ls sont ces citoyens?" he inquired, taking us in from top
to toe, and stroking his long beard all the while. Some one told him our
names, at which he made a wry face, the more that mine must have been
familiar to him, seeing that a very near relative of mine, bearing the
same, had been a special favourite with General Vinoy. He did not think
fit to molest us; had he done so, it might have fared badly with us,
for by the time Lord Lyons could have interfered, we might have been
shot.

Ever since, my friend and I have been under the impression that we owed
our lives to a dark, ugly little man who, at that moment, whispered
something to him, and who, my friend told me, immediately afterwards,
was the right hand of Raoul Rigault, Theophile Ferre. That name was also
familiar to me, as it was to most Parisians, previous to the outbreak of
the war, because Ferre was implicated in the plot against
Louis-Napoleon's life, and was tried in the early part of '70 at Blois.
Every one knew how he insulted the President, how he refused to answer,
and finally exclaimed, "Yes, I am an anarchist, a socialist, an atheist,
and woe to you when our turn comes." He kept his word; he was a fiend,
and looked one. Whenever there was anything cruel and bloodthirsty going
on, he made it a point to be present. He was, though ugly, not half so
ugly as Tridon, but one involuntarily recoiled from him.

Curiously enough, this very Theophile Ferre, whom I then saw for the
first time, had been the subject of a conversation I had with Gil-Peres,
the actor of the Palais-Royal, on the 25th or 26th of March. I had known
Gil-Peres from the moment he made his mark in "La Dame aux Camelias" as
Gaudens. To my great surprise, a day or two after the proclamation of
the Commune, I heard that he had been cruelly maltreated in the Rue
Drouot, that he had narrowly escaped being killed. Two days later, I
paid him a visit in his lodgings at Montmartre; for he had been
severely, though not dangerously hurt, and was unable to leave his bed.

"I am very sorry for your mishap," I said; "but what, in Heaven's name,
induced you to meddle with politics?"

He burst out laughing, in that peculiar laugh of his which I have never
heard before or since, on or off the stage. The nearest approach to it
was that of Grassot, but the latter's was like a discharge of artillery,
while Gil-Peres was like that of a musketry volley.

"I did not meddle with politics," he replied; "but you