The seats were roughly knocked up in tiers and a wooden staircase led up them. Cagliostro made a sign and spoke a word to two who were sitting in the already filled seats and they got up to give them their places as if they had been sent before to keep them.
The place was ill lighted in the growing gloom but it was clear that these were the best sort of the revolutionists, while the uniforms of officers of the army and navy abounded. For the common brothers held their meetings in the crypt. Here the literati and artists were in the majority.
Casting a long look around, Gilbert was encouraged by seeing that most were not so very hostile to the royal cause.
“Whom do you see here hostile to royalty?” he inquired of his guide.
“In my eyes there are but two.”
“Oh, that is not many among four hundred men.”
“It is quite enough when one will be the slayer of Louis XVI. and the other his successor.”
“A future Brutus and a future Caesar here?” exclaimed the doctor starting.
“Oh, apostle with scales over your eyes,” said Cagliostro; “you shall not only see them but touch them. Which shall I commence with?”
“By the overthrower; I respect chronology: let us have Brutus first.”