“Ah! it is very, very good food for the poor, without doubt,” he declared, while in full view of the court party, and with his mouth stuffed with a compound which had just been taken from a puddle underfoot. “Very fine nourishment for a good king to buy dear, and give away to a hungry people.—Ah! no more,—no more, I pray you! I shall presently dine, and it is enough. I cannot praise it more than I have done.—Ah! but” (seeing the duke frowning) “I do not say but it may be a little sour,—and somewhat bitter,—yes, O yes, and gritty,—and, O do not murder me, and I will also say hurtful.—And poisonous? Yes, no doubt it is poisonous,—clearly poisonous.—But, how bountiful of the king to think of how the poor should be fed!”
The marquis might think himself fortunate in getting off with a ducking in the yeasty flood, into which he was let down astride on a flour sack. While sneaking away through the crowd, after shaking his dripping queue, and drawing a long breath, he encountered Charles, whom he immediately recognised, and with inconsiderate selfishness, exposed to the notice of the crowd by his appeal.
“Ah, my friend, here is a condition I am in! For our old friendship’s sake,—for the sake of our vicinity in Guienne, aid me!”
“Do not answer him. Take no notice,” whispered Maigrot from behind; “’tis as much as your life is worth.”
But Charles could not be inhuman. He gave the old man his arm to conduct him to the carriage which he intended to order to his own house. Before he had well turned his back, however, a piercing shriek from Julien made him look round. The mob were about to carry the boy towards the sacks.
“Do not be alarmed, my dear,” said he. “Taste the flour, and say whether you think it good; and I will come to you in a moment to do the same.”
Julien shrieked no more, but he looked ruefully in his father’s face, when Charles returned. As soon as he had gulped down his share and could speak, he said he had never tasted raw flour before, but it was not so good as the hot cakes that were made of it sometimes.—The boy escaped with being only laughed at.—His father’s turn came next.
Charles stipulated, when laid hold of, to be allowed to feed himself, and refused laughingly to taste what came out of the puddle till his neighbours should have separated the mud from the flour. With a very oracular look, he then proceeded from sack to sack, tasting and pronouncing, apparently unmoved by the speculations he heard going on all round him as to whether he was a royalist from about the court, or a spy from Versailles, or only an ignorant stranger from the provinces. When he had apparently made up his mind, he began a sort of conversation with those nearest to him, which he exalted by degrees into a speech.
“When I,” he observed, “I, the very first, opened a prisoner’s cell in the Bastille——”
He was interrupted by loud cheers from all who heard; and this drew the attention of more.