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When Florent returned from Cayenne, Gavard opined that he had got hold of a splendid chance for some abominable trick, and bestowed much thought upon the question of how he might best vent his spleen on the Emperor and Ministers and everyone in office, down to the very lowest police constable. Gavard's manners with Florent were altogether those of a man tasting some forbidden pleasure.
If it does do dishonourable things, I prefer to know nothing about them. I know that I myself commit none, and that no one in the neighbourhood can point a finger at me. It's only fools who go tilting at windmills. At the time of the last elections, you remember, Gavard said that the Emperor's candidate had been bankrupt, and was mixed up in all sorts of scandalous matters.
By the help of politics, however, their chairs had drawn nearer, and they had ended by forming part of the circle. Charvet, in whose eyes they represented "the people," did his best to indoctrinate them with his advanced political theories, while Gavard played the part of the shopkeeper free from all social prejudices by clinking glasses with them.
The detectives must be sitting down in the room, and keeping quiet." Just at that moment the women caught sight of Gavard coming out of the fish market with a thoughtful air. They looked at him with glistening eyes, without speaking. They had drawn close to one another, and stood there rigid in their drooping skirts. The poultry dealer came up to them. "Have you seen Florent go by?" he asked.
And then all at once Florent made a gesture of delight. Forgetting his fatigue, he ran after the man, and, overtaking him, tapped him on the shoulder. "Gavard!" he exclaimed. The other raised his head and stared with surprise at Florent's tall black figure, which he did not at first recognise. Then all at once: "What! is it you?" he cried, as if overcome with amazement. "Is it really you?"
At last they succeeded in opening a wardrobe opposite the window, between the fireplace and the bed. And then all four women broke into exclamations. On the middle shelf lay some ten thousand francs in gold, methodically arranged in little piles. Gavard, who had prudently deposited the bulk of his fortune in the hands of a notary, had kept this sum by him for the purposes of the coming outbreak.
Brasavolus says that Julia, wife of Frederick, King of Naples, had such an aversion to meat that she could not carry it to her mouth without fainting. The anatomist Gavard was not able to eat apples without convulsions and vomiting.
Now then, go and tell Monsieur Gavard that he had better come at once, while there's no one about." Marjolin thereupon went off in confusion, without saying a word. Handsome Lisa remained standing behind her counter, with her head turned slightly in the direction of her markets, and Florent gazed at her in silence, surprised to see her looking so beautiful.
On the evening of the day on which Monsieur Verlaque had conducted him through the auction sales, Gavard took him aside and told him, with a good deal of hesitation, that "the poor devil" was not at all well off.
Florent became a sort of sacred being in his eyes: he swore by him alone, and had recourse to his name whenever arguments failed him and he wanted to crush the Government once and for all. Gavard had lost his wife in the Rue Saint Jacques some months after the Coup d'Etat; however, he had kept on his roasting shop till 1856.
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