The _citoyen_ Beauvisage, in his red cap, the badge of his office, put out his long arms in the attitude of a peacemaker, and addressing the porter and the joiner:
"A hundred _sols_," he announced, "to whichever of you will inform us where to find a suspect, wanted by the Committee of General Security, a _ci-devant_ named des Ilettes, a maker of dancing-dolls."
With one accord porter and carpenter designated Brotteaux's lodging, the only quarrel now between them being who should have the assignat for a hundred _sols_ promised the informer.
Delourmel, Guénot, and Beauvisage, followed by the four grenadiers, Remacle the porter, Dupont the carpenter, and a dozen little scamps of the neighbourhood filed up the stairs which shook under their tread, and finally mounted the ladder to the attics.
Brotteaux was in his garret busy cutting out his dancing figures, while the Père Longuemare sat facing him, stringing their scattered limbs on threads, smiling to himself to see rhythm and harmony thus growing under his fingers.
At the sound of muskets being grounded on the landing, the monk trembled in every limb, not that he was a whit less courageous than Brotteaux, who never moved a muscle, but the habit of respect for human conventions had never disciplined him to assume an attitude of self-composure. Brotteaux gathered from the _citoyen_ Delourmel's questions the quarter from which the blow had come and saw too late how unwise it is to confide in women. He obeyed the _citoyen_ Commissary's order to go with him, first picking up his Lucretius and his three shirts.
"The _citoyen_," he said, pointing to the Père Longuemare, "is an assistant I have taken to help me make my marionettes. His home is here."
But the monk failing to produce a certificate of citizenship, was put under arrest along with Brotteaux.
As the procession filed past the porter's door, the _citoyenne_ Remacle, leaning on her broom, looked at her lodger with the eyes of virtue beholding crime in the clutches of the law. Little Joséphine, dainty and disdainful, held back Mouton by his collar when the dog tried to fawn on the friend who had often given him a lump of sugar. A gaping crowd filled the Place de Thionville.