Popinot’s inherited fortune was a thousand crowns a year. His wife, sister to M. Bianchon _Senior_, a doctor at Sancerre, had brought him about twice as much. She, dying five years since, had left her fortune to her husband. As the salary of a supernumerary judge is not large, and Popinot had been a fully salaried judge only for four years, we may guess his reasons for parsimony in all that concerned his person and mode of life, when we consider how small his means were and how great his beneficence. Besides, is not such indifference to dress as stamped Popinot an absent-minded man, a distinguishing mark of scientific attainment, of art passionately pursued, of a perpetually active mind? To complete this portrait, it will be enough to add that Popinot was one of the few judges of the Court of the Seine on whom the ribbon of the Legion of Honor had not been conferred. Such was the man who had been instructed by the President of the Second Chamber of the Court--to which Popinot had belonged since his reinstatement among the judges in civil law--to examine the Marquis d’Espard at the request of his wife, who sued for a Commission in Lunacy. The Rue du Fouarre, where so many unhappy wretches swarmed in the early morning, would be deserted by nine o’clock, and as gloomy and squalid as ever. Bianchon put his horse to a trot in order to find his uncle in the midst of his business. It was not without a smile that he thought of the curious contrast the judge’s appearance would make in Madame d’Espard’s room; but he promised himself that he would persuade him to dress in a way that should not be too ridiculous. “If only my uncle happens to have a new coat!” said Bianchon to himself, as he turned into the Rue du Fouarre, where a pale light shone from the parlor windows. “I shall do well, I believe, to talk that over with Lavienne.” At the sound of wheels half a score of startled paupers came out from under the gateway, and took off their hats on recognizing Bianchon; for the doctor, who treated gratuitously the sick recommended to him by the lawyer, was not less well known than he to the poor creatures assembled there. Bianchon found his uncle in the middle of the parlor, where the benches were occupied by patients presenting such grotesque singularities of costume as would have made the least artistic passer-by turn round to gaze at them. A draughtsman--a Rembrandt, if there were one in our day--might have conceived of one of his finest compositions from seeing these children of misery, in artless attitudes, and all silent.