spies, the _citoyens_
Navette and Bellier by name, there were none but honest folk there who
reposed a mutual trust in each other. Glass in hand, the victories of
the Republic were celebrated by all. Amongst the rest were several
poets, as there always are in any gathering of people with nothing to
do. The most accomplished composed odes on the triumphs of the Army of
the Rhine, which they recited with much mouthing. They were
uproariously applauded. Brotteaux was the only lukewarm admirer of the
victors and the bards who sang their victories.

"Since Homer began it," he observed one day, "it has always been a mania
with poets, this extolling the powers of fighting-men. War is not an
art, and luck alone decides the fate of battles. With two generals, both
blockheads, face to face, one of them must inevitably be victorious.
Wait till some day one of these warriors you make gods of swallows you
all up like the stork in the fable who gobbles up the frogs. Ah! then he
would be really and truly a God! For you can always tell the gods by
their appetite."

Brotteaux's head had never been turned by the glamour of arms. He felt
no triumph at the victories of the Republic, which he had foreseen. He
did not like the new regime, which military success confirmed. He was a
malcontent. Another would have been the same for less cause.

One morning it was announced that the Commissaries of the Committee of
General Security were going to institute a search in the prisoners'
quarters, that they would seize assignats, articles of gold and silver,
knives, scissors; that similar proceedings had been taken at the
Luxembourg, where letters, papers, and books had been taken possession
of.

Thereupon everyone tried to think of some hiding place in which to
secure whatever he held most precious. The Pere Longuemare carried away
his defence in armfuls to a rain-gutter, while Brotteaux slipped his
Lucretius among the ashes on the hearth.

When the Commissaries, wearing tricolour ribands at their necks,
arrived to carry out their perquisition, they found scarcely anything
but such trifles as it had been deemed judicious to let them discover.
On their departure, the Pere Longuemare ran to his rain-pipe and rescued
as much of his defence as wind and water had spared. Brotteaux pulled
out his Lucretius from the fireplace all black with soot.

"Let us make the best of the present," he thought, "for I augur from
sundry tokens that our time is stra