Often though, too, this romantic and brave pretence would be abandoned, and the truth stick through, like sharp elbows through a threadbare coat. And bitter penury, and coarse licence, and desperate lawlessness showed openly enough in the narrow streets; and starved faces would be common enough for those who liked to count them, and rebellious talk common enough for those who cared to listen; and people at squalid doorways would curse the war, and taxes, and sometimes the nobles. Even the King did not seem so beloved in these dark streets as he was at Versailles. But the priests, and the tax-gatherers, and the little officials had the people well in hand, and Luc had seen them go, obediently enough, to the church to celebrate a victory--and victories came plentifully. Maurice de Saxe was handing brilliant laurels to Louis, who wore them gracefully, and pleased France, it seemed. For France endured the Marquise de Pompadour and certain creatures of hers, such as the brothers Paris, Devernay, and others who flourished and fattened, and used the country like a pot of gold, into which they could dip their fists and enrich themselves, under the cynical approval of the melancholy King. Luc saw France differently from this poor quarter. Paris had seemed another city viewed from the Rue du Bac. The war had been different, too, viewed in the light of the gala lamps of Versailles, or by the camp fires of Bohemia. There was no glory to gild these humble lives, no hope, no lure to lead them on. Luc watched, and was troubled. Could France flower from such a soil? Would the light of the coming age of freedom ever overcome the dark windings of the religion of Pompadour and peasant, ever dissipate the errors taught by the ignorant to the ignorant, by dirty priests to sullen minds? Luc watched the sky at evening. That was as pure, as remote, as golden above the stale odours of the crooked streets as above the untouched fields of Provence. And he dared to hope that the golden age was coming. For himself, he did not wince from the ignoble melancholy of his surroundings. His poverty did not trouble him, nor had he once regretted the impulse that had driven him from home. He was living on about five francs a day. His money, that had come from the sale of what was left of his personal property after the expenses of the war, would, at this rate, last him three years, and he did not think to live so long. Indeed, his weakness increased so on him, his attacks of illness were so frequent and severe, that he often thought it might be weeks only before the end. Sometimes he would lie all day alone on his poor bed, gazing up at the strip of sky, unable to move or sleep, smiling at the sunshine which, towards evening (the hour he loved the most), would dazzle over his bare boards like the skirts of Glory herself.