ondorcet!"

Bergaz expressed his amazement. "What! you knew Mathis at Condorcet!
After all, though, you're right, he received a college education. Ah! and
so you knew him. A very remarkable young man he is, though want is
throttling him. But, I say, the other one, his companion, you don't know
him?"

Hyacinthe, after looking at the man with the cap-hidden face, was already
shaking his head, when Bergaz suddenly gave him a nudge as a signal to
keep quiet, and by way of explanation he muttered: "Hush! Here's
Raphanel. I've been distrusting him for some time past. Whenever he
appears anywhere, the police is not far off."

Raphanel was another of the vague, mysterious Anarchists whom Janzen had
presented to the Princess by way of satisfying her momentary passion for
revolutionism. This one, though he was a fat, gay, little man, with a
doll-like face and childish nose, which almost disappeared between his
puffy cheeks, had the reputation of being a thorough desperado; and at
public meetings he certainly shouted for fire and murder with all his
lungs. Still, although he had already been compromised in various
affairs, he had invariably managed to save his own bacon, whilst his
companions were kept under lock and key; and this they were now beginning
to think somewhat singular.

He at once shook hands with the Princess in a jovial way, took a seat
near her without being invited, and forthwith denounced the dirty
_bourgeoisie_ which came to wallow in places of ill fame. Rosemonde was
delighted, and encouraged him, but others near by began to get angry, and
Bergaz examined him with his piercing eyes, like a man of energy who
acts, and lets others talk. Now and then, too, he exchanged quick glances
of intelligence with his silent lieutenants, Sanfaute and Rossi, who
plainly belonged to him, both body and soul. They were the ones who found
their profit in Anarchy, practising it to its logical conclusions,
whether in crime or in vice.

Meantime, pending the arrival of Legras with his "Flowers of the
Pavement," two female vocalists had followed one another on the stage,
the first fat and the second thin, one chirruping some silly love songs
with an under-current of dirt, and the other shouting the coarsest of
refrains, in a most violent, fighting voice. She had just finished amidst
a storm of bravos, when the assembly, stirred to merriment and eager for
a laugh, suddenly exploded once more. Silviane was entering the little
box