At Odds with the Regent: A Story of the Cellamare Conspiracy

Night had already come as I drew my cloak more closely about me and stepped forth into the street. I had lingered long over my meal, as a man will who has been alone all the day and sees little chance of companionship before him. For in all the city I knew no one, and there seemed small prospect of the night bringing any enjoyment with it. I turned to the left, away from that dingy house in the Rue Bailleul, which was the only home I had thus far found in Paris, determined to forget, for a time at least, its narrow entrance leading to the dirty interior court, where a thousand odors struggled ceaselessly for mastery; the dark staircase mounting steeply upward, and the close little room, which a single week’s occupancy had sufficedto render loathsome to me. Ah! it was different from the wide, sweet valley of the Loire.

At the outset of my career in Paris I had been confronted by a problem which demanded immediate solution. I might lodge well and dress poorly, or I might dress well and lodge poorly, but I had not money enough to do both well. After mature deliberation, I had chosen the latter course and expended my money upon my wardrobe, reasoning that all the world would notice my attire, while no one would penetrate to my lodging. My neighbors in the Rue Bailleul had not yet recovered from the astonishment with which my advent had filled them, and still gazed wonderingly and suspiciously after me whenever I chanced to pass.

So I strode through the night away from that shabby garret, and as I went I thought somewhat bitterly of the high hopes I had brought with me to the city a week before,—hopes of adventure and glory, after the fashion, doubtless, of every youth who came to Paris from the provinces. But a week had passed without adventure, and as for glory, it seemed farther away than ever. In faith, those same hopes were about my only possession, a fact brought painfully to my attention when I had opened my purse ten minutes since to pay my score, and something must needs happen soon or—well, I had seen a man taken from the Seine the day before and his face seemed peaceful. At least, I would never go back to the narrow life which I had always hated.

A splash into a pool of mud brought me out of my thoughts. I stopped and looked about me, but did not recognize the street, which seemed a very squalid one. The dilapidated wooden buildings with their plastered fronts tottered together over my head. A putrid stream filled the central gutter, giving forth an odor which reminded me forcibly of the court below my window. I started to retrace my steps and return to a more inviting quarter of the city, when a hand was laid suddenly upon my shoulder.