The long drive in Father Papillon’s cab was not a fruitless one. The secretary of the commissary of police for the thirteenth arrondissement informed Lecoq that Polyte Chupin’s wife lived with her child, in the suburbs, in the Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles. He could not indicate the precise number, but he described the house and gave them some information concerning its occupants. The Widow Chupin’s daughter-in-law, a native of Auvergne, had been bitterly punished for preferring a rakish Parisian ragamuffin to one of the grimy charcoal-burners of the Puy de Dome. She was hardly more than twelve years of age when she first came to Paris and obtained employment in a large factory. After ten years’ privation and constant toil, she had managed to amass, sou by sou, the sum of three thousand francs. Then her evil genius threw Polyte Chupin across her path. She fell in love with this dissipated, selfish rascal; and he married her for the sake of her little hoard. As long as the money lasted, that is, for some three or four months, matters went on pleasantly enough. But as soon as the last franc had been spent, Polyte left his wife, and complacently resumed his former life of idleness, thieving, and debauchery. When at times he returned home, it was merely with the view of robbing his wife of what little money she might have saved in the mean while; and periodically she uncomplainingly allowed him to despoil her of the last penny of her earnings. Horrible to relate, this unworthy rascal even tried to trade on her good looks. Here, however, he met with a strenuous resistance--a resistance which excited not merely his own ire, but also the hatred of the villain’s mother--that old hag, the Widow Chupin. The result was that Polyte’s wife was subjected to such incessant cruelty and persecution that one night she was forced to fly with only the rags that covered her. The Chupins--mother and son--believed, perhaps, that starvation would effect what their horrible threats and insidious counsel had failed to accomplish. Their shameful expectations were not, however, gratified. In mentioning these facts to Lecoq, the commissary’s secretary added that they had become widely known, and that the unfortunate creature’s force of character had won for her general respect. Among those she frequented, moreover, she was known by the nickname of “Toinon the Virtuous”--a rather vulgar but, at all events, sincere tribute to her worth.