE ATllElcJT. 



knew each other, as two lodgers, inhabiting each a chamber on the 

 same landing-place, may be supposed to be acquainted, who hear 

 each other sleep, cough, dress, live in fact, and who end by becom- 

 ing used to each other. My neighbour informed me that the pro- 

 prietor, to whom I was in debt three terms, had turned me out of 

 doors, and that I must decamp the next morning. He himself was to 

 be turned out on account of his humble calling. I passed the most 

 wretched night of my life. Where should I find a porter even to carry 

 my miserable effects and my books? How should I pay for their 

 carriage and the porter of the hotel? These were questions not lobe 

 solved, repeated amidst floods of tears, as madmen repeat the burden 

 of their song. At length I sunk into a slumber, for wretchedness 

 has its own divine slumber full of lovely dreams. 



" The next morning, while I was swallowing my bread and milk, 

 Bourgeat entered, and said to me, in his provincial French, ' Mon- 

 sieur, the student, I am a poor man, enfant trouve* of the hospital of 

 St. Flour, without father or mother, and not yet well enough off to 

 make relations for myself by marrying. You are neither richer in 

 relations, nor better furnished with'the good things of this life. Hark 

 ye ! I have a hand-barrow below, which I have hired at a penny the 

 hour, which can carry all we have to carry. If you have no objection 

 we will seek a lodging together since we are turned out here. After 

 all, it is not a heaven upon earth.' 



'' "I know that well, my brave Bourgeat," said I, *' and know also 

 that I have a trunk below, filled with linen, well worth one hundred 

 and fifty francs, with which I could easily pay the landlord, and what 

 I owe to the porter, but I have not five francs. 



" Bah ! I have some little nionneronsf here, all snug," replied 

 Bourgeat, exultingly, as he displayed before my bewildered eyes an 

 old greasy leather purse. " Keep your linen." 



To be short, he paid my three terms with his own, and settled the 

 matter with the porter ; then he placed all our effects upon his truck 

 or hand-cart, and dragged it through the streets, stopping before 

 every house which had a ticket hung out. As to me, I mounted in 

 order to see whether the place to be let was such as suited our simple 

 wants and slender means. We were still wandering at noon in the 

 quarlier latin, that country of the aspirants to learning and its ho- 

 nours, without having met with any thing to suit us, the price prov- 

 ing always an obstacle. Bourgeat proposed to me to breakfast at a 

 wine-shop, at the door of which we left the truck. At last, when it 

 was nearly evening, I discovered in the Cour de Rohan, passage du 

 Commerce, at the top of a house, under the roof itself, two chambers, 

 separated by the stair-case. We obtained them at a rent of sixty 

 francs a year each. Behold us then housed there, me and my humble 

 friend. We dined together. Bourgeat gained about fifty sous| a 

 day. He was master of a hundred crowns,^ and was ambitious of 



* FouiMllino;, parents unknown. 



t Monnerons, small coin used during a certain period of ttie revolution, and wliich 

 took its name from the maker. 



\ Two shillings. § Twelve pounds. 



