they will follow
me."

"And could you count on fifty resolute men, good, unemployed, but active
souls, brawlers, capable of bringing down the walls of the Palais Royal
by crying, 'Down with Mazarin,' as fell those at Jericho?"

"I think," said the beggar, "I can undertake things more difficult and
more important than that."

"Ah, ah," said Gondy, "you will undertake, then, some night, to throw up
some ten barricades?"

"I will undertake to throw up fifty, and when the day comes, to defend
them."

"I'faith!" exclaimed Gondy, "you speak with a certainty that gives me
pleasure; and since monsieur le cure can answer for you----"

"I answer for him," said the curate.

"Here is a bag containing five hundred pistoles in gold; make all your
arrangements, and tell me where I shall be able to find you this evening
at ten o'clock."

"It must be on some elevated place, whence a given signal may be seen in
every part of Paris."

"Shall I give you a line for the vicar of St. Jacques de la Boucherie?
he will let you into the rooms in his tower," said the curate.

"Capital," answered the mendicant.

"Then," said the coadjutor, "this evening, at ten o'clock, and if I am
pleased with you another bag of five hundred pistoles will be at your
disposal."

The eyes of the mendicant dashed with cupidity, but he quickly
suppressed his emotion.

"This evening, sir," he replied, "all will be ready."

46. The Tower of St. Jacques de la Boucherie.

At a quarter to six o'clock, Monsieur de Gondy, having finished his
business, returned to the archiepiscopal palace.

At six o'clock the curate of St. Merri was announced.

The coadjutor glanced rapidly behind and saw that he was followed by
another man. The curate then entered, followed by Planchet.

"Your holiness," said the curate, "here is the person of whom I had the
honor to speak to you."

Planchet saluted in the manner of one accustomed to fine houses.

"And you are disposed to serve the cause of the people?" asked Gondy.

"Most undoubtedly," said Planchet. "I am a Frondist from my heart. You
see in me, such as I am, a person sentenced to be hung."

"And on what account?"

"I rescued from the hands of Mazarin's police a noble lord whom they
were conducting back to the Bastile, where he had been for five years."

"Will you name him?"

"Oh, you know him well, my lord--it is Count de Rochefort."

"Ah! really, yes," said the coadjutor, "I have heard this af