“M. le Maire has this evening gone to Paris?” continued the teacher, with composure. “Yes, I witnessed his departure, since I had the honour to receive M. le Comte’s instructions,” answered the functionary, in more immovable certainty than before. “I was aware of it,” said Morin, mildly, “because this morning, through the intendant of his estate, M. le Comte condescended to inform me of it.” “Ah, you were informed of it, M. Morin!” said the gendarme, with a slight air of surprise, putting his thumb to his chin, and looking somewhat cautious. “Well?” “And M. le Comte will not only be in Paris to-night,” said the schoolmaster, “but to-morrow also, since he has affairs of more importance to transact. Therefore it would be necessary to convey Monsieur the young Englishman to the commissary at Marly.” “Peste! I did not know that though!” ejaculated the gendarme, letting fall his hand. “But you are right. It is only to the commissary at Marly, then, that we can resort.” And grim indifference returned to the faces of the gendarmes, as they shrugged their shoulders. “But it was exactly to see M. le Comte that I was about to proceed, when disabled,” continued Pierre Morin, modestly, while he indicated his misfortune by a slight movement of the leg. The gendarmes stared at each other half incredulously. “Eh? Père Pierre?” interrupted two or three voices; and the rough workman shouldered in, turning a dully suspicious glance from his begrimed visage to Morin’s, and adding, “It was to the Cloobbe Breton—the Palais Royal, I thought?” “To disconcert a plot?” exclaimed several others. “By a plan?” was the vivacious chorus of many together. The young schoolmaster bowed. “Certainly, M. Jacques,” he said, with an unruffled smile, to the workmen, “since, thanks to the designs of some relatives, it is to the club that M. le Comte would have gone to-night as an auditor. He is still young—his ideas, though philosophical, are timid—it happens that he would have heard our boldest and least elegant orators, who watch with such a noble jealousy the division which is prolonged in the States-General by the privileged orders. I have studied the character of M. le Comte—he would have been deterred—his eloquence as our deputy to the Third Estate would not only have disgraced us at Charlemont here, but have given force to the opinions of others who would ruin all. There was, in short, a diabolical snare spread for him.” An indignant murmur ran through the crowd, as they glanced to each other in alarm. The gendarmes rather appeared puzzled. “_Ah dâme!_” broke out the superior of the two; “but how is it that _you_ are acquainted with all this, M. le Maitre-d’école?”