No address was joined to the signature. Marius hoped to find the address in the second letter, whose superscription read:
À Madame, Madame la Comtesse de Montvernet, Rue Cassette, No. 9.
This is what Marius read in it:—
Madame la Comtesse:
It is an unhappy mother of a family of six children the last of which is only eight months old. I sick since my last confinement, abandoned by my husband five months ago, haveing no resources in the world the most frightful indigance. In the hope of Madame la Comtesse, she has the honor to be, Madame, with profound respect,
Marius turned to the third letter, which was a petition like the preceding; he read:—
I permit myself to address you this letter to beg you to grant me the pretious favor of your simpaties and to interest yourself in a man of letters who has just sent a drama to the Théâtre-Français. The subject is historical, and the action takes place in Auvergne in the time of the Empire; the style, I think, is natural, laconic, and may have some merit. There are couplets to be sung in four places. The comic, the serious, the unexpected, are mingled in a variety of characters, and a tinge of romanticism lightly spread through all the intrigue which proceeds misteriously, and ends, after striking altarations, in the midst of many beautiful strokes of brilliant scenes. My principal object is to satisfi the desire which progressively animates the man of our century, that is to