The Adventures of François

by S. Weir Mitchell

  *XVIII*

  _Wherein is told how Francois reenters Paris, and lodges with the Crab;and of how Toto is near to death by the guillotine. Francois meetsDespard and the marquis, who warns him and is warned._

  A few days later, when lying behind a deserted hut at dusk, Francoisheard a noise of military music, and ventured forth on the road leadingto the barrier. Many hundreds of the wounded from the frontier werepassing, in wagons or on foot. The communes and clubs were out to meetthem. The cabarets outside of the gate poured forth a noisy company.The road was full. Who should stop the free citizens or the ladies ofthe fish-market, come to welcome patriot volunteers? Here was an escortof troops, wild, triumphant greeting of captured Austrian flags, manywounded in wagons, many more afoot, marching wearily. Those who walkedthe people must aid. The ranks were soon broken, and all wasgood-natured tumult. Here was help for heroes--wine, bread, eager aidof an arm. Some who were dragging along on crutches, to get a littlerelief from jolting wagons, were hoisted, to their discomfort, on theshoulders of friendly patriots not eager to volunteer.

  Francois, tucking Toto under his cloak, edged himself into the brokenranks of the heroes of Hondschoote and Wattignies. "We are many," hesaid to a man beside him, as tattered as he, for there was scarcely arag of uniform. "Jolly to get home again!"

  "_Sacre!_ not if they guillotined thy father a week ago."

  "_Dame!_ is that so? But patience, and hold thy tongue, citizen._Tonnerre!_ my leg." He was limping.

  "Thy shoulder, friend"--to a blouse. "_Tiens!_ that is better. TheAustrian bullets have a liking for one's bones. Crack! crack! I canhear them yet. They do not spare the officers any more than they do theprivates."

  Should they carry the citizen officer--take care of his sword? Francoisthanked them; the citizens must be careful of his leg; and there wasFrancois on the shoulders of two big Jacobins, like a dozen more; for itwas who should help, and a shouting, good-humored crowd. Francois wasnot altogether well pleased at his elevation; he dropped forward his toowell-known face. There was a jam at the barrier. Had these citizensoldiers their passes, as provided? Francois was weak; he suffered,poor fellow! The Jacobins and the women roared derisively: "Passes forheroes?" All order was lost. They were through, and in the Rued'Enfer. Would the good citizens let him walk? He was heavy, and theywere pleased to be relieved of one hundred and ninety-five pounds ofwounded hero.

  Meanwhile there was some renewed order in the broken formation; yet nowand then men fell out to meet sweethearts or friends, usually comingback again to the ranks. The hint was good.

  "_Ciel!_ comrade, there is my mother!" The crowd gave way as the herohobbled out of the line. He called out: "_Mere, mere_--mother! Here!'T is I--Adolphe. The deuce! she is so deaf."

  Where was she? Citizens were eager to help him.

  "Ah," he cried, "she saw me not"; and, turning into a side street nearthe asylum, limped painfully in pursuit of the mother who was afflictedwith deafness. Toto followed. Once around a corner, the lamenessdisappeared. In the gathering dusk he set out for the Cite.

  "It must be Quatre Pattes, Toto. Come along. A bad year, my friend, tohave lost a father and a mother. No matter; we are in Paris."

  He loved the streets. "Ah, there is Notre Dame and the river!" He washappy, and went along laughing, and at last turned into a small cafenear to his old home in the Rue des Chanteurs.

  He was tired and hungry, and, as he agreeably remembered, well off,having had small chance to spend the money with which he had beengenerously provided by Achille Gamel. The bread and cheese were good,and the wine was not bad. He asked for tobacco and a pipe. Would thehost find him "L'Ami du Peuple"? He was a sublieutenant, wounded on thefrontier; but, _dame!_ to get home was happiness.

  Two men sat down by him, and talked. Good Jacobins were these, in thedirty uniforms of the sansculotte army which kept Paris in order at therate of forty sous a day. "Bad wages, citizen lieutenant," they said.

