--to which she would very kindly help me--if I were
to come to my senses. But as miracles do not happen, I gave her little
encouragement to hope."

"I see. I see. Did she say anything else?"

He was so peremptory that Andre-Louis turned to look at him.

"What else did you expect her to say, monsieur my godfather?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Then she fulfilled your expectations."

"Eh? Oh, a thousand devils, why can't you express yourself in a sensible
manner that a plain man can understand without having to think about
it?"

He sulked after that most of the way to the Rue du Hasard, or so it
seemed to Andre-Louis. At least he sat silent, gloomily thoughtful to
judge by his expression.

"You may come and see us soon again at Meudon," he told Andre-Louis at
parting. "But please remember--no revolutionary politics in future, if we
are to remain friends."

CHAPTER VI. POLITICIANS

One morning in August the academy in the Rue du Hasard was invaded by Le
Chapelier accompanied by a man of remarkable appearance, whose
herculean stature and disfigured countenance seemed vaguely familiar
to Andre-Louis. He was a man of little, if anything, over thirty, with
small bright eyes buried in an enormous face. His cheek-bones were
prominent, his nose awry, as if it had been broken by a blow, and his
mouth was rendered almost shapeless by the scars of another injury. (A
bull had horned him in the face when he was but a lad.) As if that were
not enough to render his appearance terrible, his cheeks were deeply
pock-marked. He was dressed untidily in a long scarlet coat that
descended almost to his ankles, soiled buckskin breeches and boots with
reversed tops. His shirt, none too clean, was open at the throat, the
collar hanging limply over an unknotted cravat, displaying fully the
muscular neck that rose like a pillar from his massive shoulders. He
swung a cane that was almost a club in his left hand, and there was a
cockade in his biscuit-coloured, conical hat. He carried himself with an
aggressive, masterful air, that great head of his thrown back as if he
were eternally at defiance.

Le Chapelier, whose manner was very grave, named him to Andre-Louis.

"This is M. Danton, a brother-lawyer, President of the Cordeliers, of
whom you will have heard."

Of course Andre-Louis had heard of him. Who had not, by then?

Looking at him now with interest, Andre-Louis wondered how it came that
all, or nearly all the leading innovator