“I do think so,” replied Chassons des Aigues.
“I do not think so,” said Henri Léon. “You know Citizen Bissolo—since it was you who nearly brained him on the fourteenth of July at the review—I know him too. One night, on the boulevard, during a demonstration following the election of the deplorable Loubet, Citizen Bissolo came to me as the most constant and most generous of his enemies. We exchanged a few words. All our paid roughs were shouting at the top of their voices. Shouts of ‘Hurrah for the Army!’ resounded from the Bastille to the Madeleine. Smiling and amused, the passers-by were on our side. Bissolo stretched out his long hunchback’s arm like a scythe in the direction of the crowd and remarked: ‘I know the jade. Mount her, and she’ll break your back by suddenly lying down when you aren’t expecting it.’ Those were the words of Citizen Bissolo as we stood at the corner of the Rue Drouot on the day when Paris offered herself to us.”
“But this Bissolo of yours is a rogue,” cried Joseph Lacrisse. “He insults the people.”
“He is a prophet,” replied Henri Léon.
Young Jacques de Cadde chanted, in his thick voice:
“Blow the trumpet! It’s the only way!”
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note:
Punctuation has been standardised. Punctuation, spelling and accents have been retained as in the original publication, except as follows: