While he was speaking I saw the white curtain of the glazed partition behind him move a little.  His young wife, uneasy, was peeping through at us.

“Ah! my God,” said I to him, “what we want is not the life of one man but the efforts of all.”

He was silent.  I continued,—­

“Listen to me, Auguste, you who are good and intelligent.  So, then, the Faubourgs of Paris—­which are heroes even when they err—­the Faubourgs of Paris, for a misunderstanding, for a question of salary wrongly construed, for a bad definition of socialism, rose in June, 1848, against the Assembly elected by themselves, against universal suffrage, against their own vote; and yet they will not rise in December, 1851, for Right, for the Law, for the People, for Liberty, for the Republic.  You say that there is perplexity, and that you do not understand; but, on the contrary, it was in June that all was obscure, and it is to-day that everything is clear!”

While I was saying these last words the door of the parlor was softly opened, and some one came in.  It was a young man, fair as Auguste, in an overcoat, and wearing a workman’s cap.  I started.  Auguste turned round and said to me, “You can trust him.”

The young man took off his cap, came close up to me, carefully turning his back on the glazed partition, and said to me in a low voice, “I know you well.  I was on the Boulevard du Temple to-day.  We asked you what we were to do; you said, ‘We must take up arms.’  Well, here they are!”

He thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and drew out two pistols.

Almost at the same moment the bell of the street door sounded.  He hurriedly put his pistols back into his pockets.  A man in a blouse came in, a workman of some fifty years.  This man, without looking at any one, without saying anything, threw down a piece of money on the counter.  Auguste took a small glass and filled it with brandy, the man drank it off, put down the glass upon the counter and went away.

When the door was shut:  “You see,” said Auguste to me, “they drink, they eat, they sleep, they think of nothing.  Such are they all!”

The other interrupted him impetuously:  “One man is not the People!”

And turning towards me,—­

“Citizen Victor Hugo, they will march forward.  If all do not march, some will march.  To tell the truth, it is perhaps not here that a beginning should be made, it is on the other side of the water.”

And suddenly checking himself,—­“After all, you probably do not know my name.”

He took a little pocket-book from his pocket, tore out a piece of paper, wrote on it his name, and gave it to me.  I regret having forgotten that name.  He was a working engineer.  In order not to compromise him, I burnt this paper with many others on the Saturday morning, when I was on the point of being arrested.

“It is true, sir,” said Auguste, “you must not judge badly of the Faubourg.  As my friend has said, it will perhaps not be the first to begin; but if there is a rising it will rise.”