The three francs which he was holding in his cassock's pocket, filled him at once with gentle emotion and covert anger against the futility of charity.

But as he gradually descended by the sharp declivities and interminable storeys of steps, the mournful nooks of misery which he espied took possession of him, and infinite pity wrung his heart.

A whole new district was here being built alongside the broad thoroughfares opened since the great works of the Sacred Heart had begun.
Lofty middle-class houses were already rising among ripped-up gardens and plots of vacant land, still edged with palings.

And these houses with their substantial frontages, all new and white, lent a yet more sombre and leprous aspect to such of the old shaky buildings as remained, the low pot-houses with blood-coloured walls, the _cites_ of workmen's dwellings, those abodes of suffering with black, soiled buildings in which human cattle were piled.

Under the low-hanging sky that day, the pavement, dented by heavily-laden carts, was covered with mud; the thaw soaked the walls with an icy dampness, whilst all the filth and destitution brought terrible sadness to the heart.
After going as far as the Rue Marcadet, Pierre retraced his steps; and in the Rue des Saules, certain that he was not mistaken, he entered the courtyard of a kind of barracks or hospital, encompassed by three irregular buildings.