[BOOK IV]
[CHAPTER I]
Auguste Lafarge—Bird-snaring on a large scale—A wonderful catch—An epigram—I wish to write French verses—My method of translating Virgil and Tacitus—Montagnon—My political opinions.
It would seem as though in response to this outburst of my spirit towards God He rewarded my mother by giving her the only thing she had ever been able to obtain in return for her twelve years of petitioning.
To provide for this great event we had moved to the rue de Lormet, and had taken up our abode in the place de la Fontaine, in a house belonging to a coppersmith called Lafarge, who had let us the whole of his first floor, and engaged besides to let us his shop if we needed it.
The license to keep a tobacco-shop having been obtained, he kept his promise, and we established ourselves on the ground floor, facing the street, in a large room furnished with two counters: one for the retail of tobacco and the other for the sale of salt.
Our future prospects all centred in this twofold trade, which we owed to the protection of M. Collard.
Some time after we were installed, the son of the coppersmith came to see his father. He was a fine, light-complexioned young fellow, who held a post as head clerk in Paris; he was looking out for a lawyer's practice, but wanted the capital wherewith to purchase one. He had returned to his family with all the attractions of the capital about him; a box-coat with thirty-six bands to it in the latest fashion, a watch-chain with massive trinkets, tight-fitting trousers, and boots à la hussarde. He hoped to dazzle a wealthy heiress;—no difficult task, perhaps, to one accustomed to charm the fair ones of Paris.