Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 17, 2025
Bibot was quite himself again, bullying, commanding, detaining everybody now. At that time there appeared to be a slight altercation going on, on the farther side of the gate. Bibot thought it his duty to go and see what the noise was about. Someone wanting to get into Paris instead of out of it at this hour of the night was a strange occurrence. Bibot heard his name spoken by a raucous voice.
From afar, but gradually drawing nearer, came the sound of a ribald song, with chorus accompaniment sung by throats obviously surfeited with liquor. For a moment as the sound approached Bibot turned back once more to the Friend of the People. "Am I to understand, citizen," he said, "that my orders are not to let anyone pass through these gates to-night?"
"On no account allow these people to go through," continued the officer. "Keep their passports. Detain them!... Understand?" Bibot was still gasping for breath even whilst the officer, ordering a quick "Turn!" reeled his horse round, ready to gallop away as far as he had come. "I am for the St. Denis Gate Grosjean is on guard there!" he shouted. "Same orders all round the city.
Some there were who said that citizen Chauvelin had for ever forfeited his prestige, and even endangered his head by measuring his well-known astuteness against that mysterious League of spies. But then Bibot was different! He feared neither the devil, nor any Englishman. Had the latter the strength of giants and the protection of every power of evil, Bibot was ready for him.
With another wink and a final leer, Marat drew back under the shadow of the cabaret, and Bibot swaggered up to the main entrance of the gate. "Qui va la?" he thundered in stentorian tones as a group of some half- dozen people lurched towards him out of the gloom, still shouting hoarsely their ribald drinking song.
Even before the troopers had drawn rein the officer had hailed Bibot. "Citizen," he shouted, and his voice was breathless, for he had evidently ridden hard and fast, "this message to you from the citizen Chief Commissary of the Section. Six men are wanted by the Committee of Public Safety.
Everyone felt that Bibot would be that man, and Bibot allowed that belief to take firm root in everybody's mind; and so, day after day, people came to watch him at the West Gate, so as to be present when he laid hands on any fugitive aristo who perhaps might be accompanied by that mysterious Englishman. "Bah!" he said to his trusted corporal, "Citoyen Grospierre was a fool!
"Curse you, citoyen, for being a coward," she said. "Bah! what a man to be afraid of sickness." "MORBLEU! the plague!" Everyone was awe-struck and silent, filled with horror for the loathsome malady, the one thing which still had the power to arouse terror and disgust in these savage, brutalised creatures. "Get out with you and with your plague-stricken brood!" shouted Bibot, hoarsely.
A dolt you've always been, else you had not asked the question." But Bibot, undeterred by the man's drunken insolence, retorted gruffly: "Your business, I want to know." "Bibot! my little Bibot!" cooed the bibulous orator now in dulcet tones, "dost not know us, my good Bibot? Yet we all know thee, citizen Captain Bibot of the Town Guard, eh, citizens! Three cheers for the citizen captain!"
Bibot was sitting on an overturned and empty cask close by the gate of the barricade; a small detachment of citoyen soldiers was under his command. The work had been very hot lately.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking