“Joachim,” said I, turning away from Gueurlu, “it is true a man does not amount to much all by himself, but get a lot of men together and it’s a different story; many a little makes a mickle, you know, and when the rich are all swept away and forgotten, with their lying epitaphs, down to the very names they are so proud of, then the hard-working people of Clamecy will be known as her real nobility. We must not have it said that we too were rascals.”
“Much I care!” said Gueurlu, but Calabre cried, “You are a pig-face! You care for nothing, but I am like Breugnon,—I do care what they say of me, and by St. Nicholas! the rich shall not have all the honor to themselves; high or low, there is not one of them worth our little fingers!”
This brought on a great dispute. Gueurlu persisted that our betters from the least to the greatest, from our own Duke up to the princes, did nothing but grab, and stuff their bellies with other folks’ dinners; and even laid hands on the King’s treasures as soon as the breath was out of his body;—that there was no use in talking about “honor” after that;—we might as well take a leaf out of their book.
Calabre said they were indeed a set of hogs, and that some day our Henry would come back from the tomb to make them disgorge, or else we would all rise ourselves, and cut their throats for them. But meanwhile, we were going to show them that there was more real honor in us than in the heart of what they call a nobleman.
“Hooray!” cried I; “you are with us then?”
“Yes, by the Mother of God! And Gueurlu is coming too.”
“No, he isn’t!”
“I tell you he is, or I’ll pitch him neck and crop into the river! Here we go, forward march! Out of my road, Wrigglers!”
He forced his way through the press, and we followed like a school of herrings. Most of the men we came up against now were so far gone in drink that there was no use in saying a word to them; anyhow, there is a time for everything, and we had got past the talking stage; there was nothing left to us but our fists; so as drunken men are safe all the world over, we just sat them down on the stones as gently as we could and went on.
By this time we had reached the warehouse gates, and could see the looters swarming all over Master Pierre Poullard’s house like ants. Some were ripping open chests and bales, bedizening themselves in stolen finery; others, with shrieks of laughter, were throwing everything breakable they could find out of the windows. The courtyard was full of wine barrels and frantic drinkers. I saw one man with his mouth to the bunghole, who having drunk till he could hold no more, rolled over on his back, the red stream still spattering in his face, and running away into little pools on the ground, where children were lapping up the wine, and mud with it.