even
complained to the landlord, and asked if the room belonged to a single
customer or to the whole company. This invasion of his realm was indeed
the last straw. Men were brutes, and he conceived an unspeakable scorn
for humanity when he saw Logre and Monsieur Lebigre fixing their eyes on
Florent with rapt attention. Gavard with his revolver irritated him, and
Robine, who sat silent behind his glass of beer, seemed to him to be the
only sensible person in the company, and one who doubtless judged
people by their real value, and was not led away by mere words. As
for Alexandre and Lacaille, they confirmed him in his belief that
"the people" were mere fools, and would require at least ten years of
revolutionary dictatorship to learn how to conduct themselves.

Logre, however, declared that the sections would soon be completely
organised; and Florent began to assign the different parts that each
would have to play. One evening, after a final discussion in which he
again got worsted, Charvet rose up, took his hat, and exclaimed: "Well,
I'll wish you all good night. You can get your skulls cracked if it
amuses you; but I would have you understand that I won't take any part
in the business. I have never abetted anybody's ambition."

Clemence, who had also risen and was putting on her shawl, coldly added:
"The plan's absurd."

Then, as Robine sat watching their departure with a gentle glance,
Charvet asked him if he were not coming with them; but Robine, having
still some beer left in his glass, contented himself with shaking hands.
Charvet and Clemence never returned again; and Lacaille one day informed
the company that they now frequented a beer-house in the Rue Serpente.
He had seen them through the window, gesticulating with great energy, in
the midst of an attentive group of very young men.

Florent was never able to enlist Claude amongst his supporters. 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.

"Really, you know," he said to Florent, as they came away, "all that you
have been saying inside there doesn't interest me in the least. It may
be very clever, but, for my own par