Leon Beauchene, the founder of the works, had been dead a
year, and his son Alexandre had succeeded him and married Constance
Meunier, daughter of a very wealthy wall-paper manufacturer of the
Marais, at the time when Mathieu entered the establishment, the master of
which was scarcely five years older than himself. It was there that
Mathieu had become acquainted with a poor cousin of Alexandre's,
Marianne, then sixteen years old, whom he had married during the
following year.
* Of _Lourdes_, _Rome_, and _Paris_.
Marianne, when only twelve, had become dependent upon her uncle, Leon
Beauchene. After all sorts of mishaps a brother of the latter, one Felix
Beauchene, a man of adventurous mind but a blunderhead, had gone to
Algeria with his wife and daughter, there to woo fortune afresh; and the
farm he had established was indeed prospering when, during a sudden
revival of Arab brigandage, both he and his wife were murdered and their
home was destroyed. Thus the only place of refuge for the little girl,
who had escaped miraculously, was the home of her uncle, who showed her
great kindness during the two years of life that remained to him.
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