"Good-for-nothing magistrate!" exclaimed Madame Pipelet.
"It is all over, Anastasie,—all is ended,—hope ceases. There's no justice in France; I am really atrociously sacrificed."
And, by way of peroration, M. Pipelet dashed the sign and portrait to the farther end of the passage with all his force. Rodolph and Rigolette had in the shade smiled at M. Pipelet's despair. After having said a few words of consolation to Alfred, whom Anastasie was trying to calm as well as she could, the king of lodgers left the house in the Rue du Temple with Rigolette, and they both got into a coach to go to François Germain's.
CHAPTER II.
THE WILL.
François Germain resided No. 11 Boulevard St. Denis. It may not be amiss to recall to the reader, who has probably forgotten the circumstance, that Madame Mathieu, the diamond-matcher, whose name has been already mentioned as the person for whom Morel the lapidary worked, lodged in the same house as Germain. During the long ride from the Rue du Temple to the Rue St. Honoré, where dwelt the dressmaker for whom Rigolette worked, Rodolph had ample opportunities of more fully appreciating the fine natural disposition of his companion. Like all instinctively noble and devoted characters, she appeared utterly unconscious of the delicacy and generosity of her conduct, all she said and did seeming to her as the most simple and matter-of-course thing possible.
Nothing would have been more easy than for Rodolph to provide liberally both for Rigolette's present and future wants, and thus to have enabled her to carry her consoling attentions to Louise and Germain, without grieving over the loss of that time which was necessarily taken from her work,—her sole dependence; but the prince was unwilling to diminish the value of the grisette's devotion by removing all the difficulties, and, although firmly resolved to bestow a rich reward on the rare and beautiful qualities he hourly discovered in her, he determined to follow her to the termination of this new and interesting trial. It is scarcely necessary to say that, had the health of the young girl appeared to suffer in the smallest degree from the increase of labour she so courageously imposed on herself, in order to dedicate a portion of each week to the unhappy daughter of the lapidary and the son of the Schoolmaster, Rodolph would instantaneously have stepped forward to her aid; and he continued to study with equal pleasure and emotion the workings of a nature so naturally disposed to view everything on its sunny side, so full of internal happiness, and so little accustomed to sorrow that occasionally she would smile, and seem the mirthful creature nature had made her, spite of all the grief by which she was surrounded.
At the end of about an hour, the fiacre, returning from the Rue St. Honoré, stopped before a modest, unpretending sort of house, situated No. 11 Boulevard St. Denis. Rodolph assisted Rigolette to alight. The young sempstress then proceeded to the porter's lodge, where she communicated Germain's intentions, without forgetting the promised gratuity.