As a reward for passing his examinations in law, Madame Roger took her son with her on a trip to Italy, and they had just left France together.
As to the poor Gerards, just one month after M.Violette's death, the old engraver died suddenly, of apoplexy, at his work; and on that day there were not fifty francs in the house.

Around the open grave where they lowered the obscure and honest artist, there was only a group of three women, in black, who were weeping, and Amedee in mourning for his father, with a dozen of Gerard's old comrades, whose romantic heads had become gray.

The family was obliged to sell at once, in order to get a little money, what remained of proof-sheets in the boxes, some small paintings, old presents from artist friends who had become celebrated, and the last of the ruined knickknacks--indeed, all that constituted the charm of the house.

Then, in order that her eldest daughter might not be so far from the boarding-school where she was employed as teacher of music, Madame Gerard went to live in the Rue St.-Pierre, in Montmartre, where they found a little cheap, first-floor apartment, with a garden as large as one's hand.
Now that he was reduced to his one hundred and twenty-five francs, Amedee was obliged to leave his too expensive apartment in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and to sell the greater part of his family furniture.

He kept only his books and enough to furnish his little room, perched under the roof of an old house in the Faubourg St.-Jacques.
It was far from Montmartre, so he could not see his friends as often as he would have liked, those friends whom grief in common had made dearer than ever to him.