The police was very badly organized, moreover, because there was no love lost between the Prefect and the Mayor, who sought to injure each other by making things happen. It behooved wise people to play the part of their own police, and to guard themselves well, and care must be taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and to fasten the doors well.
Madame Magloire emphasized these last words; but the Bishop had just come from his room, where it was rather cold.
He seated himself in front of the fire, and warmed himself, and then fell to thinking of other things.
He did not take up the remark dropped with design by Madame Magloire.
She repeated it.
Then Mademoiselle Baptistine, desirous of satisfying Madame Magloire without displeasing her brother, ventured to say timidly:--
"Did you hear what Madame Magloire is saying, brother?"
"I have heard something of it in a vague way," replied the Bishop. Then half-turning in his chair, placing his hands on his knees, and raising towards the old servant woman his cordial face, which so easily grew joyous, and which was illuminated from below by the firelight,--"Come, what is the matter?
What is the matter? Are we in any great danger?"
Then Madame Magloire began the whole story afresh, exaggerating it a little without being aware of the fact.
It appeared that a Bohemian, a bare-footed vagabond, a sort of dangerous mendicant, was at that moment in the town.
He had presented himself at Jacquin Labarre's to obtain lodgings, but the latter had not been willing to take him in.
He had been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi and roam about the streets in the gloaming. A gallows-bird with a terrible face.
"Really!" said the Bishop.
This willingness to interrogate encouraged Madame Magloire; it seemed to her to indicate that the Bishop was on the point of becoming alarmed; she pursued triumphantly:--
"Yes, Monseigneur.
That is how it is.
There will be some sort of catastrophe in this town to-night. Every one says so.
And withal, the police is so badly regulated" (a useful repetition). "The idea of living in a mountainous country, and not even having lights in the streets at night!
One goes out.