Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
Here I saw before me both an end and an occupation, not to speak of the exquisite enjoyments obtained by playing in a miniature way the role of Providence." "And to-day you play it in a grand way, do you not?" asked Godefroid, eagerly. "Ah! you want to know everything," said the old man. "No, no!
"In three days' time our Godefroid was comfortable. His increase of income exactly supplied his superfluities; his material happiness was complete. Now for happiness as a mental condition.
Godefroid felt himself observed by these persons, whose prudence equalled their piety; his vanity led him to imitate their reserve, and he measured his words. This first day was much more interesting than those which succeeded it.
"Oh, kings! kings!" cried Godefroid; "and is the wretch still living?" "No; the wretch, as you justly call him, who concealed his real name under that of Contenson, died about the close of the year 1829 or the beginning of 1830. In trying to arrest a criminal who escaped over a roof, he fell into the street. Louis XVIII. shared Napoleon's ideas as to spies and police.
My dear Auguste will begin his law studies in two months; but he is already employed in the office of the attorney-general, and is earning twelve hundred francs a year. Ah! Monsieur Godefroid, promise me you will never speak of that unhappy affair of my poor Auguste. As for me, I bless him every day for his action, though his grandfather has not yet forgiven him.
"Very good, thirty sous then;" said Godefroid; "but how is it that they ask me only forty-five francs a month for dinner, close by here at Machillot's? That is the same price you ask me for breakfast." "But what a difference, monsieur, between preparing a dinner for fifteen or twenty persons and going out to get you just what you want for breakfast!
Madame Vauthier, deceived by Godefroid's apparent frankness, let a smile of satisfaction appear on her specious face, which confirmed all her lodger's suspicions. Godefroid was convinced that the old woman was an accomplice in some plot that was brewing against the unfortunate old man. "It is strange, monsieur," she went on, "what fancies one takes into one's head!
These three persons rose; the mistress of the house rose; then, when the priest had drawn up another armchair for Godefroid, and when the future tenant had seated himself in obedience to a gesture of Madame de la Chanterie, accompanied by the old-fashioned words, "Be seated, monsieur," the man of the boulevards fancied himself at some enormous distance from Paris, in lower Brittany or the wilds of Canada.
Paris has seen two or three parvenus of this kind, men whose success is a disgrace, both to the epoch and to those who have lent them their shoulders. In this sphere Godefroid was soon outdone by the brutal Machiavellianism of some, or by the lavish prodigality of others; by the fortunes of ambitious capitalists, or by the wit and shrewdness of editors.
Godefroid was so consumed with curiosity that from this moment he determined to break through the reserve of one of the four friends and question him. Now, the one to whom he felt the most drawn, and who seemed naturally to excite the sympathies of all classes, was the kind, gay, simple Monsieur Alain.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking