the screeching and jumping deafened one. Bad, but
maddening, wine was drunk in torrents. A man would kick his partner and
the combatants tumble over each other in the midst of an applauding
circle.

Who were these libels on women, these alleged men, these howling fiends?
They were a driblet of two hundred thousand such wretches who overran
and menaced the city, a product of the dense illiteracy of the time.

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.

"Do your division watch Versailles?"

"Without ceasing."

"This is the Admiral."

"The great Admiral? Of the Galley?"

"Certainly."

"I salute you, Chief," he said, raising a ragged arm.

"Have some brandy, Green Cap," the Admiral returned, rapping loudly for
drink, which was brought.

"We want," said Madame engagingly, "to find a hog called Repentigny at
Versailles."

The man snatched the bottle from the hand of the _garcon_, and pouring a
glass off, greedily drank it before replying.

"I don't know the name. What age is he?"

"About twenty," the chief said.

"Don't you know any more about him?"

The Admiral described him as closely as possible. They took some time in
the conversation. "He ought to be in the company of officers of the
Bodyguard," added he. The beggar by that time was becoming unsteady with
rapid libations. He nodded, dropping his head.

"Do you understand me?" shouted the Admiral.

"Repentigny," 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 will assuredly do it," she said to her companion.

The next second the beggar fell off the bench, dead drunk.

The following day at Versailles, at the entrance of the Avenue de Paris,
two nuns were seen to stop and give alms to an old bent beggar. A
conversation took place between them, and was interrupted by the
approach of a gendarme.

"I have found him," was the beggar's whisper.

"Where?"

"At the Hotel de Noailles. Am I to kill him?" he