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Updated: June 8, 2025
"Brotteaux, who, at this period of his despicable life, was living in concubinage with a prostitute he had picked up in the mud of the Rue Fromenteau, the girl Athenaïs, easily suborned her to his purposes and made use of her to foment the counterrevolution by impudent and unpatriotic cries and indecent and traitorous speeches.
The day on which the council elected and proclaimed the First Consul president of the Italian Republic he reviewed, on the Place des Brotteaux, the troops of the garrison, and recognized in the ranks many soldiers of the army of Egypt, with whom he conversed for some time.
"Sir," replied the Barnabite, "you know, I suppose, I am a suspect." "I am one too," said Brotteaux, "and my marionettes into the bargain, which is the worst thing of all. You see them exposed under this flimsy cloth to the fine rain that chills our bones. For, I must tell you, Father, that after having been a publican, I now make dancing-dolls for a living."
He asked her her name. She said she was called Athenaïs and was sixteen. Brotteaux offered to see her safe to anywhere she wished to go. She did not know a soul in Paris; but she had an aunt, in service at Palaiseau, who would take her in. Brotteaux made up his mind at once. "Come with me, my child," he ordered, and led the way home, with her hanging on his arm.
Philippe Desmahis was at work before a pigeon-cote in the picaresque manner of Callot and Duplessis. Old Brotteaux who piqued himself on imitating the Flemings, was drawing a cow with infinite care. Élodie was sketching a peasant's hut, while her friend Julienne, who was a colourman's daughter, set her palette.
After which, in a voice that filled the whole Place de Thionville and sent a shudder through the throng of curious onlookers: "Vive le roi! Vive le roi!" she yelled. The citoyenne Gamelin was devoted to old Brotteaux, and taking him altogether, thought him the best and greatest man she had ever known.
And so it turned out; two days later he invited the old financier to leave his dungeon. At every step he took upwards, Brotteaux felt life and vigour coming back to him, and when he saw a room with a red-tiled floor and in it a bed of sacking covered with a dingy woollen counterpane, he wept for joy.
Brotteaux, when left to himself, kindled a little earthenware stove; then, while he busied himself with preparations for the Monk's and the Epicurean's meal, he read in his Lucretius and meditated on the conditions of human beings.
Wondering to see one of her common sort look so pathetic, Brotteaux, a veteran amateur of the stage, thought how Mademoiselle Raucourt, if she could have seen her, might have learnt something from her bearing.
Within less than half an hour's walk of the Brotteaux, and on the same side of the river, stands the Château la Motte, in which Henry IV. received Mary de Medicis as his bride.
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