CHAPTER XXIX.
A CONSPIRACY.
When Francine found herself in the power of these scoundrels she fainted away, and these men carried her over their shoulders as if she had been a bag of flour, perfectly indifferent to her beauty.
Robeccal suddenly bade them halt. They had reached the vile place known as the Cour de Bretagne, a part of Paris known for its poverty and vice.
"I think it is about time!" grumbled one of Robeccal's men in reply.
"Oh! I suppose you thought you were to be paid for nothing, did you?"
Without heeding the growling of these fellows, Robeccal stepped up to a door and knocked. It was opened by a person who stood back in the shadow, and a hurried conversation took place. Satisfied apparently with what he heard, Robeccal bade his men follow him. They went to Belleville, which at that time was an excessively pretty place, as almost all the houses of any pretension had gardens and grounds. Robeccal had been extremely adroit in diverting suspicion and the observation of the people they encountered. He now knocked at a door in a wall half hidden by overhanging ivy.
"Who is there?" called a woman's voice.