  The hero of the frontier was worse off--no pay for three months. Herelated his battles; and now he must go.

  "Come, Toto." Toto had been wounded at Wattignies; he was well now, andwould be promoted. "_Bon soir_, comrades." In fact, he was wildly gay,glad to be back in Paris.

  He paused, at last, before a house of the date of Henri II. Its heavy,narrow door, and a slit in the wall for a window, told of days whenevery man's house was a fortress.

  "It is our best chance, Toto; but best may be bad. We must dosomething." He jingled the bell. The cord was drawn by the conciergewithin, so as to lift the latch, and Francois entered the hall. Toright was the Crab's den, and there within was Quatre Pattes. He sawthe thin purple nose, the bleared red eyes, the bearded chin, and thetwo sticks.

  "_Mille tonnerres!_ my child, it is thou. And where hast thou been?There is no thief like thee. Come and laugh for thy old mother." Shewelcomed him in thieves' slang, vile, profuse, and emphatic. Had he anymoney? Yes, a little; business was good in the provinces; and would shehouse him? Here was a louis d'or for _maman_; and what was thisabominable _carte de surete_, this new trap? She explained. He needhave no fear; she would get him one. He had been in bad company, shehad heard; for a Jacobin had told her of the fencing-school, andthither, too late, she had gone to get a little help. He had nearlykilled Amar, _le farouche_, and that injured citizen was said to desirehis society. But that was long ago; and Paris lived fast, and was gay,and forgot easily.

  Francois had no wish to refresh Citizen Amar's memory. He asked lightlyif she had ever seen Gregoire, the commissioner to Normandy?

  Mme. Quatre Pattes had never seen him. He was of the Great Committee--apatriot of the best, like herself. Did he know Gregoire? He told herfrankly that he had been arrested by Gregoire, and had escaped.

  "Thou art the first, my child!" she cried, her jaws champing as if shewere eating. "Thou hast a fine taste in the choosing of enemies. Iwould not be in thy skin for a hundred louis; and now a cat of the nightthou must be. I can hide thee awhile; and if thou dost feed me well,the mama-crab will care for thee. No one need know thou art here.Come, get thee a few louis, and we will buy a fine card of safety, andchristen thee to suit. Ha, ha! my little one!" and she beat with hersticks on the floor.

  QUATRE PATTES.]

  Our thief was now back in his garret, having lost as many fair chancesof prosperity as did Murad the Unlucky. He reflected much in these lateautumn months of 1793, being for his wants rich, and therefore in nonecessity to give a thought to methods of getting his daily diet.During the daytime Quatre Pattes insisted on his secluding himself inhis garret. At night he left Toto with the Crab, who fed him well, andwas therefore liked by a revolutionary dog without prejudices. Fromthese night prowls Francois returned with sad complaints of the way therepublicans guarded their slim purses; in fact, at this time he avoidedadventures, stole from no one, and gave of his lessening store whatbarely contented Mme. Quatre Pattes. Were I to say that his goodnesscame from newly acquired views of life, I should mislead. He was ashonest as ever, which is to say he took no thought at all as to ethicalquestions. We are said to be children of circumstance, which may bedescribed as the environment of the hour. This is true of the feeble;but character was the more despotic parent in this resolute man, whocould wrestle strenuously with circumstance. He was a Royalist becausehe liked show and color and the fine manners of the great; in the pasthe stole because he knew no other way to live. His admirable health wasa contribution to his natural cheerfulness. He still had simplelikings--for the country, for animals, and would have had for books hadthey been easy to get, or had he known how to get those which would havefed his mind and had sauce of interest.

