LA SOURIS MEETS HIS MATCH
CHAPTER XV
LA SOURIS MEETS HIS MATCH
A month and a half had passed. Jean regularly attended the meetings of the Brotherhood, and in all that company there was no more active and enthusiastic worker than this youngest member of the league. By the middle of March many things had been accomplished and the rough details of the plot were nearing perfection.
In the first place, the Surgeon Saintanac had at last discovered a child suffering with a hopeless, incurable disease, and as like the little prince as could be wished in one so near death. The problem of smuggling him into the Tower was to be solved in this way. When Citizeness Clouet came with a basket of clean linen, the sick child was to be concealed at the bottom. The day chosen for this must of course be one when the municipals on duty were mostly those of the Brotherhood, and the examination of the basket could thus be intentionally hasty and incomplete. Then the child would be hidden in an upper lumber room, till a favourable opportunity to have him exchange places with the King.
This opportunity was not far away, for Laurent had intimated to some of the municipals that he was about to resign his position as keeper of the royal child. His mother had recently died, family affairs were pressing, and in spite of his real affection for the boy, he felt that he had done his duty and that the time had come for his removal. His successor, a man named Citizen Lasne, was a staunch Republican, but this did not worry the Brotherhood, since they planned that the false king should be exchanged for the real one before his arrival.
One other most important point had been gained by the society. Gomin had at last ceased his vacillating, and come out staunchly for the cause. Municipal Debièrne the toy-man, was responsible for this. Long and arduous had been his discussions, quiet and skilful his manipulations of the impressionable Gomin, till at length, inspired both by Debièrne's influence and his own very real sympathy for his pathetic little charge, he yielded. He was brought to the Brotherhood meeting, branded and sworn, and the cause was all but complete.