The Commission in Lunacy | Page 7

instruments renders distracting.
The general system of decoration in this passage, which is neither
courtyard, garden, nor vaulted way, though a little of all, consists of
wooden pillars resting on square stone blocks, and forming arches. Two
archways open on to the little garden; two others, facing the front
gateway, lead to a wooden staircase, with an iron balustrade that was
once a miracle of smith's work, so whimsical are the shapes given to
the metal; the worn steps creak under every tread. The entrance to each
flat has an architrave dark with dirt, grease, and dust, and outer doors,
covered with Utrecht velvet set with brass nails, once gilt, in a diamond
pattern. These relics of splendor show that in the time of Louis XIV.
the house was the residence of some councillor to the Parlement, some
rich priests, or some treasurer of the ecclesiastical revenue. But these
vestiges of former luxury bring a smile to the lips by the artless contrast
of past and present.
M. Jean-Jules Popinot lived on the first floor of this house, where the
gloom, natural to all first floors in Paris houses, was increased by the
narrowness of the street. This old tenement was known to all the
twelfth arrondissement, on which Providence had bestowed this lawyer,
as it gives a beneficent plant to cure or alleviate every malady. Here is a
sketch of a man whom the brilliant Marquise d'Espard hoped to
fascinate.
M. Popinot, as is seemly for a magistrate, was always dressed in black
--a style which contributed to make him ridiculous in the eyes of those
who were in the habit of judging everything from a superficial
examination. Men who are jealous of maintaining the dignity required
by this color ought to devote themselves to constant and minute care of
their person; but our dear M. Popinot was incapable of forcing himself
to the puritanical cleanliness which black demands. His trousers,
always threadbare, looked like camlet--the stuff of which attorneys'

gowns are made; and his habitual stoop set them, in time, in such
innumerable creases, that in places they were traced with lines, whitish,
rusty, or shiny, betraying either sordid avarice, or the most unheeding
poverty. His coarse worsted stockings were twisted anyhow in his
ill-shaped shoes. His linen had the tawny tinge acquired by long
sojourn in a wardrobe, showing that the late lamented Madame Popinot
had had a mania for much linen; in the Flemish fashion, perhaps, she
had given herself the trouble of a great wash no more than twice a year.
The old man's coat and waistcoat were in harmony with his trousers,
shoes, stockings, and linen. He always had the luck of his carelessness;
for, the first day he put on a new coat, he unfailingly matched it with
the rest of his costume by staining it with incredible promptitude. The
good man waited till his housekeeper told him that his hat was too
shabby before buying a new one. His necktie was always crumpled and
starchless, and he never set his dog- eared shirt collar straight after his
judge's bands had disordered it. He took no care of his gray hair, and
shaved but twice a week. He never wore gloves, and generally kept his
hands stuffed into his empty trousers' pockets; the soiled pocket-holes,
almost always torn, added a final touch to the slovenliness of his
person.
Any one who knows the Palais de Justice at Paris, where every variety
of black attire may be studied, can easily imagine the appearance of M.
Popinot. The habit of sitting for days at a time modifies the structure of
the body, just as the fatigue of hearing interminable pleadings tells on
the expression of a magistrate's face. Shut up as he is in courts
ridiculously small, devoid of architectural dignity, and where the air is
quickly vitiated, a Paris judge inevitably acquires a countenance
puckered and seamed by reflection, and depressed by weariness; his
complexion turns pallid, acquiring an earthy or greenish hue according
to his individual temperament. In short, within a given time the most
blooming young man is turned into an "inasmuch" machine--an
instrument which applies the Code to individual cases with the
indifference of clockwork.
Hence, nature, having bestowed on M. Popinot a not too pleasing
exterior, his life as a lawyer had not improved it. His frame was
graceless and angular. His thick knees, huge feet, and broad hands
formed a contrast with a priest-like face having a vague resemblance to

a calf's head, meek to unmeaningness, and but little brightened by
divergent bloodless eyes, divided by a straight flat nose, surmounted by
a flat forehead, flanked by enormous ears, flabby and graceless. His
thin, weak hair showed the baldness through various irregular partings.
One feature only commended this face to the