Isidore held out his hand which the revolutionist shook with more heartiness than he had for most of his class; while the nobleman returned within the palace, he went along to the junction of the streets Coq-Heron and Plastriere.
Both were painful memories.
In the latter he had lived, a poor boy, earning his bread by copying music, by receiving instruction from the author Rousseau. From his window he had contemplated Andrea at her own casement, under the hands of her maid, Nicole, his first sweetheart, and to that window he had made his way by a rope and by scaling the wall, to view more closely and satisfy his passion for the high-born lady who had bewitched him.
Rousseau was dead, but Andrea was rich and nobler still; he had also attained wealth and consideration.
But was he any happier than when he walked out of doors to dip his crust in the waters of this public fountain?
He could not help walking up to the door where Rousseau had lived. It was open on the alley which ran under the building to the yard at the back as well as up to the attic where he was lodged.
He went up to the first floor back, where the window on the landing gave a view of the rear house where Baron Taverney had dwelt.
No one disturbed him in his contemplation; the house had come down in the world; no janitor; the inhabitants were poor folk who did not fear thieves.
The garden at Taverney’s house was the same as a dozen years before. The vine still hung on the trellis which had served him as ladder in his night clamberings within the enclosure.
He was unaware whether Count Charny was with his wife, but he was so bent on learning about Sebastian that he meant to risk all.