nd, was an opening which gave to view a portion of the
parapet of the Quay Notre-Dame. A placard had been recently stuck on
the discolored and sunken wail of the archway; it contained these words,
traced in large characters.(37)

"VENGEANCE! VENGEANCE!

"The Working-men carried to the hospitals are poisoned, because the
number of patients is too great; every night, Boats filled with corpses,
drop down the Seine.

"Vengeance and Death to the murderers of the People!"

Two men, enveloped in cloaks, and half-hidden in the deep shadow of the
vault, were listening with anxious curiosity to the threatening murmur,
which rose with increasing force from among a tumultuous assembly,
grouped around the Hospital. Soon, cries of "Death to the
doctors!--Vengeance!" reached the ears of the persons who were in ambush
under the arch.

"The posters are working," said one; "the train is on fire. When once
the populace is roused, we can set them on whom we please."

"I say," replied the other man, "look over there. That Hercules, whose
athletic form towers above the mob, was cue of the most frantic leaders
when M. Hardy's factory was destroyed."

"To be sure he was; I know him again. Wherever mischief is to be done,
you are sure to find those vagabonds.

"Now, take my advice, do not let us remain under this archway," said
the other man; "the wind is as cold as ice, and though I am cased in
flannel--"

"You are right, the cholera is confoundedly impolite. Besides,
everything is going on well here; I am likewise assured that the whole
of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine is ready to rise in the republican cause;
that will serve our ends, and our holy religion will triumph over
revolutionary impiety. Let us rejoin Father d'Aigrigny."

"Where shall we find him?"

"Near here, come--come."

The two hastily disappeared.

The sun, beginning to decline, shed its golden rays upon the blackened
sculptures of the porch of Notre-Dame, and upon its two massy towers,
rising in imposing majesty against a perfectly blue sky, for during
the fast few days, a north-east wind, dry and cold, had driven away
the lightest cloud. A considerable number of people, as we have already
stated, obstructed the approach to the Hospital; they crowded round the
iron railings that protect the front of the building, behind which was
stationed a detachment of infantry, the cries of "Death to the doctors!"
becoming every moment more threatening. The people who thus v