Still we went every day to the gallery and took our old
place there, only the countenance of my father was daily growing
paler, his step weaker, and his poor boy more trustless and weak. We
had no longer the means of stilling our hunger, we had consumed
every thing, and my father's cross of St. Louis was our last
possession. But that we dared not part with, for it was our passport
to the palace, it opened to us the doors of the great gallery, and
there was still one last hope. 'We go to-morrow for the last time,'
said my father to me on the fifteenth day. 'If it should be in vain
on the morrow, then I shall sell my cross, that you, Louis, may not
need to be hungry any more, and then may God have mercy upon us!' So
we went the next day to the gallery again. My father was to-day
paler than before, but he held his head erect; he fixed his eye,
full of an expression of defiance and scorn, upon the talkative,
laughing gentlemen around him, who strutted in their rich clothes,
and overlooked the poor chevalier who stood near them, despised and
alone. In my poor boy's heart there was a fearful rage against these
proud, supercilious men, who thought themselves so grand because
they wore better clothes, and because they had distinguished
acquaintances and relations, and yet were no more than my father--no
more than suppliants and petitioners; tears of anger and of grief
filled my eyes, and the depth of our poverty exasperated my soul
against the injustice of fate.
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