Two months previous to Angèle's death, he had taken her one Sunday to the Buttes Montmartre. The poor woman delighted in eating at restaurants; she was never more pleased than when, after a long walk, he would take her to dine at some suburban eating-house. That day they had their dinner right at the top of the hill, in a restaurant, with windows overlooking Paris, that ocean of houses with bluey roofs, looking like surging billows filling the immense horizon. Their table was placed before one of the windows. The sight of the Paris roofs enlivened Saccard. At dessert he called for a bottle of Burgundy. He smiled at space, he was most unusually gallant. And his look kept lovingly returning to that living, swarming sea, from which issued the deep voice of the crowd. It was autumn; beneath the vast pale sky the city lay languishing, a soft and tender grey in hue, studded here and there with dark green foliage, which resembled great leaves of nenuphars floating on a lake; the sun was setting behind a red cloud, and, whilst the background was filled with a slight haze, a golden dust, an auriferous dew was falling upon the city on the right bank of the river, in the neighbourhood of the Madeleine and the Tuileries. It was like the enchanted corner of some city of the "Arabian Nights," with trees formed of emeralds, roofs of sapphires, and weather-cocks of rubies. There came a moment when a ray of sunshine, gliding between two clouds, was so resplendent that the houses seemed to flare up and melt away like an ingot of gold in a crucible. "Oh! look," said Saccard, with a childish laugh, "a shower of twenty-franc pieces has burst over Paris!" Angèle began to laugh too, accusing these pieces of not being easy to gather up. But her husband had risen from his seat, and leaning against the handrail of the window, he continued: "That's the Vendôme column shining over there, isn't it? There, more to the right, is the Madeleine--a fine neighbourhood, where there's plenty to be done. Ah! this time, it'll all be ablaze! Do you see? One could almost fancy that the whole neighbourhood was boiling in some chemist's still." His voice was becoming grave and agitated. The comparison he had drawn seemed to strike him immensely, he had drank a few glasses of Burgundy and was musing; and he went on, stretching out his arm to show the different sights of Paris to Angèle, who was also leaning over the handrail on her side of the window. "Yes, yes, what I said was right enough, more than one district will be melted down, and gold will stick to the fingers of those who heat and stir the copper. That great noodle Paris! see how immense he is and how innocently he slumbers! Such great towns are always fools! He has no idea of the army of picks that will attack him one of these fine mornings, and some of the mansions in the Rue d'Anjou would not shine so brightly beneath the setting sun if they knew they had no more than three or four years to live."