第174章

According to what my son told us, that young lady appeared very good and generous."

Mother Bunch shook her head sorrowfully; a tear glittered in her eyes, as she continued: "It was still dark when I arrived at the Rue de Babylone;

I waited till daylight was come."

"Poor child! you, who are so weak and timid," said Frances, with deep feeling, "to go so far, and in this dreadful weather!--Oh, you have been a real daughter to me!"

"Has not Agricola been like a brother to me!" said Mother Bunch, softly, with a slight blush.

"When it was daylight," she resumed: "I ventured to ring at the door of the little summer-house; a charming young girl, but with a sad, pale countenance, opened the door to me.`I come in the name of an unfortunate mother in despair,' said I to her immediately, for I was so poorly dressed that I feared to be sent away as a beggar; but seeing, on the contrary, that the young girl listened to me with kindness, I asked her if, the day before, a young workman had not come to solicit a great favor of her mistress.`Alas! yes,' answered the young girl; `my mistress was going to interest herself for him, and, hearing that he was in danger of being arrested, she concealed him here; unfortunately, his retreat was discovered, and yesterday afternoon, at four o'clock, he was arrested and taken to prison.'"

Though the orphans took no part in this melancholy conversation, the sorrow and anxiety depicted in their countenances, showed how much they felt for the sufferings of Dagobert's wife.

"But the young lady?" cried Frances."You should have tried to see her, my good Mother Bunch, and begged her not to abandon my son.She is so rich that she must have influence, and her protection might save us from great calamities."

"Alas!" said Mother Bunch, with bitter grief, "we must renounce this last hope."

"Why?" said Frances."If this young lady is so good, she will have pity upon us, when she knows that my son is the only support of a whole family, and that for him to go to prison is worse than for another, because it will reduce us all to the greatest misery."

"But this young lady," replied the girl, "according to what I learned from her weeping maid, was taken last evening to a lunatic asylum: it appears she is mad."

"Mad! Oh! it is horrible for her, and for us also--for now there is no hope.What will become of us without my son? Oh, merciful heaven!" The unfortunate woman hid her face in her hands.

A profound silence followed this heart-rending outburst.Rose and Blanche exchanged mournful glances, for they perceived that their presence augmented the weighty embarrassments of this family.Mother Bunch, worn out with fatigue, a prey to painful emotions, and trembling with cold in her wet clothes, sank exhausted on a chair, and reflected on their desperate position.

That position was indeed a cruel one!

Often, in times of political disturbances, or of agitation amongst the laboring classes, caused by want of work, or by the unjust reduction of wages (the result of the powerful coalition of the capitalists)--often are whole families reduced, by a measure of preventive imprisonment, to as deplorable a position as that of Dagobert s household by Agricola's arrest--an arrest, which, as will afterwards appear, was entirely owing to Rodin's arts.

Now, with regard to this "precautionary imprisonment," of which the victims are almost always honest and industrious mechanics, driven to the necessity of combining together by the In organization of Labor and the Insufficiency of Wages, it is painful to see the law, which ought to be equal for all, refuse to strikers what it grants to masters--because the latter can dispose of a certain sum of money.Thus, under many circumstances, the rich man, by giving bail, can escape the annoyance and inconveniences of a preventive incarceration; he deposits a sum of money, pledges his word to appear on a certain day, and goes back to his pleasures, his occupations, and the sweet delights of his family.

Nothing can be better; an accused person is innocent till he is proved guilty; we cannot be too much impressed with that indulgent maxim.It is well for the rich man that he can avail himself of the mercy of the law.

But how is it with the poor?

Not only has he no bail to give, for his whole capital consists of his daily labor; but it is upon him chiefly that the rigors of preventive measures must fall with a terrible and fatal force.

For the rich man, imprisonment is merely the privation of ease and comfort, tedious hours, and the pain of separation from his family--

distresses not unworthy of interest, for all suffering deserves pity, and the tears of the rich man separated from his children are as bitter as those of the poor.But the absence of the rich man does not condemn his family to hunger and cold, and the incurable maladies caused by exhaustion and misery.

For the workman, on the contrary, imprisonment means want, misery, sometimes death, to those most dear to him.Possessing nothing, he is unable to find bail, and he goes to prison.But if he have, as it often happens, an old, infirm father or mother, a sick wife, or children in the cradle? What will become of this unfortunate family? They could hardly manage to live from day to day upon the wages of this man, wages almost always insufficient, and suddenly this only resource will be wanting for three or four months together.

What will this family do? To whom will they have recourse?

What will become of these infirm old men, these sickly wives, these little children, unable to gain their daily bread? If they chance to have a little linen and a few spare clothes, these will be carried to the pawnbroker's, and thus they will exist for a week or so--but afterwards?

And if winter adds the rigors of the season to this frightful and inevitable misery?