They came upon one in the Place de l’Odeon, where Monsieur Tudesco could display his striking uniform to his own satisfaction.

“I am an engineer,” he announced, when he was seated with his bitter before him, “an engineer in the service of the Commune, with the rank of Colonel.”

Jean thought it mighty strange all the same.  No doubt he had heard his old tutor’s tales about his confabulations at the dram-shop with the leaders of the Commune, but it struck him as extraordinary that the Monsieur Tudesco he knew should have blossomed into an engineer and Colonel under any circumstances.  But there was the fact.  Monsieur Tudesco manifested no surprise, not he!

“Science!” he boasted, “science is everything!  It’s study does it!  Knowledge is power!  To vanquish the myrmidons of despotism, we must have science.  That is why I am an engineer with the rank of Colonel.”

And Monsieur Tudesco went on to relate how he was charged with very special duties—­to discover the underground passages which the instruments of tyranny had dug beneath the capital, tunnelling under the two branches of the Seine, for the transport of munitions of war.  At the head of a gang of navvies, he inspected the palaces, hospitals, barracks and religious houses, breaking up cellars and staving in drain-pipes.  Science! science is everything!  He also inspected the crypts of churches, to unearth traces of the priests’ lubricity.  Knowledge is power!

After the bitter came absinthe, and Colonel Tudesco proposed for Servien’s consideration a lucrative post at the Delegacy for Foreign Affairs.

But Jean shook his head.  He felt tired and had lost all heart.

“I see what it is,” cried the Colonel, patting him on the shoulder; “you are young and in love.  There are two spirits breathe their inspiration alternately in the ear of mankind—­Love and Ambition.  Love speaks the first; and you are still hearkening to his voice, my young friend.”

Jean, who had drunk his share of absinthe, confessed that he was deeper in love than ever and that he was jealous.  He related the episode of the staircase and inveighed bitterly against Monsieur Bargemont.  Nor did he fail to identify his case with the good of the Commune, by making out Gabrielle’s lover to be a Bonapartist and an enemy of the people.

Colonel Tudesco drew a note-book from his pocket, inscribed Bargemont’s name and address in it, and cried: 

“If the man has not fled like a poltroon, we will make a hostage of him!  I am the friend of the Citizen Delegate in charge of the Prefecture of Police, and I say it:  you shall be avenged on the infamous Bargemont!  Have you read the decree concerning hostages?  No?  Read it then; it is an inimitable monument of the wisdom of the people.

“I tear myself regretfully from your company, my young friend.  But I must be gone to discover an underground passage the Sisters of Marie-Joseph, in their contumacy, have driven right from the Prison of Saint-Lazare to the Mother Convent in the village of Argenteuil.  It is a long tunnel by which they communicate with the traitors at Versailles.  Come and see me in my quarters at the General Staff, in the Place Vendome.  Farewell and fraternal greeting!”