“Well, well!” “He talked cautiously at first; spoke of your power with the people—your eloquence.” “Yes, yes; I understand that—the usual sugared flattery. But come to the essence of the matter. What did he want?” “He wanted your influence in behalf of the court; and he spoke of money.” Mirabeau felt the hot blood leap to his face again; and with an angry gesture he dashed the hat from his hand. “They know how poor I am; they feel that I can be bribed. This proud queen does not offer me her confidence, but money. Ah! this stings me! It is an insult; but one which I dare not resent. Oh, Jacques! this poverty breeds a nest of temptations. To want money is to be a slave.” Mirabeau seized his hat, dashed it on his head, and left the room, walking away so fiercely, that his footsteps sounded back from the flights of stairs, like the tramp of a dragoon. Monsieur Jacques listened till the footsteps died away in the street, then he sat down, with tears in his eyes, muttering, “Ah! what a grand nature he has! Yet a moment may shipwreck him forever. Yes! forever and ever!” CHAPTER XI. THE MARKET WOMAN. Monsieur Jacques started from his aroused reverie, by the sight of that hard gold piece left by Mirabeau on his table. “This will keep them from want a long time,” he thought, gloating over the money as if it had been food, for which he was in fact famishing; for the bread he had given those poor women, was taken from his own hungry mouth. Jacques, in his devotion to Count Mirabeau, would have starved rather than take gold from him. Indeed, his own hard earnings had been swept away many a time in the vortex of that man’s reckless extravagance; and he had gloried in the sacrifice. But now, another feeling came in and he yielded to it without a murmur. He could struggle and endure, but those suffering women must be fed, even with Mirabeau’s gold. How? They were delicate and proud—far too proud for almstaking. “I know! I have a thought,” he exclaimed at last, dropping the gold into his pocket. “They shall seem to earn this.” Jacques went swiftly down stairs, and knocked at a door in a lower story of the house. A clear sharp voice bade him enter, and directly he stood before a little woman,—perhaps fifty years old, who was tearing half a dozen bouquets to pieces, and dipping their stems in hot water, thus partially restoring their lost bloom. “Ah, Monsieur Jacques, you have found me at my work, cheating the poor, dear people. No matter, it serves them right; why didn’t they buy my flowers yesterday, when they were fresh and charming? Ah, my friend, these are hard times for us poor women of the market. With the court at Versailles and food so dear, flowers go for nothing, especially when it is only an old woman who offers them.”