Christopher Marteau was a warden of the corporation of Luthiers. He dealt in musical instruments, as his father and grandfather had done before him, at the sign of Saint Cecilia. With his wife, his only child Phlipote, and Claude his apprentice, who was to marry Phlipote, he occupied a good house of his own. Of course the disposition of the young people, bred together from their childhood, does not at first entirely concur with the parental arrangements. But the story tells, reassuringly, how--to some extent how sadly--they came heartily to do so. M. Marteau was no ordinary shopkeeper. The various distinguished people who had fingered his clavecins, and turned over the [140] folios of music, for half a century past, had left their memories behind them; M. de Voltaire, for instance, who had caressed the head of Phlipote with an aged, skeleton hand, leaving, apparently, no very agreeable impression on the child, though her father delighted to recall the incident, being himself a demi-philosophe. He went to church, that is to say, only twice a year, on the Feast of St. Cecilia and on the Sunday when the Luthiers offered the pain benit. It was his opinion that everything in the State needed reform except the Corporations. The relations of the husband to his affectionate, satiric, pleasure-seeking wife, who knew so well all the eighteen theatres which then existed in Paris, are treated with much quiet humour. On Sundays the four set forth together for a country holiday. At such times Phlipote would walk half-a-dozen paces in advance of her father and mother, side by side with her intended. But they never talked to each other: the hands, the eyes, never met. Of what was Phlipote dreaming? and what was in the thoughts of Claude? It happened one day that, like sister and brother, the lovers exchanged confidences. "It [141] is not always," observes Phlipote, whom every one excepting Claude on those occasions sought with admiring eyes-- "'It is not always one loves those one is told to love.' "'What, have you, too, a secret, my little Phlipote?' "'I too, Claude! Then what may be yours?' "'Listen, Phlipote!' he answered. 'We don't wish to be husband and wife, but we can be friends--good and faithful friends, helping each other to change the decision of our parents.' "'Were I but sure you would not betray me--' "'Would you like me to confess first? The woman I love--Ah! but you will laugh at my folly!' "'No, Claude! I shall not laugh. I know too well what one suffers.' "'Especially when love is hopeless.' "'Hopeless?' "'Alas! I have never spoken to her. Perhaps never shall!' [142] "'Well! as for me, I don't even know the name of him to whom my heart is given!' "'Ah! poor Phlipote!' "'Poor Claude!' "They had approached each other. The young man took the tiny hand of his friend, pressing it in his own. "'The woman I adore is Mademoiselle Guimard!' "'What! Guimard of the Opera?--the fiancee of Despreaux?'"