"You ought," said Madame Descoings to Philippe during the last days of
December, "you ought to get yourself new-clothed from head to foot."
"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. However, he has consented to re-enter the army. God knows the grief it has caused your brother to do a thing he considers treachery."
Joseph rose to return to his studio, but his mother took his hand and said:—