"The Working-men carried to the hospitals are poisoned, because the number of patients is too great; every night, Boats filled with corpses, drop down the Seine.
"Vengeance and Death to the murderers of the People!"
Two men, enveloped in cloaks, and half-hidden in the deep shadow of the vault, were listening with anxious curiosity to the threatening murmur, which rose with increasing force from among a tumultuous assembly, grouped around the Hospital. Soon, cries of "Death to the doctors!—Vengeance!" reached the ears of the persons who were in ambush under the arch.
"The posters are working," said one; "the train is on fire. When once the populace is roused, we can set them on whom we please."
"I say," replied the other man, "look over there. That Hercules, whose athletic form towers above the mob, was cue of the most frantic leaders when M. Hardy's factory was destroyed."
"To be sure he was; I know him again. Wherever mischief is to be done, you are sure to find those vagabonds.
"Now, take my advice, do not let us remain under this archway," said the other man; "the wind is as cold as ice, and though I am cased in flannel—"
"You are right, the cholera is confoundedly impolite. Besides, everything is going on well here; I am likewise assured that the whole of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine is ready to rise in the republican cause; that will serve our ends, and our holy religion will triumph over revolutionary impiety. Let us rejoin Father d'Aigrigny."
"Where shall we find him?"
"Near here, come—come."