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The letter was bathed in a flood of happy tears. Never till now did Florian know the treasure he possessed in Crescence. And he had not a little joy left, besides, for the thought that his precious knife was safe.

14.

MISERY AND FUN.

Florian was sent to the penitentiary for six years. He was almost pleased to lay aside his velvet roundabout and put on in place of it the gray coat of the convict; for his favorite was thus saved for those happy days in which he hoped to see Crescence again. Indeed, the six years seemed a mere week to his imagination. His heart was so full of hope again that he skipped over the interval of time as if it had been but a span.

Monarchical governments have their advantages, and in some respects put those of republics to shame. Here every man is fortunate as long as he is free; but, once immured in the walls of a prison, his rights and his comforts become every man’s business, and therefore nobody’s, and society neither knows nor cares whether he is properly fed, clothed, and watched, or whether his jailors enrich themselves on the sale of the food he should eat, or make his ordinary comforts contingent upon the alacrity he displays in doing their menial services. In Europe it is otherwise. There the government, and its hirelings the office-holders, consider every individual their natural enemy so long as he lives on his own exertions, and withholds a fragment of his existence from the surveillance of the high and mighty. With unrelenting taxation, and interminable regulations, prohibitions, and prescriptions, they waste his substance and goad him into prison; but, once there, their wishes are accomplished, and they treat him henceforth with paternal kindness. Favors shown to prisoners can never be regarded as concessions to civil liberty, and therefore they are freely extended. Whoever finds his way there may calculate upon friendly treatment. Perhaps, instead of opposing the government, it would be better for the citizens to bring about a general measure of criminal incarceration as the surest road to the good-will of their sovereigns.

Still, the time passed but slowly. He learned the art of making brushes. When at length and at last the day of delivery came, he hastened to Crescence. He was received with open arms. With a little money, which she had saved out of her earnings, they both travelled from village to village as brush-makers. But soon Florian renounced this trade for one more satisfactory to his peculiar desire for admiration. He attended the fairs, markets, and harvest homes as rope-dancer and juggler. His great exploit was the sword-trick, which consisted in throwing three swords around in a circle and always catching them by the handle: he had mastered the principle when engaged in chopping sausage-meat. Crescence clung to him faithfully through all this; and once, when he fell from the rope and broke his leg, she nursed him with the most tender care.

After this he purchased a gambling-table and frequented the markets and harvest-homes of the adjoining countries of Germany,–the game of dice having been, in the mean time, prohibited in Wurtemberg. It is the peculiar good fortune of Germany that every one may cultivate his besetting sin there to his heart’s content, if he can only find the proper principality. What would have become of Florian had he not been a son of that favored country? He could not have made a living out of that which had first led to his ruin. Whenever this occurred to him, he raised his voice, as if to encourage himself: his morsel of French stood him in good stead,–for it is the most respectable dress for immorality that was ever fashioned.

” Messieurs, faites votre jeu! ” he would say. “Step up, step up: play here, gentlemen. Messieurs, eight creutzers for one creutzer: one creutzer has eight young ones. La fortune, la fortune, la fortune! A creutzer is nothing: out of nothing God made the world: out of no money money will come. Step up, Messieurs: faites votre jeu! “