tenants,
"Goodness me! You don't know about it? Why, they say that that miserable
Georges would like to destroy us all; if I knew where he was, I'd soon
have him caught."

Another time the little girl brought news that Georges had left Paris
disguised as an aide-de-camp of the First Consul. Some days later, when
Georges asked her what the latest news was, she answered, "They say the
rascal has escaped in a coffin."

"I should like to go out the same way," hinted Burban.

However, the police had lost track of the conspirator. It was generally
supposed that he had passed the fortifications, when on the 8th of
March, Petit, who had known Leridant, one of the Chouans, for a long
time, saw him talking with a woman on the Boulevard Saint-Antoine. He
followed him, and a little further off, saw him go up to a man who
struck him as bearing a great likeness to Joyaut, whose description had
been posted on all the walls.

It was indeed Joyaut, who had left Mme. Lemoine's for the purpose of
looking for a lodging for Georges where he would be less at the mercy
of chance than in the fruitseller's attic. Leridant told him that the
house of a perfumer named Caron, in the Rue Four-Saint-Germain, was the
safest retreat in Paris. For some years Caron, a militant royalist, had
sheltered distressed Chouans, in the face of the police. He had hidden
Hyde de Neuville for several weeks; his house was well provided with
secret places, and for extreme cases he had made a place in his
sign-post overhanging the street, where a man could lie _perdu_ at ease,
while the house was being searched. Leridant had obtained Caron's
consent, and it was agreed that Leridant should come in a cab at seven
o'clock the next evening to take Georges from Sainte-Genevieve to the
Rue du Four.

When he had seen the termination of the interview of which his
detective's instinct showed him the importance, Petit, who had remained
at a distance, followed Joyaut, and did not lose sight of him till he
arrived at the Place Maubert. Suspecting that Georges was in the
neighbourhood he posted policemen at the Place du Pantheon, and at the
narrow streets leading to it; then he returned to watch Leridant, who
lodged with a young man called Goujon, in the cul-de-sac of the
Corderie, behind the old Jacobins Club. The next day, March 9th, Petit
learned through his spies that Goujon had hired out a cab, No. 53, for
the entire day. He hastened to the Prefecture and informed his