"It is found!" I cry to myself; and then I
hasten myself to reply to the unknown lady. Will she permit me to see
her?
With all politeness I make the request; with all politeness it is
answered. The lady calls herself Mademoiselle Servin. She resides in the
street Grande-Mademoiselle, at the corner of the Place Lauzun. It is of
all the streets of Paris the most miserable. One side is already removed.
In face of the windows of those houses that still stand they are making a
new Boulevard. Behind they are pulling down edifices of all kinds in the
formation of a new square. At the side there is a yawning chasm between
two tall houses, through which they pierce a new street. One sees the
interior of many rooms rising one above another for seven stories. Here
the gay hangings of an apartment of little master; there the still
gaudier decoration of a boudoir of these ladies. High above these
luxurious salons--ah, but how much more near to the skies!--one sees the
poor grey paper, blackened and smoky, of a garret of sempstress, or
workman, and the hearths black, deserted. These interiors thus exposed
tighten me the heart. It is the autopsy of the domestic hearth.
I find the Mademoiselle Servin an old lady, grey and wan. The house where
she now resides is the house which she has inhabited five-and-thirty
years. They talk of pulling it down, and to her the idea of leaving it is
exquisite pain.
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