At this moment the horse of a lancer in the National Guard, who was passing, fell. Gavroche laid his pistol on the pavement, helped the man up, and then helped to raise the horse, after which he picked up his pistol and went his way again. In the Rue de Thorigny all was peace and silence; and this apathy, peculiar to the Marais, contrasted with the vast surrounding turmoil. Four gossips were conversing on the step of a door; Scotland has trios of witches, but Paris has quartettes of gossips, and the "Thou shalt be king" would be as lugubriously cast at Bonaparte at the Baudoyer crossway, as to Macbeth on the Highland heath,--it would be much the same croak. The gossips in the Rue Thorigny only troubled themselves about their own affairs; they were three portresses, and a rag-picker with her dorser and her hook. They seemed to be standing all four at the four corners of old age, which are decay, decrepitude, ruin, and sorrow. The rag-picker was humble, for in this open-air world the rag-picker bows, and the portress protects. The things thrown into the street are fat and lean, according to the fancy of the person who makes the pile, and there may be kindness in the broom. This rag-picker was grateful, and she smiled,--what a smile!--at the three portresses. They were making remarks like the following,-- "So your cat is as ill-tempered as ever?" "Well, good gracious! you know that cats are naturally the enemy of dogs. It's the dogs that complain." "And people too." "And yet cats' fleas do not run after people." "Dogs are really dangerous. I remember one year when there were so many dogs that they were obliged to put it in the papers. It was at that time when there were large sheep at the Tuileries to drag the little carriage of the King of Rome. Do you remember the King of Rome?" "I preferred the Duc de Bordeaux." "Well, I know Louis XVII., and I prefer him." "How dear meat is, Mame Patagon!" "Oh, dont talk about it! Butcher's meat is a horror,--a horrible horror. It is only possible to buy bones now." Here the rag-picker interposed,-- "Ladies, trade does not go on well at all, and the rubbish is abominable. People do not throw away anything now, but eat it all." "There are poorer folk than you, Vargoulême." "Ah, that's true," the rag-picker replied deferentially, "for I have a profession." There was a pause, and the rag-picker, yielding to that need of display which is at the bottom of the human heart, added,-- "When I go home in the morning I empty out my basket and sort the articles; that makes piles in my room. I put the rags in a box, the cabbage-stalks in a tub, the pieces of linen in my cupboard, the woollen rags in my chest of drawers, old papers on the corner of the window, things good to eat in my porringer, pieces of glass in the fire-place, old shoes behind the door, and bones under my bed." Gavroche had stopped, and was listening. "Aged dames," he said, "what right have you to talk politics?"