people daring to molest him; I dare wager, I repeat, that whoever
has the audacity to tell the story will be branded as an infamous
liar."

And the young man, throwing himself back in his chair, burst
into laughter, so aggressive, so nervous, that every one gazed
at him in wonderment, while his companion's eyes expressed an
almost paternal anxiety.

"Sir," said citizen Alfred de Barjols, who, moved like the others
by this singular outburst, more sad, or rather dolorous, than
gay, had waited for its last echo to subside. "Sir, permit me
to point out to you that the man whom you have just seen is not
a highwayman."

"Bah! Frankly, what is he then?"

"He is in all probability a young man of as good a family as yours
or mine."

"Count Horn, whom the Regent ordered broken on the wheel at the
Place de Greve, was also a man of good family, and the proof
is that all the nobility of Paris sent their carriages to his
execution."

"Count Horn, if I remember rightly, murdered a Jew to steal a
note of hand which he was unable to meet. No one would dare assert
that a Companion of Jehu had ever so much as harmed the hair of
an infant."