If we shudder at the fatal consequences of such necessity almost inevitably imposed on poor, but honest artisans, what must it be with workpeople depraved by ignorance or misconduct? What fearful examples do they not present to unhappy children, abandoned, or rather excited, from their tenderest youth to every brutal impulse and animal propensity? Have they even the idea of what is right, decent, and modest? Must they not be as strange to social laws as the savages of the New World? Poor creatures! Corrupted at their very birth, who in the prisons, whither their wanderings and idleness often lead them, are already stigmatised by the coarse and terrible metaphor, "Graines de Bagne" (Seeds of the Gaol)! and the metaphor is a correct one. This sinister prediction is almost invariably accomplished: the Galleys or the Bridewell, each sex has its destiny. We do not intend here to justify any profligacy. Let us only compare the voluntary degradation of a female carefully educated in the bosom of a wealthy family, which has set her none but the most virtuous examples. Let us compare, we say, this degradation with that of La Louve, a creature, as it were, reared in vice, by vice, and for vice, and to whom is pointed out, not without reason, prostitution as a condition protected by the government! This is true. There is a bureau where she is registered, certificated, and signs her name. A bureau where a mother has a right to authorise the prostitution of her daughter; a husband the prostitution of his wife. This place is termed the "Bureau des Moeurs" (the Office of Manners). Must not society have a vice most deeply rooted, incurable in the place of the laws which regulate marriage, when power,--yes, power,--that grave and moral abstraction, is obliged, not only to tolerate, but to regulate, to legalise, to protect, to render it less injurious and dangerous, this sale of body and soul; which, multiplied by the unbridled appetites of an immense population, acquires daily an almost incalculable amount. * * * * * Goualeuse, repressing the emotion which this sad confession of her companion had made in her, said to her, timidly: "Listen to me without being angry." "Well, what have you to say? I think I have gossiped enough; but it is no matter, as it is the last time we shall talk together." "Are you happy, La Louve?" "What do you mean?" "Does the life you lead make you happy?" "Here,--at St. Lazare?" "No; when you are at home and free." "Yes, I am happy." "Always?" "Always." "You would not change your life for any other?" "For any other? What--what other life can there be for me?" "Tell me, La Louve," continued Fleur-de-Marie, after a moment's silence, "don't you sometimes like to build castles in the air? It is so amusing in prison." "Castles in the air! About what?" "About Martial." "About my man?" "Yes." "_Ma foi!_ I never built any." "Let me build one for you and Martial."