Stifling in the clutch of a single thought, he dreamed of the pomps of Science, of treasures for the human race, of glory for himself.
He suffered as artists suffer in the grip of poverty, as Samson suffered beneath the pillars of the temple.

The result was the same for the two sovereigns; though the intellectual monarch was crushed by his inward force, the other by his weakness.
What could Pepita do, singly, against this species of scientific nostalgia?
After employing every means that family life afforded her, she called society to the rescue, and gave two "cafes" every week.

Cafes at Douai took the place of teas.

A cafe was an assemblage which, during a whole evening, the guests sipped the delicious wines and liqueurs which overflow the cellars of that ever-blessed land, ate the Flemish dainties and took their "cafe noir" or their "cafe au lait frappe," while the women sang ballads, discussed each other's toilettes, and related the gossip of the day.

It was a living picture by Mieris or Terburg, without the pointed gray hats, the scarlet plumes, or the beautiful costumes of the sixteenth century.