The lottery-offices
of the government, the lot, as one might say, of privileged widows,
ordinarily sufficed for the support of the family of each person who
managed them. But after the Restoration the difficulty of rewarding,
within the limits of constitutional government, all the services
rendered to the cause, led to the custom of giving to reduced women of
title not only one but two lottery-offices, worth, usually, from six
to ten thousand a year. In such cases, the widow of a general or
nobleman thus "protected" did not keep the lottery-office herself; she
employed a paid manager. When these managers were young men they were
obliged to employ an assistant; for, according to law, the offices had
to be kept open till midnight; moreover, the reports required by the
minister of finance involved considerable writing. The Comtesse de
Bauvan, to whom the Abbe Loraux explained the circumstances of the
widow Bridau, promised, in case her manager should leave, to give the
place to Agathe; meantime she stipulated that the widow should be
taken as assistant, and receive a salary of six hundred francs. Poor
Agathe, who was obliged to be at the office by ten in the morning, had
scarcely time to get her dinner. She returned to her work at seven in
the evening, remaining there till midnight. Joseph never, for two
years, failed to fetch his mother at night, and bring her back to the
rue Mazarin; and often he went to take her to dinner; his friends
frequently saw him leave the opera or some brilliant salon to be
punctually at midnight at the office in the rue Vivienne.
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