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Motte, the beggar, took up the words and sped like the wind up the narrow side streets and lanes, shouting, "To the execution!" Wife Gougeon screamed it. Even her husband opened his malign jaws from time to time and automatically gave vent to a harsh shout. Thus sown, it became a cry springing up everywhere. The whole quarter of St.
"Granted; but another remains, a bad one." "Who?" "The aristocrat who fell into the cave. He is near us." "His name?" "Répentigny." "I will do what I can. We shall see what the Galley is good for in Paris." That evening there was a ball on the flat above. It was refreshingly democratic. The rag-pickers who lodged with Madame Gougeon and laid the foundation of her iron business, attended.
Wife Gougeon entered with the Admiral. They pushed their way to a long table in the corner where some sots were gambling, and sitting down on one of the benches around it, she shouted a couple of words to the man nearest to her, who bolted off into the dust and returned with a red-nosed beggar. "Motte," said she, leering, "are you now on the Versailles roads?" "Always," he said sharply.
Madame's smile expanded. She looked the article over, picked the seed-pearls and lace with her little skinny hands, turned out the pockets, and inspected the flower-pattern of the silk. Gougeon held the glittering soleil fast in his hands. He could not keep his scowling eyes off it. Hache took up the bottle from the floor, and poured some wine into the chalice, whence he drank it off.
A hoarse, long groan was the reply. Femme Gougeon came over to him, and putting her glittering eyes just over his, caught his neck with her left hand, and stretching her right up to Gougeon said "A knife!" "No," the Admiral exclaimed peremptorily. "What would you do with the blood? To the rats with him rather, like the others. Hache, the trap."
Here he is! here is the one who defied the jury!" "Bodyguard of Capet!" "Here is the one who killed Bec and Caron!" shrilled Wife Gougeon. "Long live the Galley-on-Land!"
The beggar by that time was becoming unsteady with rapid libations. He nodded, dropping his head. "Do you understand me?" shouted the Admiral. "Répentigny," the other muttered, correctly enough. "Can you meet us at the Place d'Armes of Versailles to-morrow?" wheedled Femme Gougeon. He looked at her steadily and nodded deliberately. "Is twelve o'clock too early?" He shook his head a little.
He pushed back the grey tuque with which his head had been covered, and without readdressing the Admiral, got up, slowly unwound the cords which bound the black box, and raised the lid. Hache looked on. Gougeon first took out a couple of coarse articles of clothing, and uttered a grunt. His next grasp brought up a brilliant article of apparel. He raised it to examine it at the window.
Gougeon took hold of the prisoner's hand roughly, and bound a new gag under the chin and tightly over the head; he then loosened the mouth gag and turned away, without any interest in the sequel, to pick at a driblet of grease running down the side of the candle. The change in the gags allowed of speech between the teeth while preventing the prisoner's mouth from opening to cry out.
Cyrène came out and proceeded to brush aside the dust between the piles of metal. Wife Gougeon sat back on a block of wood and laughed, in immense enjoyment. "So you were a baroness once, one of the heretofores? Well, I like baronesses to do my dirty work for me and Montmorencys for my sweeps. You never thought the people would arrive at this, eh?
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