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120 him some consolation for the neglect with which his muse was treated. He was considered to resemble Monsieur Mounet Sully; and he encouraged the likeness, rolling his eyes and tumbling his hair, and having generally a distraught, Byronic aspect. The house was divided against itself as regarded Anatole Doucet; Madame de Belcour heading the faction who held him to be an unappreciated genius; Professor Genron, the caustic old cynic, giving pungent expression to the contempt which some felt for the young man's pretensions.

Among those who defended the poet, possibly less from any conviction of his ability than because of the professor's antagonism, was Dr. Morin, a prominent member of the pension, and attached to a hospital in the neighbourhood. His room was also on the third floor, to the back, adjoining one which was still vacant. Murin was a clever little man—far more genial than Genron, whom he detested, and with so much gas in his composition that he seldom failed to light the table at which he sat. The professor opposite might smile sardonically at his sallies, but the little doctor had the best of it.

The floor above was tenanted by a Russian, named Narishkine, said to be a Nihilist; and a law-student of the Quartier Latin, named Bertrand, who led the chorus of appreciative laughter at table, in response to Genron's and Morin's wit. Madame de Belcour, Madame Clinchaut, Genron, and an American brother and sister, named Baring, occupied the second floor, over the public rooms of the pension.

Of Madame de Belcour nothing was known—not even whether a Monsieur de Belcour existed, or ever did exist.