The coat and vessels were displayed to her by her husband.

"Admiral," she said, "where do these come from?"

The chief seemed to recognise in her a personage equal to himself. He bowed and said--

"Madame, the _soleil_ and chalice were the Abbey of Pontcalec's, and were politely removed for safe-keeping by seven marines of the Galley-on-land."

"And this fine waistcoat?" said Madame, smiling.

"Was one of which the owner had no longer need," he said, looking at her.

"Indeed," she returned nonchalantly.

"It was a troublesome marquis who ventured home one night by a short cut. He was one of the fellows who does not believe in the necessity of a poor man living. He saw a fire of ours in the waste, and what does he do but ride up and over us. Luckily there is no blood on the waistcoat."

Madame's smile expanded. She looked the article over, picked the seed-pearls and lace with her little skinny hands, turned out the pockets, and inspected the flower-pattern of the silk.

Gougeon held the glittering _soleil_ fast in his hands. He could not keep his scowling eyes off it. Hache took up the bottle from the floor, and poured some wine into the chalice, whence he drank it off. Madame lifted the dress-coat, and inspected it with the same feminine closeness as the vest.

"It is a good package," remarked she.

"You have not seen all," vivaciously replied the Admiral, and diving his hand into the box he drew forth and opened the black kerchief of the cave of Fontainebleau. Gougeon's hand s.n.a.t.c.hed the watch of the Prince de Poix. Hache caught up the chalice, and executed a jig round the room while drinking it empty; and Madame arranged her neck to great self-satisfaction with Cyrene's necklace, while the Admiral told with no small exaggeration the story connected with the plunder.

"This brings us," he continued, "to the object of my coming. Bec, Caron, and la Tour, the three taken in the cave, are now in Paris imprisoned in the Little Chatelet. What can be done for them?"

"Nothing," answered Gougeon.

"Be still," enjoined his wife, flashing her eyes at him.

"Were it I, I would go to the galleys and get away just as I did before," exclaimed Hache.

"Hache, you have no head."

"Not so good as yours, wife Gougeon, I admit; but I escaped from the galleys."

"To force the guards is impossible," said she speculating. "Who are the witnesses?"

"I fear they are out of the question."

"Who are they?"

"The Prince de Poix."

"He will not appear in the matter. It is not like your provincial tribunals."

"Several gendarmes."

"They have their price."

"Granted; but another remains, a bad one."

"Who?"

"The aristocrat who fell into the cave. He is near us."

"His name?"

"Repentigny."

"I will do what I can. We shall see what the Galley is good for in Paris."

CHAPTER XV

THE BEGGARS' BALL

That evening there was a ball on the flat above. It was refreshingly democratic. The rag-pickers who lodged with Madame Gougeon and laid the foundation of her iron business, attended. Thither thronged the beggars, the knife-grinders, the old-bottle collectors of the neighbouring rookeries. The crookedest men of Paris, the most hideous women, the squalidest tatters were on hand. They whirled and jumped furiously in their unwashed feet; they became almost invisible in the clouds of dust; the odour sickened, the screeching and jumping deafened one. Bad, but maddening, wine was drunk in torrents. A man would kick his partner and the combatants tumble over each other in the midst of an applauding circle.

Who were these libels on women, these alleged men, these howling fiends?

They were a driblet of two hundred thousand such wretches who overran and menaced the city, a product of the dense illiteracy of the time.

Wife Gougeon entered with the Admiral. They pushed their way to a long table in the corner where some sots were gambling, and sitting down on one of the benches around it, she shouted a couple of words to the man nearest to her, who bolted off into the dust and returned with a red-nosed beggar.

"Motte," said she, leering, "are you now on the Versailles roads?"

"Always," he said sharply.

"Do your division watch Versailles?"

"Without ceasing."

"This is the Admiral."

"The great Admiral? Of the Galley?"

"Certainly."

"I salute you, Chief," he said, raising a ragged arm.

"Have some brandy, Green Cap," the Admiral returned, rapping loudly for drink, which was brought.

"We want," said Madame engagingly, "to find a hog called Repentigny at Versailles."

The man s.n.a.t.c.hed the bottle from the hand of the _garcon_, and pouring a gla.s.s off, greedily drank it before replying.