me make my marionettes. His home is
here."

But the monk failing to produce a certificate of citizenship, was put
under arrest along with Brotteaux.

As the procession filed past the porter's door, the _citoyenne_ Remacle,
leaning on her broom, looked at her lodger with the eyes of virtue
beholding crime in the clutches of the law. Little Josephine, dainty and
disdainful, held back Mouton by his collar when the dog tried to fawn on
the friend who had often given him a lump of sugar. A gaping crowd
filled the Place de Thionville.

At the foot of the stairs Brotteaux came face to face with a young
peasant woman who was on the point of going up. She carried a basket on
her arm full of eggs and in her hand a flat cake wrapped in a napkin. It
was Athenais, who had come from Palaiseau to present her saviour with a
token of her gratitude. When she observed a posse of magistrates and
four grenadiers and "Monsieur Maurice" being led away a prisoner, she
stopped in consternation and asked if it was really true; then she
stepped up to the Commissary and said in a gentle voice:

"You are not taking him to prison? it can't be possible.... Why! you
don't know him! God himself is not better or kinder."

The _citoyen_ Delourmel pushed her away and beckoned to the grenadiers
to come forward. Then Athenais let loose a torrent of the foulest abuse,
the filthiest and most abominable invective, at the magistrates and
soldiers, who thought that all the rinsings of the Palais-Royal and the
Rue Fromenteau were being emptied over their devoted heads. After which,
in a voice that filled the whole Place de Thionville and sent a shudder
through the throng of curious onlookers:

"Vive le roi! Vive le roi!" she yelled.

XVIII

The _citoyenne_ Gamelin was devoted to old Brotteaux, and taking him
altogether, thought him the best and greatest man she had ever known.
She had not bidden him good-bye when he was arrested, because she would
not have dared to defy the powers that be and because in her lowly
estate she looked upon cowardice as a duty. But she had received a blow
she could not recover from.

She could not eat and lamented she had lost her appetite just when she
had at last the means to satisfy it. She still admired her son; but she
durst not let her mind dwell on the appalling duties he was engaged upon
and congratulated herself she was only an ignorant woman who had no call
to judge his conduct.

The poor mother had fou