Madame Bridau’s windows commanded a view of these barred cells, a singularly dreary outlook. To the north the dome of the Institute closes in the prospect; looking up the street, the only delectation for the eye is the line of hackney cabs on the stand at the top of the Rue Mazarine. Indeed, the widow at last placed three boxes of earth outside her windows, in which she cultivated one of those aerial gardens, so obnoxious to the regulations of the police, which somewhat purify the light and air.
The house, backing against one in the Rue de Seine, is necessarily shallow; the staircase turns in a spiral. The third floor is the top; three windows and three rooms—a dining-room, a little sitting-room, and a bedroom; at the back, on the other side of the landing, a small kitchen; under the roof two boys’ rooms, and a vast unused garret. Madame Bridau chose this apartment for three reasons: the low rent, only four hundred francs, so she agreed for a nine years’ lease; the nearness of her boys’ school, for it was not far from the Lycée Impérial; and finally, it was in the quarter where she was accustomed to live. The interior of the rooms was in harmony with the building. The dining-room, hung with cheap flowered paper in yellow and green, with an unpolished tile floor, had the barest necessary furniture—a table, two little sideboards, and six chairs brought from her old home. The drawing-room was graced by an Aubusson carpet, given to Bridau when his office was last refurnished. The widow placed in it that common mahogany furniture, finished with Egyptian heads, manufactured by the gross in 1806 by Jacob Desmalter, and covered with silk damask with white conventional roses.
. Above the sofa, a portrait of Bridau in pastel, the work of a friend, attracted the eye at once. Though the art was not above criticism, the brow plainly showed the firmness of the unknown great citizen. The calm look of his eyes, at once proud and mild, was happily rendered; the sagacity to which the prudent lips bore witness, and the honest smile, the whole tone of the man of whom the Emperor spoke as Justum et tenacem, had been caught, if not with talent, at any rate with truth. As you looked at this portrait, you could see that this man had always done his duty. His countenance expressed the incorruptibility which must be granted to many of the men employed during the Republic.
Opposite, over a card table, was the brilliantly-colored picture of the Emperor by Vernet, in which Napoleon is seen riding past swiftly, and followed by his escort. Agathe allowed herself the luxury of two large birdcages—one full of canaries, and one of exotic birds; she had taken up this childlike fancy since her loss—irreparable to her, and to many others.
As to Agathe’s bedroom, by the end of three months it had become, what it remained till the luckless day when she was obliged to leave it—a chaos which no description could reduce to order. Cats were at home in the armchairs; the birds, sometimes set at liberty, left their traces on all the furniture. The poor, kind soul strewed millet and groundsel for them in all parts of the room; the cats found tidbits in broken saucers. Clothes lay about. It was an atmosphere of provincialism and fidelity. Everything that had belonged to Bridau was carefully treasured there; his writing apparatus was kept with the care which the widow of a knight would have devoted to his armor. This woman’s touching worship may be understood from a single fact—she had wrapped a pen in a sealed packet and written on it, “The last pen used by my dear husband.” The cup from which he had drunk for the last time was under glass on the chimney-shelf. At a later date caps and “fronts” crowned the glass shades that covered these treasured relics.
After Bridau’s death, his young widow of five-and-thirty never betrayed a trace of vanity or womanly pride. Parted from the only man she had really known, esteemed, and loved, who had never caused her the smallest pang, she no longer felt herself a woman; she cared for nothing; she ceased to dress. Nothing could be more unaffected or more complete than this surrender of married happiness and personal care. Some souls are endowed by love with the power of merging their individuality in another; and when the other is gone, life is no longer possible. Agathe, who could henceforth live only for her children, felt the deepest grief at seeing how many privations they must suffer in consequence of her ruin. From the day when she moved to the Rue Mazarine there was a tinge of melancholy in her expression that was very touching. She did indeed count a little on the Emperor, but he could do no more than he was already doing; he allowed each boy, besides his scholarship, six hundred francs a year out of his privy purse.
As to the dashing Madame Descoings, she had an apartment similar to her niece’s on the second floor. She had assigned to Madame Bridau a sum of a thousand crowns, to be taken as a first charge on her annuity; Roguin had taken care of this for Madame Bridau, but it would be seven years before this slow repayment could undo the mischief. Roguin, instructed to replace the fifteen hundred francs in dividends, banked the sums he retained on this account. Madame Descoings, reduced to twelve hundred francs a year, lived poorly enough with her niece. The two honest,