  His surroundings would have surely and hopelessly degraded a lesspermanent character, and a nature without his ingrained gaiety wouldhave taken more steadily some thought of the far future. He knew toowell how the thief's life ended: the galleys, the wheel, the lonelydeath-bed
in the hospital. If he reflected on it at all, as he seems tohave done at this time, it was because of his long, weary days in theattic. The immediate future at this period did disturb him, but neverlong. He liked to talk, and, lacking society, talked more and more tohimself aloud, with Toto for an audience which never ceased to attend.He who is pleased with his own talk cannot easily be bored; and so hetalked, until Quatre Pattes, who loved keyholes and to listen, thoughthe must be out of his head. She herself was always either silent orboisterous, and was as to this like other beasts of prey. When incalamity Francois was too busy to be serious. When at ease themirthfulness of his natural man forbade argument as to what the dice-boxof to-morrow would offer; for to laugh is to hope, and Francois, as weknow, laughed much, well, and often.

  There were many times in his life when to have been honestly loved by awoman capable of comprehending both his strength and his weakness would,I think, have given him the chance to live a better life. But how wasthis possible to one who lived as he lived--who was what he was?

  To be merely liked was pleasant to Francois, and appealed with the mostsubtle form of flattery to his immense self-esteem. The man wassensitive, and in after days, when in an atmosphere of refinement, wouldnever speak of the terrible women he had known too well in the Cite.Having no longer the distraction of the streets, he was at presentcondemned to live long hours with no society but that of Toto and theanimal Quatre Pattes. He bought a small field-glass, and studied thehabits of his neighbors far and near, and once more took interest in thefeline owners of the roof-tops. Quatre Pattes fed him well, and broughthim some of the old gazettes.

  He read how, on that frightful 5th of September, now past, one of thefive complementary days of the republican calendar, on motion ofBarrere, "Terror" was decreed by the Convention to be the order of theday. It was indeed the birth-hour of the Terror. The Great Committeewas in power. The revolutionary tribunals were multiplied. The law ofsuspected persons was drawn with care by the great jurist Merlin ofDouai. Behind these many man-traps was the Committee of Public Safety,with despotic power over the persons of all men, and in full control ofthe prisons. To it the subcommittees reported arrests; it secured theprisoners who were to be tried; it saw to the carrying out of allsentences; it kept the peace in Paris with an array of sansculottes, andfed the guillotine daily. Of this stern mechanism, strong of head andincapable of pity, was Pierre Andre Amar; as, one day, Francois readwith his full share of the Terror. There was soon enough of it tosupply all France.

  Before November came, Francois, pretending to have been in luck,supplied the Crab with six louis. She exacted two more, and how much shekept none may know. He had very few left.

  She was as good as her word. "Here, my little one, is the _carte desurete_ from the committee of this section." The description was takenfrom his passport. He was no more to be Francois, but Francois Beau.If he would denounce one or two people, the committee would indorse hiscard as that of "a good patriot who deserved well of the country."There was the lame cobbler over the way, who talked loosely, and to whomthe Crab owed money; that would be useful and convenient. Francoisshivered all down his long back; he would see. Meanwhile, as heconsidered, Quatre Pattes twisted her bent spine, rattled her twosticks, and looked up at him sidewise with evil eyes, bidding him have acare, and not get his good mama into trouble, or else, or else--Francoisfelt that some night he might have to wring that wrinkled neck. He wasuneasy, and with good reason.

  He could bear the confinement no longer, and in December began to findhis cash getting low. He had let his beard grow, and taken to long,tight pantaloons and a red cap. He felt that, come what might, he musttake the risks of daylight.

  The chances against him were small. The numberless denunciations of thewinter fell chiefly on the rich, the rash in talk, the foes of thestrong heads who were ably and mercilessly ruling France. The poor, theobscure, and the cautious bourgeoisie were as a rule safe until, in thespring, something like a homicidal mania took possession of Robespierreand others, who, although they were the most intelligent of the GreatCommittee, were never in control of a steady majority, and began to fearfor their own heads.

  Outwardly Paris was gay. The restaurateurs made money; the people werefed by levies of grain on the farmers; and the tumbrel, on its hideousway, rarely excited much attention. The autumn and winter of '93 werenot without peril or adventure for the thief. The Palais d'Egalite, onceroyal, was his favored resort, and with his well-trained sleight of handhe managed to justify the name of the place by efforts to equalize thedistribution of what money was left to his own advantage and to thesatisfaction of the Crab.

  The dark drama went on; but, except the tricoteuses who, like QuatrePattes, went daily to see the guillotine at work, comparatively fewattended this daily spectacle. Paris, wearied of crime and too muchpolitics, was tired of the monotony of slaughter, which had now noshadow of excuse.

  "Would the citizen miss the death of the Austrian, the ex-queen?" Hewould not; he knew better than to say no to Quatre Pattes. Would he gowith her? She could get him a good place, and all Paris would be there.All Paris was not to his desire. He said he would go alone. A walkwith this four-footed creature and the rattle of her becketing sticks heliked not. He called his dog, and, avoiding the vast assemblage on thePlace of the Revolution, found his way to the Rue St. Honore.

  He stood in a crowd against a house. The tumbrel came slowly, and,because of the surging mass of people, paused opposite to him. Helooked about him. In a group at a window on the far side of the streethe saw a man apparently sketching the sad figure in the cart. It seemeddevilish to this poor outcast of the Cite. His face flushed; he askedwho that was in the window, at which many were staring. The man headdressed was in black, and looked to be an ex-abbe.

  "My son," he said quietly, and with no evidence of caution--"my son, 'tis David the painter, he of the Great Committee. He hath no heart; butin another world he will get it again, and then--"

  "Take care!" said Francois. The shouting crowd cried: "Messalina! Downwith the Austrian!"

  Francois looked, and saw the bent figure seated in the cart. Pale itwas, with a red spot on each cheek, haggard; her gray hair cut close,pitiful; with pendent breasts uncorseted, lost to the horrors of theinsults hurled at her abject state. Francois moved away, and thetumbrel went rumbling on. An hour later he was crossing the broadElysian Fields amid the scattered crowd. It was over, and few cared.The booths were selling toy guillotines. Of a sudden he missed Toto.He called him, and, hearing him bark, pushed in haste into a large tentfilled with women and children and with men in blouses.

  "The citizen has not paid," cried the doorkeeper. Francois saw Totostruggling in the hands of a red-bearded man who was crying out: "Enter!enter! Trial and execution of an _emigre_ dog. _Voila_, citizens! Rangeyourselves." There was the red guillotine, the basket, the sawdust, andpoor Toto howling. It was a spectacle which much amused the lower classof Jacobins. "_A bas le chien aristocrate!_"

  Francois advanced with his cheerful smile. "The citizen is mistaken; itis my dog."

  "Where is his _carte de surete_?" laughed the man. "Up with him fortrial!"

  Four monkeys were the judges. Jeers and laughter greeted Francois: "No,no; go on!"

  He caught the man by the arm. The fellow let fall Toto, who made ahasty exit.

  "I denounce thee for an enemy of the republic!" cried the showman."Seize him! seize him!" Francois broke away, and, using his long arms,reached the entrance. There was no earnest desire to stop him. Thedoorkeeper caught him by the collar. He kicked as only a master of the_savate_ knows how to kick, and, free of the grip, called to Toto, andplunged into a crowd which made no effort to recapture him. He movedwith them, and soon turned to cross the river.

  Midway on the bridge he came face to face with Despard. He was raggedand fleshless, the shadow of the well-fed Jacobin he had last seen inthe chateau of Ste. Luce.

  "_Ciel!_" exclaimed Francois, "th
ou art starved." He had no grudgeagainst his old partner, but he fully appreciated the danger of thisencounter.

  He was comforted by the man's alarm. "Come," said Francois, and tookhim into a little drinking-shop. It was deserted at this time of day.He easily drew out all he desired to know. Mme. Renee was assuredlydead; and he who threw the gauntlet, the butcher, dead also; and threeor more on the fatal stairway. Gregoire had punished the villageseverely; heads had fallen. Pierre's friend Robespierre had abandonedhim, had even threatened him--Pierre! but he had escaped any worse fate.He was half famished; and would Francois help him? Francois orderedbread and cheese and wine. He would see what next to do. And what ofthe marquis? He had not appeared in the lists of the guillotined; buthe might readily have died unnamed, and escaped Francois's notice.

