She no longer saw the assassin of her poor aunt, the scourge of the family, the domestic thief, the gambler, the drunkard, the low liver of a bad life; she saw only the man recovering from illness, yet doomed to die of starvation, the smoker deprived of his tobacco.  At forty-seven years of age she grew to look like a woman of seventy.  Her eyes were dimmed with tears and prayers.  Yet it was not the last grief this son was to bring upon her; her worst apprehensions were destined to be realized.  A conspiracy of officers was discovered at the heart of the army, and articles from the “Moniteur” giving details of the arrests were hawked about the streets.

In the depths of her cage in the lottery-office of the rue Vivienne, Agathe heard the name of Philippe Bridau.  She fainted, and the manager, understanding her trouble and the necessity of taking certain steps, gave her leave of absence for two weeks.

“Ah! my friend,” she said to Joseph, as she went to bed that night, “it is our severity which drove him to it.”

“I’ll go and see Desroches,” answered Joseph.

While the artist was confiding his brother’s affairs to the younger Desroches,—­who by this time had the reputation of being one of the keenest and most astute lawyers in Paris, and who, moreover, did sundry services for personages of distinction, among others for des Lupeaulx, then secretary of a ministry,—­Giroudeau called upon the widow.  This time, Agathe believed him.

“Madame,” he said, “if you can produce twelve thousand francs your son will be set at liberty for want of proof.  It is necessary to buy the silence of two witnesses.”

“I will get the money,” said the poor mother, without knowing how or where.

Inspired by this danger, she wrote to her godmother, old Madame Hochon, begging her to ask Jean-Jacques Rouget to send her the twelve thousand francs and save his nephew Philippe.  If Rouget refused, she entreated Madame Hochon to lend them to her, promising to return them in two years.  By return of courier, she received the following letter:—­

My dear girl:  Though your brother has an income of not less than forty thousand francs a year, without counting the sums he has laid by for the last seventeen years, and which Monsieur Hochon estimates at more than six hundred thousand francs, he will not give one penny to nephews whom he has never seen.  As for me, you know I cannot dispose of a farthing while my husband lives.  Hochon is the greatest miser in Issoudun.  I do not know what he does with his money; he does not give twenty francs a year to his grandchildren.  As for borrowing the money, I should have to get his signature, and he would refuse it.  I have not even attempted to speak to your brother, who lives with a concubine, to whom he is a slave.  It is pitiable to see how the poor man is treated in his own home, when he might have a sister and nephews to take care of him.