brandishing his formidable bar, followed by a motley mass, armed with sticks and stones.  Their heads still warmed by their recent libations of brandy, they had now attained a frightful state of frenzy.  Their countenances were ferocious, inflamed, terrible.  This unchaining of the worst passions seemed to forbode the most deplorable consequences.  Holding each other arm-in-arm, and walking four or five together, the Wolves gave vent to their excitement in war-songs, which closed with the following verse: 

“Forward! full of assurance!  Let us try our vigorous arms!  They have wearied out our prudence; Let us show we’ve no alarms.  Sprung from a monarch glorious,[28] To-day we’ll not grow pale, Whether we win the fight, or fail, Whether we die, or are victorious!  Children of Solomon, mighty king, All your efforts together bring, Till in triumph we shall sing!”

Morok and Jacques had disappeared whilst the tumultuous troop were leaving the tavern to hasten to the factory.

[27] Let it be noted, to the working-man’s credit, that such outrageous scenes become more and more rare as he is enlightened to the full consciousness of his worth.  Such better tendencies are to be attributed to the just influence of an excellent tract on trades’ union written by M. Agricole Perdignier, and published in 1841, Paris.  This author, a joiner, founded at his own expense an establishment in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where some forty or fifty of his trade lodged, and were given, after the day’s work, a course of geometry, etc., applied to wood carving.  We went to one of the lectures, and found as much clearness in the professor as attention and intelligence in the audience.  At ten, after reading selections, all the lodgers retire, forced by their scanty wages to sleep, perhaps, four in a room.  M. Perdignier informed us that study and instruction were such powerful ameliorators, that, during six years, he had only one of his lodgers to expel.  “In a few days,” he remarked, “the bad eggs find out, this is no place for them to addle sound ones!” We are happy to hear, reader, public homage to a learned and upright man, devoted to his fellow-workmen.

[28] The Wolves (among others) ascribe the institution of their company to King Solomon.  See the curious work by M. Agricole Perdignier, from which the war-song is extracted.

CHAPTER L.

THE COMMON DWELLING-HOUSE

Whilst the Wolves, as we have just seen, prepared a savage attack on the Devourers, the factory of M. Hardy had that morning a festal air, perfectly in accordance with the serenity of the sky; for the wind was from the north, and pretty sharp for a fine day in March.  The clock had just struck nine in the Common Dwelling-house of the workmen, separated from the workshops by a broad path planted with trees.  The rising sun bathed in light this imposing mass of buildings, situated a league from Paris, in a gay