"You who know the hussars of the Guard,
Don't you know the trombone of the regiment?"

"I say, Marie! he's going a queer way to get to Conches, that friend
of yours," cried old Mother Tonsard to her granddaughter.

"He's after Aglae!" said Marie, who made one bound to the door. "I'll
have to thrash her once for all, that baggage!" she cried, viciously.

"Come, Vaudoyer," said Tonsard, "go and see Rigou, and then we shall
know what to do; he's our oracle, and his spittle doesn't cost
anything."

"Another folly!" said Jean-Louis, in a low voice, "Rigou betrays
everybody; Annette tells me so; she says he's more dangerous when he
listens to you than other folks are when they bluster."

"I advise you to be cautious," said Langlume. "The general has gone to
the prefecture about your misdeeds, and Sibilet tells me he has sworn
an oath to go to Paris and see the Chancellor of France and the King
himself, and the whole pack of them if necessary, to get the better of
his peasantry."

"His peasantry!" shouted every one.

"Ha, ha! so we don't belong to ourselves any longer?"

As Tonsard asked the question, Vaudoyer left the house to see Rigou.

Langlume, who had already gone out, turned on the door-step, and