"Thanks!" replied Duclos, "I am not of that opinion," and, putting the rifle into the youth's hands, he crossed right through the very centre of the firing and re-entered the Palais-Royal, where he resumed his accustomed walk past the bronze Apollo and marble Ulysses, the only society he had the chance of meeting during the 27, 28 and 29 July. This was the third and last time upon which he opened his mouth. Duclos, engrossed as he was with his everlasting walk, would, doubtless, never have found a moment in which to die; only one morning he forgot to wake up. The inhabitants of the Palais-Royal, astonished at having been a whole day without meeting the man with the long beard, learnt, on the following day, from the Cornuet papers, that Chodruc-Duclos had fallen into the sleep that knows no waking, upon his pallet bed in the rue du Pélican. For three or four years, Duclos, as we have said, had clad himself in garments more like those of ordinary people. The Revolution of July, which exiled the Bourbons, and the trial of the ex-ministers, which ostracised M. de Peyronnet to Ham, removed every reason for his ragged condition, and set a limit to his revenge. In spite of, perhaps even on account of, this change of his outward appearance, Duclos, like Epaminondas, left nothing wherewith to pay for his funeral. The Palais-Royal buried him by public subscription. General La Fayette resigned his position, and Chodruc-Duclos his revenge. A third notability resigned his life; namely, Alphonse Rabbe, whom we have already briefly mentioned, and who deserves that we should dedicate a special chapter to him. [1] Cornuet occupied one of those literary pavilions which were erected at each end of the garden of the Palais-Royal; the other was occupied by a dwarf who was all body and seemed to crawl on almost invisible legs. CHAPTER IX Alphonse Rabbe--Madame Cardinal--Rabbe and the Marseilles Academy--_Les Massénaires_--Rabbe in Spain--His return--The _Old Dagger_--The Journal _Le Phocéen_--Rabbe in prison--The writer of fables--_Ma pipe_