"And could you not complain to the police?"

"At first I could think of nothing but Catharine's departure, but I soon
felt great pains all over my body, I could not walk. Alas! what I had so
much dreaded arrived. Yes--I had said to my brother, 'Some day my husband
will beat me so hard--so hard, that I shall be obliged to go to a hospital.
Then, my children, what will become of them?' And now here I am, at the
hospital, and I say, What will become of my children?"

"But is there not any justice, then, my God! for the poor?"

"Too dear! too dear for us, as my brother said," answered Jeanne Duport,
with bitterness. "My neighbors went to seek the police, they came: it was
painful for me to denounce Duport, but on account of my daughter it was
necessary. I said only that, in a quarrel I had with him about taking away
my daughter, he had pushed me; that it was nothing, but that I wanted my
daughter back again."

"And what did he reply?"

"That my husband had a right to take away his child, not being separated
from me. 'You have only one way,' said the officer to me: 'commence a civil
suit, demand a separation of body, and then the blows which your husband
has given you, his conduct with this vile woman, will be in your favor, and
they will force him to deliver up your daughter; otherwise, he can keep her
in his own right.' 'But to commence a suit! I have not the means! I have my
children to feed.' 'What can I do?' said he; 'so it is.' Yes," repeated
Jeanne, sobbing, "he was right; so it is; and because that so it is, in
three months, perhaps, my daughter will be a street-walker! while, if I had