“ ‘That at the age the said children have now attained it is necessary that steps should be taken to preserve them from the evil effects of such an education; that they should be provided for as beseems their rank, and that they should cease to have before their eyes the sad example of their father’s conduct;
“ ‘That there are proofs in support of these allegations which the Court can easily order to be produced. Many times has M. d’Espard spoken of the judge of the Twelfth Arrondissement as a mandarin of the third class; he often speaks of the professors of the Collège Henri IV as “men of letters” ’—and that offends them! ‘In speaking of the simplest things, he says, “They were not done so in China;” in the course of the most ordinary conversation he will sometimes allude to Madame Jeanrenaud, or sometimes to events which happened in the time of Louis XIV, and then sit plunged in the darkest melancholy; sometimes he fancies he is in China. Several of his neighbors, among others one Edmé Becker, medical student, and Jean Baptiste Frémiot, a professor, living under the same roof, are of opinion, after frequent intercourse with the Marquis d’Espard, that his monomania with regard to everything Chinese is the result of a scheme laid by the said Baron Jeanrenaud and the widow his mother to bring about the deadening of all the Marquis d’Espard’s mental faculties, since the only service which Mme. Jeanrenaud appears to render M. d’Espard is to procure him everything that relates to the Chinese Empire;
“ ‘Finally, that the petitioner is prepared to show to the Court that the moneys absorbed by the said Baron and Mme. Jeanrenaud between 1814 and 1828 amount to not less than one million francs.
“ ‘In confirmation of the facts herein set forth, the petitioner can bring the evidence of persons who are in the habit of seeing the Marquis d’Espard, whose names and professions are subjoined, many of whom have urged her to demand a commission in lunacy to declare M. d’Espard incapable of managing his own affairs, as being the only way to preserve his fortune from the effects of his maladministration and his children from his fatal influence.
“ ‘Taking all this into consideration, M. le Président, and the affidavits subjoined, the petitioner desires that it may please you, inasmuch as the foregoing facts sufficiently prove the insanity and incompetency of the Marquis d’Espard herein described with his titles and residence, to order that, to the end that he may be declared incompetent by law, this petition and the documents in evidence may be laid before the King’s public prosecutor; and that you will charge one of the judges of this Court to make his report to you on any day you may be pleased to name, and thereupon to pronounce judgment,’ etc.
“And here,” said Popinot, “is the President’s order instructing me!—Well, what does the Marquise d’Espard want with me? I know everything. But I shall go tomorrow with my registrar to see M. le Marquis, for this does not seem at all clear to me.”
“Listen, my dear uncle, I have never asked the least little favor of you that had to do with your legal functions; well, now I beg you to show Madame d’Espard the kindness which her situation deserves. If she came here, you would listen to her?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, go and listen to her in her own house. Madame d’Espard is a sickly, nervous, delicate woman, who would faint in your rat-hole of a place. Go in the evening, instead of accepting her dinner, since the law forbids your eating or drinking at your client’s expense.”
“And does not the law forbid you from taking any legacy from your dead?” said Popinot, fancying that he saw a touch of irony on his nephew’s lips.
“Come, uncle, if it were only to enable you to get at the truth of this business, grant my request. You will come as the examining judge, since matters do not seem to you very clear. Deuce take it! It is as necessary to cross-question the Marquise as it is to examine the Marquis.”
“You are right,” said the lawyer. “It is quite possible that it is she who is mad. I will go.”
“I will call for you. Write down in your engagement book: ‘Tomorrow evening at nine, Madame d’Espard.’—Good!” said Bianchon, seeing his uncle make a note of the engagement.
Next evening at nine Bianchon mounted his uncle’s dusty staircase, and found him at work on the statement of some complicated judgment. The coat Lavienne had ordered of the tailor had not been sent, so Popinot put on his old stained coat, and was the Popinot unadorned whose appearance made those laugh who did not know the secrets of his private life. Bianchon, however, obtained permission to pull his cravat straight, and to button his coat, and he hid the stains by crossing the breast of it with the right side over the left, and so displaying the new front of the cloth. But in a minute the judge rucked the coat up over his chest by the way in which he stuffed his hands into his pockets, obeying an irresistible habit. Thus the coat, deeply wrinkled both in front and behind, made a sort of hump in the middle of the back, leaving a gap between the waistcoat and trousers through which his shirt showed. Bianchon, to his sorrow,
