In truth, as the letters of apartments were largely recruited from the _valetaille_ of _émigrés_, the need of caution in choosing amongst them was very real. M. le Marquis could not take flight in a panic without scattering some of his fine feathers--fortunately, indeed, for him sometimes, for they were as sops thrown to the pursuing wolves while he sped on. Then, down would grovel public accusers, police, and committee-men to snap at the fragments; and amongst them Bon-Jean, Monsieur’s _valet de pied_, would secure his share, perhaps, and set up house with it in one of the meaner faubourgs, and trade profitably therein upon the fears of his lodgers. Simon Mignard was the last who had the honour to entertain me; and to that horrible little grotesque did I owe my subsequent lodgment in La Petite Force. It was a bad choice, and, with my experience, an unpardonable; but I was taken with a certain humour in the creature that put me off my judgment. For generally, indeed, this faculty of humour I found to be antipathetic to revolution. It was to be looked upon as a mark of social degeneration. The brute “thrown back” to his primordial state is an animal that takes himself with the most laughterless gravity. He resumes himself corrupt, so to speak, as one resumes the endurance of office full of the rebellious grievance of a holiday. He returns to the primary indulgence of instinct with a debased appetite, and that sense of humour does not accompany him. This is why his prejudices have the force of convictions. “Citizen Simon,” I said one day, “I would put it to you--if revolutionists would reconstitute society by purging the world of the abnormal, should they not offer themselves the first holocausts to their theories?” “Hey?” he cried, peering over his glasses. His eye-slits were like half-healed wounds; his face was all covered with a grey down, as if he were some old vessel of wrath the Revolution had produced from its mustiest blood-bin in the cellars where its passions were formerly wont to ferment. “Hey?” he cried. “But explain, Citizen Thibaut.” “Why, obviously a primal simplicity cannot be taught by those who, by their own showing, are an essential condition of degeneration.” “You think so, my friend? But is it not he who has hunted with the wolves can best advise the lamb whither not to stray? Set a thief to catch a thief, but not innocence to lead innocence.” “We are all so disinterested, eh? We must kill to purify--so long as _we_ remain the executioners.” “The physicians! the physicians! Some day we shall provide the tonic.” “At this rate the physicians will have to drink it themselves.” “Meaning the patients will fail us? Rest content. They will last our time. The ills in the constitution of France are many. For the resurrection--_sang Dieu_!” he cried, with a wry face, “but that is no part of _our_ programme!”