¹⁰⁷ son was taken by the draft of 1813, which drew in the sons of well-to-do families who had escaped the regular conscription, and were now formed into a corps¹⁰⁸ styled the “guards of honor.” This heir-presumptive, who was killed at Hanau, had married early in life a rich woman, intending thereby¹⁰⁹ to escape all conscriptions; but after he was enrolled¹¹⁰, he wasted his substance, under a presentiment¹¹¹ of his end. His wife, who followed the army at a distance, died at Strasburg in 1814, leaving debts which her father-inlaw Hochon refused to pay, — answering the creditors¹¹² with an axiom of ancient law, “Women are minors¹¹³.”

The house, though large, was scantily¹¹⁴ furnished; on the second floor, however, there were two rooms suitable for Madame Bridau and Joseph. Old Hochon now repented¹¹⁵ that he had kept them furnished with two beds, each bed accompanied by an old armchair of natural wood covered with needlework, and a walnut¹¹⁶ table, on which figured a water-pitcher of the wide-mouthed kind called “gueulard,” standing in a basin with a blue border. The old man kept his winter store of apples and pears, medlars and quinces on heaps of straw in these rooms, where the rats and mice ran riot, so that they exhaled¹¹⁷ a mingled¹¹⁸ odor of fruit and vermin. Madame Hochon now directed that everything should be cleaned; the wall-paper, which had peeled off in places, was fastened up again with wafers; and she decorated the windows with little curtains which she pieced together from old

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