_The boys._--_Vive la République!_ Down with the _Carlisses_! (_Babet enters with candle-ends; M. Bonardin retreats behind his bed-curtains._) Ah! there's the monkey's wife lighting up at last. Bravo! bravo! _Vive la République!_ The monkey's wife not bad-looking in her night-dress! _Babet_, (_shutting the window_.)--Do you hear, sir, those ragamuffins call me your wife? _M. Bonardin._--Well! are you not flattered? _Babet._--Yes, indeed, the monkey's wife! It's flattering! They take me for an ape, then? _M. Bonardin._--If they will only let me sleep at last. Midnight already. _Babet._--Pray, sir, is this to last long? This is our sixth illumination. A whole packet of fives gone already! _ M. Bonardin._--No, no, Babet--it is only the first moment. Recollect, the republic is but ten days old.... A single decade, no more. _Babet._--A proper business it has been, your decade! Alarms at every hour of the day and night; the shop shut three-quarters of the time, and no buyers when it is open! A nice decade! And then the bank, that refuses your paper; and then your bills, which you can't pay; and then ... _M. Bonardin._--Let me sleep, my poor Babet.... All that is very true; but what matter? We have got the republic; and you know as well as I do--THERE ARE NO ROSES WITHOUT THORNS." With this trite saying, the epigraph of the book, Bonardin, a bit of a philosopher in his way, consoles himself, at the close of each disastrous decade, for the annoyances and calamities he has experienced in its course. These are countless, and of every kind. Now it is a polite note from the tax-gatherer, requesting him to pay down, in advance, the whole of the year's taxes, including an extraordinary contribution just decreed by government. Then Criquet, who has imbibed communist principles, insists on sharing his master's profits, and M. Bonardin is afraid to refuse. Criquet, however, is glad to fall back upon his wages, on finding that, instead of profit, the shop leaves a heavy loss. Next comes a scamp of a nephew, emancipated from Clichy by the abolition of imprisonment for debt, who gets his uncle into various scrapes; and a drunken godson, one Pacot, a soldier, who knocks his sponsor under the table, on pretence of his being reactionary. Bonardin goes to Rouen to assist at a wedding, and the railway takes him into a cross-fire, the town being in full revolution. Rent-day arrives, and he sets out as usual with receipts and a canvass-bag to collect the quarter's rent from the occupants of the five upper stories of his house; but nobody pays. The workman in the attics takes the receipt and refuses the money, threatening to hang out the black flag if his landlord insists. One tenant feigns madness--another declares himself ruined--a third denies himself. Poor Bonardin returns home with a heavy heart and an empty bag. In short, his misfortunes are innumerable. He is mixed up in revolts against his will, and without his knowledge; is sent to prison, thumped with