"Keep your eyes and ears open, child," Madame la Marquise had said to her, when she at last expressed reluctant approval of her niece's plan to visit the ogre in his lair. "We hear many rumours of discontent at the works--of insubordination--of open revolt. It would serve an abominable democrat like my son Ronnay right, if the proletariat which he upholds against his own traditions and his own caste were to turn against him now as they turned against us in '89. Keep your eyes and ears open, Fernande; the discontent of which we hear may prove a splendid card in our hands." Fernande had not altogether understood what Madame la Marquise was driving at. "Of what use can discontent among M. de Maurel's workmen be to us?" she had asked, wondering. "If they were to turn against their master, my dear," quoth Madame dryly. "Oh!" "And rally round to us...." "Do you think it likely, _ma tante_?" "More than likely. Laurent and your father and I have a plan ..." said Madame with some hesitation; "we have put it before de Puisaye and our other leaders.... I can't speak of it just yet, child," she added somewhat impatiently, "but it is most important that you should keep your eyes and ears open to-day. We must reckon, remember, that King Mob, in whose name these execrable revolutionists have murdered their King and hundreds of innocent men, women and children, has felt the power of his own will. He has tasted the sweets of open revolt against constituted authority, and he has been given a free hand to murder, to pillage and to outrage. He is not likely to be so easily curbed again; he will rebel as he has rebelled before. His so-called Emperor has placed an iron heel upon his neck ... and Ronnay de Maurel and his like think that they can quench the flame of lawlessness which they themselves have kindled. Bah! methinks that it is King Mob who will avenge us all one day, by turning against the hands that first led him to strike against imaginary tyrants, and then forged the chains that made a slave of him." And Fernande de Courson, as she wandered through the workshops of La Frontenay, thought of Madame la Marquise's impassioned tirade. How little revolt was there in these ordered places wherein men toiled and sweated in order that the Emperor might have all the cannons and powder he wanted wherewith to conquer the enemies of France! Here were no murmurings, no rebellion over authority; every man knew, as de Maurel passed him by and gave a look to the work in hand, that here was the master whose word and will must be law if all the toil, the patriotism, the enthusiasm which went to the making of these "mouths of fire" were to prove useful to the State.