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CHAPTER VI
WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES
BOULATRUELLE’S
INTELLIGENCE
On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a
man had walked for rather a long time in the most deserted
part of the Boulevard de l’Hopital in Paris. This man had
the air of a person who is seeking lodgings, and he seemed
to halt, by preference, at the most modest houses on that di-
lapidated border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau.
We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired
a chamber in that isolated quarter.
This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the
type of what may be called the well-bred mendicant,—ex-
treme wretchedness combined with extreme cleanliness.
This is a very rare mixture which inspires intelligent hearts
with that double respect which one feels for the man who
is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy. He wore
a very old and very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat,
worn perfectly threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that
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