In the
hallway he added a double door, with a "portiere" to the inner one.
The window was shaded by a blind which gave soft tones to the light.
If the poor mother's life was reduced to the plainest circumstances
that the life of any woman could have in Paris, Agathe was at least
better off than all others in a like case, thanks to her son.
To save his mother from the cruel cares of such reduced housekeeping,
Joseph took her every day to dine at a table-d'hote in the rue de
Beaune, frequented by well-bred women, deputies, and titled people,
where each person's dinner cost ninety francs a month. Having nothing
but the breakfast to provide, Agathe took up for her son the old
habits she had formerly had with the father. But in spite of Joseph's
pious lies, she discovered the fact that her dinner was costing him
nearly a hundred francs a month. Alarmed at such enormous expense, and
not imaging that her son could earn much money by painting naked
women, she obtained, thanks to her confessor, the Abbe Loraux, a place
worth seven hundred francs a year in a lottery-office belonging to the
Comtesse de Bauvan, the widow of a Chouan leader. The lottery-offices
of the government, the lot, as one might say, of privileged widows,
ordinarily sufficed for the support of the family of each person who
managed them. But after the Restoration the difficulty of rewarding,
within the limits of constitutional government, all the services
rendered to the cause, led to the custom of giving to reduced women of
title not only one but two lottery-offices, worth, usually, from six
to ten thousand a year.
Pages:
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425