  "No," said Pierre, sadly; "he lives. Of course he lives. The devilcannot die. He got away from Gregoire. Who could keep that man? Butfor thee and the accursed commissioner, I should have had my revenge.We shall meet some day."

  "Shall I find him for thee?"

  "_Dame!_ no. Let us go out. I am uneasy; I am afraid."

  "But of what?"

  "I do not know. I am afraid. I am accursed with fear. I am afraid asa man is in a dream. Somewhere else I shall cease to fear. Let us go."He was in a sweat of pure causeless terror, the anguish of an emotionthe more terrible for its lack of reason. It was the inexplicabletorment of one of the forms of growing insanity. Francois looked on,amazed and pitiful. The man's eyes wandered here and there; he got up,and sat down again, went to the door, looked about him, and came back.At last, as Francois began to consider how to be free of a dubiousacquaintance, Pierre said drearily:

  "Is it easy to die? I should like to die. If I were brave like thee, Ishould drown myself."

  "Ah, well," laughed Francois, "there is the guillotine--short andcomfortable."

  "Thou wilt not denounce me?" he cried, leaping to his feet. "I have my_carte_; I will let thee see it." He was like a scared child.

  "Nonsense!" cried Francois, with good-humored amusement. "I must go.Here is a gold louis. Why dost thou not rob a few Jacobins?"

  "Hush! I dare not; I was brave once. Thou didst save me once; help menow. Thou wilt not let me starve?"

  "No, indeed. I? Not I. Take care of thy louis; they are scarce. Meetme here at this hour in a week. Adieu. At this hour, mind."

  "Art thou going to leave me alone?"

  Francois was grieved, but could not remain, and hastened away, whilePierre looked after him with melancholy eyes.

  "Come, Toto," he said, as he turned a corner. "The man is mad. Let usthank the _bon Dieu_ we never have had a wife; and the rest of ourrelatives we have buried--papa and mama, and all the family."

  It was not in the man to forget, and a week later he cautiously enteredthe little cafe to keep his engagement. It was noisy. To his surprise,he saw Pierre declaiming lustily to half a dozen blouses.

  "Ah!" he cried, seeing Francois, "_mon ami_, here is a seat. There isgood news from the frontier. A glass for the citizen." Clink, clink."A vous*. Death to royal rats!" He went on in a wild way until theworkmen had gone, and Francois stopped him with:

  "'DEATH TO ROYAL RATS!'"]

  "What the deuce has come to thee?"

  "Oh, nothing. I have had one of the fits you know of; I am alwaysbetter after them. _Diable!_ no marquis could scare me to-day. I sawhim last week, I did. I followed him. It is he who would have beenscared. I--I missed him in a crowd. In a minute I should have had him,like that," and he turned a glass upside down so as to capture a flywhich was foraging on the table--"like _that_," he repeatedtriumphantly.

  Francois watched him, and saw a flushed face, tremulous hands, staringeyes.

  "He is afraid; he can't get out"; and the man laughed low, pointing tohis prisoner.

  "And thou wouldst have denounced him?" said Francis.

  "Why not? He is one of them. He is hell; he is the devil! I saw noofficers to help me."

  "Thou art cracked; thou wilt denounce me next."

  Pierre looked at Francois with unusual steadiness of gaze, hesitated,and replied:

  "I thought of it; you are all for these people."

  Francois, in turn, looked his man over curiously. He had now a queerexpression of self-satisfied elation. "A good joke, that," saidFrancois. "Wait a moment; I left Toto outside." He went to the door,and looked up and down the street. "Wait," he cried to Pierre. "Hangthe dog!" And in an instant he had left the citizen to abide hisreturn. Once in his garret, he cried: "Toto, thou hast no sense. Thesane scoundrels are bad enough, but why didst thou fetch on me thiscrazy rascal? And so the marquis got away, Toto. The man with the wartis not as clever as I thought him. But some folks have luck."

