Note 3 — Chapter I

In fact, long before I knew them, the inmates of the "Childebert" had become a positive scourge to the neighbourhood, while the structure itself threatened ruin to everything around it. Madame Legendre absolutely refused to do any repairs. She did not deny that she had bought the place cheap, but she pointed out at the same time that the rents she charged were more than modest, and that eight times out of ten she did not get them. In the beginning of her ownership she had employed a male concierge, to prevent, as it were, the wholesale flitting which was sure to follow a more strenuous application for arrears upon which she ventured now and then in those days. That was towards the end of the Empire, when the disciples of David had been reduced to a minority in the place by those of Lethière, who sounded the first note of revolt against the unconditional classicism of the illustrious member of the Convention. If all the disciples of the Creole painter had not his genius, most of them had his courage and readiness to draw the sword on the smallest provocation,[3] and the various Cerberi employed by Madame Legendre to enforce her claims had to fly one after another. The rumour of the danger of the situation had spread, and at last Madame Legendre could find no man to fill it, except on monetary conditions with which she would not—perhaps could not—comply. From that day forth she employed a woman, who was safe, because she had been told to let "lawless impecuniosity" take its course, and it was recorded that pecuniarily the proprietress was the better off for this change of tactics.