M. Folgat had not walked down half the street, when he became aware that something extraordinary must really have happened. The whole town was in uproar. People stood at their doors, talking. Groups here and there were engaged in lively discussions.
Hastening his steps, he was just turning into National Street, when he was stopped by three or four gentlemen, whose acquaintance he had, in some way or other, been forced to make since he was at Sauveterre.
“Well, sir?” said one of these amiable friends, “your client, it seems, is running about nicely.”
“I do not understand,” replied M. Folgat in a tone of ice.
“Why? Don’t you know your client has run off?”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“Certainly. The wife of a workman whom I employ was the person through whom the escape became known. She had gone on the old ramparts to cut grass there for her goat; and, when she came to the prison wall, she saw a big hole had been made there. She gave at once the alarm; the guard came up; and they reported the matter immediately to the commonwealth attorney.”
For M. Folgat the evidence was not satisfactory yet. He asked,—
“Well? And M. de Boiscoran?”
“Cannot be found. Ah, I tell you, it is just as I say. I know it from a friend who heard it from a clerk at the mayor’s office. Blangin the jailer, they say, is seriously implicated.”