  The sad winter of the Terror wore on, while Francois continued to liveunmolested, and pursued his estimable occupation always with an easyconscience, but often with an uneasy mind.

  It was near the end of the pleasant month of May, 1794--the monthPrairial of the new calendar. The roses were in bloom. The violetswere seeking sunshine here and there, half hidden in the rare grasses ofthe trampled space of the Place of the Revolution. On the six bridgeswhich spanned the canals, its boundaries, children were looking at theswans. In the middle space, the scaffold and cross-beams of theguillotine rose dark red against the blue sky of this afternoon ofspring. Two untidy soldiers marched back and forth beside it. Theevery-day tragedy of the morning was over; why should the afternoonremember? The great city seemed to have neither heart nor memory. Thedrum-beat of a regiment going to the front rang clear down the Quai desTuileries. People ran to see; children and their nurses left the swans.The birds in the trees listened, and, liking not this crude music, tookwing, and perched on the beams of the monstrous thing in the center ofthe Place.

  Francois crossed the open ground, with Toto close to heel. The keeperof the little cafe where he liked to sit had just told him that thecitizen with whom he had twice come thither had been asking for him, andthat with this citizen had also come once a stout man, who would knowwhere Citizen Francois lived. This last was of the fourth section, oneGregoire, a man with a wart.

  "Thou didst notice the man?" said Francois, much troubled.

  "Notice him? I should think so. _Dame_! I am of the Midi. A wart ona man's nose is bad luck; the mother of that man saw a cocatrice egg inthe barn-yard."

  "A cocatrice egg! What the mischief is that!"

  "_Tiens!_ if you were of the Midi, you would know. When a hen cacklesloud, 't is that she hath laid a great egg; the father is a basilisk."

  "_Tonnerre!_ a basilisk?"

  "Thou must crush the egg, and not look, else there is trouble; thy nextchild will have warts, or his eyebrows will meet, and then look out!"Francois's superstition was vastly reinforced by this legend.

  "_Mon Dieu!_" he cried; "he hath both." This Francois was a bold manwhen he had to meet danger face to face, but, like a child as to manythings, afraid where a less imaginative man would have been devoid offear.

  Just now he had been turning over in his mind the chance of the Crab'sbetraying him. She had been prowling about his garret, and had stolen awell-hidden score of francs. He dared not complain. What scantpossessions he had would fall into her claws if at any minute she mightchoose to denounce him. Of late, purses were too well guarded. Thedisplay of luxury in lace handkerchiefs and gold seals no longerafforded an available resource. Except Robespierre, who defied popularsentiment, few men carried two watches. Quatre Pattes had the appetiteof a winter wolf, and was becoming more and more exacting. She askedwhy he did not sell his rapier. If it were known that he withheldweapons such as the republic claimed, there might be trouble. Why hadhe not given up his pistols? They were gold-mounted, and had belongedto a grandee of Spain. Why not sell them? They would fetch a deal ofmoney.

  He was not inclined to part with his arms, and least of all with hisrapier. At last he gave her one pistol, which s
he sold; the other hehung high up on a peg set within the chimney, having hidden in itsbarrel the precious little document he had captured from CitizenGregoire in that pleasant inn on the Seine, where an agreeable eveninghad ended with such unaccountable abruptness.

  Next to the Crab's treachery, he feared most to meet Despard when theJacobin should chance to be in one of those aggressive moods which wereso puzzling to Francois. But above all did he dread Gregoire, and grewterrified as he reflected on that business of the cocatrice egg and thebasilisk.

  It seemed as though he were doomed, and this most cheery of men becamedistinctly unhappy. "That _sacre_ basilisk!" he muttered, and, less onguard than usual, wandered on, taking stock of his perplexities.

