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Well, they say that all those men who meet at Monsieur Lebigre's have got guns, and are going to break out again as they did in '48. It's quite distressing to see such a worthy man as Monsieur Gavard rich, too, and so respectable leaguing himself with such scoundrels! I was very anxious to let you know, on account of your brother-in-law."
When the inspector manifested any scruples about taking advantage of Monsieur Lebigre's kindness, the latter told him to do as he pleased, saying that the whole house was at his service. Logre also manifested great friendship for him, and even constituted himself his lieutenant.
That idea of an insurrection, of the overthrow of the Empire by means of an armed rising, which Logre had one evening propounded at Monsieur Lebigre's, had slowly ripened in Florent's feverish brain. He soon grew to see a duty, a mission in it. Therein undoubtedly lay the task to which his escape from Cayenne and his return to Paris predestined him.
Lisa avoided all reference to the subject at breakfast and dinner that day; and even in the evening, when Florent and Quenu went off together to Monsieur Lebigre's, there was no unwonted severity in her glance.
Although he had loudly asserted that in each district of Paris he knew two or three groups of men as determined and trustworthy as those who met at Monsieur Lebigre's, he had never yet given any precise information about them, but had merely mentioned a name here and there, and recounted stories of endless alleged secret expeditions, and the wonderful enthusiasm that the people manifested for the cause.
He had once entertained the idea of gaining him over to his own political views, of making a disciple of him, an assistant in his revolutionary task; and in order to initiate him he had taken him one evening to Monsieur Lebigre's. Claude, however, spent the whole time in making a sketch of Robine, in his hat and chestnut cloak, and with his beard resting on the knob of his walking-stick.
At every hour of the day, and in every corner of the market, Mademoiselle Saget's black bonnet was now to be seen in the midst of this outburst of indignation. Her little pale face seemed to multiply. She had sworn a terrible vengeance against the company which assembled in Monsieur Lebigre's little cabinet. She accused them of having circulated the story that she lived on waste scraps of meat.
Upon the day on which the poultry dealer took Florent to Lebigre's to present him to his friends, the only person whom the pair found in the little room when they entered it was a man of some fifty years of age, of a mild and thoughtful appearance.
Now, Lisa had made up her mind to ascertain from him exactly what took place in the little room at Monsieur Lebigre's; for she had no great confidence in her secret police office, Mademoiselle Saget. In a short time she learnt from the incorrigible chatterbox a lot of vague details which very much alarmed her.
And as they were just going into Monsieur Lebigre's to drink a drop of vermouth together he called his attention to three women standing in the covered way between the fish and poultry pavilions. "They're cackling together!" he said with an envious air. The markets were growing empty, and Mademoiselle Saget, Madame Lecoeur, and La Sarriette alone lingered on the edge of the footway.
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