"What, Mule!" cried Populus with still greater scorn. "Where has he the power? Am I not the intendant? Is it not I who alone control the dues in my own person? Yes, gentlemen, who will deny that I hold, so to speak, the keys of heaven and earth in Grelot, and whom I bind shall be bound and whom I loose shall be loosed, notwithstanding the impotent cajolery of all the long-eared Mules in the kingdom?"
The whole population of the village were by this time gaping around him.
"What, you clapper-jawed thief," a voice thundered from behind, "you venture to malign my name—the honourable appellation of a respectable family! Know, sir, that I spit upon you, I strike you, I say bah to your face!"
Maître Mule was a little round-faced man, forced by his physical inferiority to Populus to take out his valour by word of mouth.
The two went at it with recriminations, from which Germain learnt much of his own affairs. The noise of the pair shouting and threatening to fight together, and the riotous cries of the crowd, "No dues!" "Notary, give us bread!" grew at length so great that the innkeeper rushed out exclaiming, "Peace, Messieurs, peace. I have a gentleman from Paris sleeping upstairs. See, there is the baker's shop just open."
The word "baker" operated better than magic. The rioters rushed over to the wicket, which was fixed in the door of the shop, and fought and snarled with each other for their slender purchases of the bread of famine.
Such were the daily incidents which were leading men on to revolution.
[CHAPTER XLIII]
BACK AT EAUX TRANQUILLES
Wrapping his cloak closely round him and lowering his hat to prevent recognition he mounted his horse in the courtyard of the inn and rode on.