  Near to the foundations of the Madeleine, where work had long sinceceased, he paused to recreate himself with a puppet-show. Thevanquished fiend was Citizen _Jean Boule_. He was soon guillotined. Thecrowd was merry, and Francois, refreshed, contributed his own share ofappreciative mirth. In the throng he unluckily set his big foot on thetoes of a little Jacobin dressed in the extreme of the fashions thesegentry affected. The small man was not to be placated by Francois'sabundant excuses, and demanded the citizen's card of safety. It was aneveryday matter. No one dared to refuse. There were half-insane men,in those times, who satisfied their patriotism by continually exactingcards from timid women or from any well-dressed man. To decline was tobreak the law. Francois obeyed with the utmost civility. The littleman returned the card.

  "The citizen is of the best of the sections, but, _sacre!_ he is heavy."

  Much relieved, Francois went on. In the Rue St. Honore the corner of alace handkerchief invited a transfer, and lace handkerchiefs were rare.As there was a small, well-occupied group looking through a shop-windowat a caricature of Mr. Pitt, the occasion appeared propitious, and thehandkerchief changed owners.

  A minute later a man touched Francois's shoulder.

  "Thy card, citizen!"

  "The deuce!" said the thief, as he turned. "This gets monotonous. _MonDieu_, the marquis!" he exclaimed.

  "Hush! Your card. You are followed--watched. There is this onechance." Francis produced his card. The marquis murmured, "Take care;obey me." Holding the card in his hand, he called authoritatively to amunicipal guard who was passing. The man stopped, but no one elsepaused. Curiosity was perilous.

  "This good citizen is followed by that man yonder--the one with the tornbonnet. I know the citizen. Here is his card and mine. Just tell thatfellow to be careful"; and he slipped his own card of safety into theguard's hand, and under it three louis. The guard hesitated; then heglanced at the card.

  "'T is in order, and countersigned by Vadier of the Great Committee.These spies are too busy; I will settle the fellow. Good morning,citizens."

  They moved away quietly, in no apparent haste. As they were turning acorner, the thief looked back.

  "I am a lost man, monsieur!" He saw, far away, the man of the torn redbonnet, and with him Quatre Pattes. She was evidently in a rage. Heunderstood at once. In the thieves' quarter denunciations were not infavor. She knew too well the swift justice of this bivouac of outcaststo risk being suspected as a traitor to its code. The night before, hehad been unable to give her money, and had again refused to sell hisweapons. She had angrily reminded him that he was in her power, and hehad for the first time declared that he would let the Cite settle withher. He had been rash, and now, too late, he knew it.

  He hastily explained his sad case to the disguised gentleman, and was onthe point of telling him that this Quatre Pattes was that Mme. Quintettewho had once been his agent, and would probably be an enemy not to bedespised. He glanced at the marquis, and, wisely or not, held histongue.

  "We must part here," said the gentleman. He had hesitated when chanceled him to the neighborhood of the thief in trouble; but he was acourageous man, and disliked to owe to an inferior any such service asFrancois had more than once rendered him. Vadier's sign manual on hisown card of safety was an unquestioned assurance of patriotism; it hadcost him a round sum, but it had its value.

  When he said, "I must leave you," the thief returned:

  "I am sorry, monsieur; I know not what to do or where to go."

  "Nor I," replied Ste. Luce, coldly. "Nor, for that matter, a thousandmen in Paris to-day." He had paid a debt, and meant to be rid of adisreputable and dangerous acquaintance. "Better luck to you!" headded.

  "May I say to monsieur, who has helped me, that Despard is in Paris, andhas seen him?"

  The marquis turned. "Why did not you kill him when you had the chance?"

  "You forbade me."

  "That is true--quite true. Had you done it without asking me, I hadbeen better pleased."

  "I had no grudge against him."

  "Well, well, thank you, my man; I can look out for myself."

  "Will monsieur accept the gratitude of a poor devil of a thief?"

  "Oh, that is all right. One word more. It is as well to tell you, myman, how I came to speak to you. When first I observed you, as I fellbehind, I saw that terrible old witch with two sticks pointing you outto the fellow with the torn cap; then he followed you."

  "It was Quatre Pattes, monsieur. I lodge in her house."

  "A good name, I should say. I wish you better luck and safer lodgings.Adieu"; and he went quietly on his way.