At this she confessed everything:
"I tore out my cockade and shouted: 'Vive le roi!'"
He walked down to the river-side and she kept by his side along the deserted quais. Clinging to his arm she went on:
"It is not that I care for him particularly, the King, you know; I never knew him, and I daresay he wasn't very much different from other men. But they are bad people. They are cruel to poor girls. They torment and vex and abuse me in every kind of way; they want to stop me following my trade. I have no other trade. You may be sure, if I had, I should not be doing what I do.... What is it they want? They are so hard on poor humble folks, the milkman, the charcoalman, the water carrier, the laundress. They won't rest content till they've set all poor people against them."
He looked at her; she seemed a mere child. She was no longer afraid; she was almost smiling, as she limped along lightly at his side. He asked her her name. She said she was called Athenaïs and was sixteen.
Brotteaux offered to see her safe to anywhere she wished to go. She did not know a soul in Paris; but she had an aunt, in service at Palaiseau, who would take her in.
Brotteaux made up his mind at once.
"Come with me, my child," he ordered, and led the way home, with her hanging on his arm.
On his arrival, he found the Père Longuemare in the garret reading his breviary.
Holding Athenaïs by the hand, he drew the other's attention to her: