get any
proof against them. The sub-prefect was immediately posted in the
"order of the night," and considered thenceforth fair game. This
functionary made a practice of breakfasting on two fresh eggs. He kept
chickens in his yard, and added to his mania for eating fresh eggs
that of boiling them himself. Neither his wife nor his servant, in
fact no one, according to him, knew how to boil an egg properly; he
did it watch in hand, and boasted that he carried off the palm of
egg-boiling from all the world. For two years he had boiled his eggs
with a success which earned him many witticisms. But now, every night for
a whole month, the eggs were taken from his hen-house, and hard-boiled
eggs substituted. The sub-prefect was at his wits' end, and lost his
reputation as the "sous-prefet a l'oeuf." Finally he was forced to
breakfast on other things. Yet he never suspected the Knights of
Idleness, whose trick had been cautiously played. After this, Max
managed to grease the sub-prefect's stoves every night with an oil
which sent forth so fetid a smell that it was impossible for any one
to stay in the house. Even that was not enough; his wife, going to
mass one morning, found her shawl glued together on the inside with
some tenacious substance, so that she was obliged to go without it.
The sub-prefect finally asked for another appointment. The cowardly
submissiveness of this officer had much to do with firmly establishing
the weird and comic authority of the Knights of Idleness.

Beyond the rue des Minimes and the place Misere, a section of a
quarter was at that time enclosed between an arm of the "Riviere
forcee" on the lower side and the ramparts on the other, beginning at
the place d'Armes and going as far as the pottery market. This
irregular square is filled with poor-looking houses crowded one
against the other, and divided here and there by streets so narrow
that two persons cannot walk abreast. This section of the town, a sort
of cour des Miracles, was occupied by poor people or persons working
at trades that were little remunerative,--a population living in
hovels, and buildings called picturesquely by the familiar term of
"blind houses." From the earliest ages this has no doubt been an
accursed quarter, the haunt of evil-doers; in fact one thoroughfare is
named "the street of the Executioner." For more than five centuries it
has been customary for the executioner to have a red door at the
entrance of his house. The a