Half mad, I rushed from the house, asking myself if I had better plead for charity or take the money I required by force from the first passer-by.

I wandered along the quays, half inclined to confide my sorrow to the Seine, when suddenly I remembered it was a holiday at the Polytechnic School, and that if I went to the _Cafe Semblon_ or the Palais Royal, I should most likely meet with some of my old pupils, who could perhaps lend me a few sous.
Five francs perhaps, Marquis,--that is a very small sum, but in that day it meant the life of my dear Marie and of my two friends.

Have you ever been hungry, M.de Croisenois ?" De Croisenois started; he had never suffered from hunger, but how could he tell what the future might bring?
for his resources were so nearly exhausted, that even to-morrow he might be compelled to discard his fictitious splendor and sink into the abyss of poverty.
"When I reached the _Cafe Semblon_," continued Mascarin, "I could not see a single pupil, and the waiter to whom I addressed my inquiries looked at me with the utmost contempt, for my clothes were in tatters; but at length he condescended to inform me that the young gentlemen had been and gone, but that they would return.

I said that I would wait for them.

The man asked me if I would take anything, and when I replied in the negative, contemptuously pointed to a chair in a distant corner, where I patiently took my seat.