"
"And who is to pay for it?" he answered sharply. "My poor mother
hasn't a sou; and I have five hundred francs a year. It would take my
whole year's pension to pay for the clothes; besides I have mortgaged
it for three years--"
"What for?" asked Joseph.
"A debt of honor. Giroudeau borrowed a thousand francs from Florentine
to lend me. I am not gorgeous, that's a fact; but when one thinks that
Napoleon is at Saint Helena, and has sold his plate for the means of
living, his faithful soldiers can manage to walk on their bare feet,"
he said, showing his boots without heels, as he marched away.
"He is not bad," said Agathe, "he has good feelings."
"You can love the Emperor and yet dress yourself properly," said
Joseph. "If he would take any care of himself and his clothes, he
wouldn't look so like a vagabond."
"Joseph! you ought to have some indulgence for your brother," cried
Agathe. "You do the things you like, while he is certainly not in his
right place."
"What did he leave it for?" demanded Joseph. "What can it matter to
him whether Louis the Eighteenth's bugs or Napoleon's cuckoos are on
the flag, if it is the flag of his country? France is France! For my
part, I'd paint for the devil. A soldier ought to fight, if he is a
soldier, for the love of his art. If he had stayed quietly in the
army, he would have been a general by this time."
"You are unjust to him," said Agathe, "your father, who adored the
Emperor, would have approved of his conduct.
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