This hatred was less induced by the violent scenes with which our readers are already familiar than by difference of race, an everlasting source of detestation, which, however mysterious it may at first appear, is easily explained.
Simon was hideous, Lorin handsome; Simon was vulgar, Lorin the very opposite; Simon was a Republican bully, Lorin one of those ardent patriots who had sacrificed everything to the Revolution; and then, if they had on a former occasion come to blows, Simon instinctively felt that the fist of the fop, no less effectually than that of Maurice, would have inflicted upon him a plebeian punishment.
Simon on perceiving Lorin, stopped short, and turned pale.
"It is still this battalion that mounts guard," growled he.
"Well," said a gendarme who overheard this apostrophe, "it is as good as another, it seems to me."
Simon drew a pencil from his pocket, and pretended to note down something on a piece of paper almost as black as his hands.
"Ah!" said Lorin, "you know how to write then, Simon, since you are tutor to young Capet? Look, citizens, upon my honor he takes notes; he is Simon the Censor."
A universal shout of laughter proceeded from the ranks of the young National Guards, almost all men of education, at the ridiculous title bestowed upon the wretched cobbler.
"Very well, very well," said he, grinding his teeth, and turning white with rage; "they say you have permitted strangers to enter the keep, and that without the consent of the Commune. Very well, I am going to draw out the procès-verbal by the municipal."
"He at least knows how to write," said Lorin; "it is Maurice, Maurice with the Iron Hand; don't you know him?"