The church and the town hall adjoined. The player of the bassoon in the holy building was also janitor at the mayor's, so that he belonged under the secular and the clerical arm. Questioned by Mayor Longpre, he answered that Father Fortier had forbidden any retainer of the church to lend his aid to the funeral. The mayor asked where the keys were, and was told the beadle had them.
"Go and get the keys," said Billet to Pitou, who opened out his long compass-like legs and, having been gone five minutes, returned to say:
"Abbé Fortier had the keys taken to his house to be sure the church should not be opened."
"We must go straight to the priest for them," suggested Maniquet, the promoter of extreme measures.
"Let us go to the abbé's," cried the crowd.
"It would take too long," remarked Billet: "and when death knocks at a door, it does not like to wait."
He looked round him. Opposite the church, a house was being built. Some carpenters had been squaring a joist. Billet walked up and ran his arm round the beam, which rested on trestles. With one effort he raised it. But he had reckoned on absent strength. Under the great burden the giant reeled and it was thought for an instant that he would fall. It was but a flash; he recovered his balance and smiled terribly; and forward he walked, with the beam under his arm, with a firm step albeit slow.
He seemed one of those antique battering-rams with which the Caesars overthrow walls.
He planted himself, with legs set apart, before the door and the formidable machine began to work. The door was oak with iron fastenings; but at the third shove, bolts, bars and lock had flown off; the oaken panels yawned, too.
Billet let the beam drop. It took four men to carry it back to its place, and not easily.