He then explained that, finding how invariably the worst excesses of the mob were to be traced to their being plied with drink, it had occurred to him to engage all the wine-merchants of Paris in an agreement to refuse, on some pretence or other, to sell wine or spirits to any but private gentlemen who wanted it for their own consumption. Some agreed, and others did not; and these latter, when they had sold all their stock, and could, from the scarcity, get no more, had maliciously whispered in the mobs the secret with which they had been entrusted. One after another of the merchants, knowing the danger to which they were exposed, had fallen off from the agreement; and Charles, whose stock was the largest now remaining in the city, was left almost alone in his determination to refuse the means of intoxicating the mob. He was aware that his wine was longed for, and his life threatened. He could not remove his stock to a distance, for his premises were evidently watched by spies. He had reason to believe that, on the first occasion when the people were to be excited to an extraordinary act of violence, they were to be brought hither to burst open his stores, and be plied with brandy and wine. He did not choose to be thus made the means of promoting riot and murder, and determined on blowing up his stock, if matters came to extremity. On the first alarm of the approach of a mob, he should fire the train, and bring down the roof; making a pit of what was now level ground. Or, if he should be absent, Pierre knew how to do it. “But how?” asked Marguerite, with as much voice as she had left. “Must it not be fatal to the one who fires?” “I trust not,” he replied; “though, if it were, my purpose would stand. It is better to sacrifice one life thus, than to make murderous fiends of many thousands. But, look here, this is our contrivance.” And he showed her how a very small trap-door had been made of one of the stones in the pavement above, through which a light might be let down immediately upon the train, and from any distance, if the line were of sufficient length. “It is but little that a quiet citizen can do in times when men of a different make are sure to gain the ascendency,” observed Charles: “but no one is absolved from doing what he can. I am no orator to rouse the people to patriotism, or to soothe their madness; but here I have power in having something like a monopoly of the poison which helps to madden them; and it shall be kept from inflaming their brains, whether they tear me limb from limb, or compel me to drown myself in my own wine, or let me live till the days when they shall thank me for crossing their will.”