First of all she came upon the opening chapters of the work on Cayenne; then upon the drafts of Florent’s various plans and projects, his schemes for converting the Octroi duties into taxes upon sales, for reforming the administrative system of the markets, and all the others.  These pages of small writing, which she set herself to read, bored her extremely, and she was about to restore the drawer to its place, feeling convinced that Florent concealed the proofs of his wicked designs elsewhere, and already contemplating a searching visitation of his mattress, when she discovered a photograph of La Normande in an envelope.  The impression was rather dark.  La Normande was standing up with her right arm resting on a broken column.  Decked out with all her jewels, and attired in a new silk dress, the fish-girl was smiling impudently, and Lisa, at the sight, forgot all about her brother-in-law, her fears, and the purpose for which she had come into the room.  She became quite absorbed in her examination of the portrait, as often happens when one woman scrutinises the photograph of another at her ease, without fear of being seen.  Never before had she so favourable an opportunity to study her rival.  She scrutinised her hair, her nose, her mouth; held the photograph at a distance, and then brought it closer again.  And, finally, with compressed lips, she read on the back of it, in a big, ugly scrawl:  “Louise, to her friend, Florent.”  This quite scandalised her; to her mind it was a confession, and she felt a strong impulse to take possession of the photograph, and keep it as a weapon against her enemy.  However, she slowly replaced it in the envelope on coming to the conclusion that this course would be wrong, and reflecting that she would always know where to find it should she want it again.

Then, as she again began turning over the loose sheets of paper, it occurred to her to look at the back end of the drawer, where Florent had relegated Augustine’s needles and thread; and there, between the missal and the Dream-book, she discovered what she sought, some extremely compromising memoranda, simply screened from observation by a wrapper of grey paper.

That idea of an insurrection, of the overthrow of the Empire by means of an armed rising, which Logre had one evening propounded at Monsieur Lebigre’s, had slowly ripened in Florent’s feverish brain.  He soon grew to see a duty, a mission in it.  Therein undoubtedly lay the task to which his escape from Cayenne and his return to Paris predestined him.  Believing in a call to avenge his leanness upon the city which wallowed in food while the upholders of right and equity were racked by hunger in exile, he took upon himself the duties of a justiciary, and dreamt of rising up, even in the midst of those markets, to sweep away the reign of gluttony and drunkenness.  In a sensitive nature like his, this idea quickly took root.  Everything about him assumed exaggerated proportions, the wildest fancies possessed him.