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"You live in the, rue Beaubourg, and you are Monsieur Derues, formerly a retail grocer?" "The same, my brother." "Should you require a reference, I can give it. Chance, madame, has made you acquainted with a man whose, reputation for piety and honour is well established; he will permit me to add my praises to yours." "Indeed, I do not know how I deserve so much honour."
The smiling grocer, in his everlasting bonnet and flowered dressing-gown a la J. J. Rousseau, was ever ready to oblige the needy scion of a noble house. What he borrowed at moderate interest from his creditors he lent at enhanced interest to the quality. Duns and bailiffs jostled the dukes and marquises whose presence at the Rue Beaubourg so impressed the wondering neighbours of the facile grocer.
"Then he is poisoned," said the man. "Poisoned?" cried several voices. "It is not surprising," replied the man, in a mysterious tone; "poison is thrown into the public fountains; and this very morning a man was massacred in the Rue Beaubourg who was discovered emptying a paper of arsenic into a pot of wine at a public-house." Having said these words, the man disappeared in the crowd.
"Then he is poisoned," said the man. "Poisoned?" cried several voices. "It is not surprising," replied the man, in a mysterious tone; "poison is thrown into the public fountains; and this very morning a man was massacred in the Rue Beaubourg who was discovered emptying a paper of arsenic into a pot of wine at a public-house." Having said these words, the man disappeared in the crowd.
"The first shots were fired at the Record Office. In the Markets in the Rue Rambuteau, in the Rue Beaubourg I heard firing. "Fleury, the aide-de-camp, ventured to pass down the Rue Montmartre. A musket ball pierced his képi. He galloped quickly off. At one o'clock the regiments were summoned to vote on the coup d'état. All gave their adhesion.
His financial condition was in the last degree critical. Not content with the modest calling of a grocer, Derues had turned money-lender, a money-lender to spendthrift and embarrassed noblemen. Derues dearly loved a lord; he wanted to become one himself; it delighted him to receive dukes and marquises at the Rue Beaubourg, even if they came there with the avowed object of raising the wind.
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