he sight of red blood better than red wine."

"The aristocrats," Jude continued, "have been skipping over the
frontiers; the people starving and rising to their rights; we hung
Councillor Foulon to the lantern----"

"And put grass in his mouth, the old animal!" exclaimed Wife Gougeon
with vicious hate.

"The King----" proceeded Jude.

"The Big Hog," shouted a Councillor savagely.

"The Big Hog, then, has had his bristles singed with all this: the
people despise him. Orleans is the people's favourite. What if the
Galley-on-Land should put Orleans on the throne?"

"Good!" cried the Admiral.

The Big Bench broke into excited comment.

"Citizen Jude is admirable." Their leader went on, "Nothing could be
more acceptable than the money of a friend to the people. I tell you,
ragmen, our time has come. There is nothing we cannot try."

"Let us garrott every gendarme."

"They keep well out of our way now, at least when single," another
boasted.

"We don't loot enough houses," a third grumbled. "What is the good of
belonging to the nation?"

"It is the sacred right of the citizen to oppress the oppressor," chimed
Jude.

"Ragmen, you don't know what I mean," vociferated the Admiral sharply.
"We are to be the great men--the Government. I have seen this ever since
our sack of Reveillon's paper-factory. Everything belongs to the
boldest. You will yet see our Big Bench legislators of Paris and me a
Minister of France."

"Bravo; bravo the Admiral!"

The man who last entered, the Versailles beggar, now came to the centre.

"Listen, friends. You know that what I learn at Versailles is worth
something to the Galley-on-Land."

"Invariably," said the Admiral.

"The Big Sow, you know, she they call Madame Veto, has been cursedly
working to keep the Big Hog with the cursed hogs. The people are afraid
of more Dragoons, and are crying, 'The King to Paris!' Well, now, this
is the third of October. Yesterday afternoon the Bodyguard, as they call
them--all fat hogs, mark you--gave a dinner in the theatre to the
Flemish Dragoons. They were so glad to have Flemings to sabre Paris that
the Big Sow came in, and they all spat on the people's cockade, and put
on the White Hog colour, and also a black one, and vowed they were
cocksure of shutting us up. They brought in the Big Hog from his
hunting, and he is in the mess, too. At the end they all followed Madame
Veto home, shouting everything to vex us patriots. _I_ am a _patriot_,