Simonian, had brought him up in the doctrines of that belief. While
retaining due respect for it, however, his personal inclinations towards
orderliness and religion had led him to espouse the ideas of Fourier, in
such wise that one found in him a succession and an abridgment, so to
say, of two doctrines. Moreover, when he was about thirty, he had busied
himself with spiritualism. Possessed of a comfortable little fortune, his
only adventure in life had been his connection with the Paris Commune of
1871. How or why he had become a member of it he could now scarcely tell.
Condemned to death by default, although he had sat among the Moderates,
he had resided in Belgium until the amnesty; and since then Neuilly had
elected him as its representative on the Paris Municipal Council, less by
way of glorifying in him a victim of reaction than as a reward for his
worthiness, for he was really esteemed by the whole district.

Guillaume, with his desire for tidings, was obliged to confide in his two
visitors, tell them of the explosion and Salvat's flight, and how he
himself had been wounded while seeking to extinguish the match. Janzen,
with curly beard and hair, and a thin, fair face such as painters often
attribute to the Christ, listened coldly, as was his wont, and at last
said slowly in a gentle voice: "Ah! so it was Salvat! I thought it might
be little Mathis--I'm surprised that it should be Salvat--for he hadn't
made up his mind." Then, as Guillaume anxiously inquired if he thought
that Salvat would speak out, he began to protest: "Oh! no; oh! no."

However, he corrected himself with a gleam of disdain in his clear, harsh
eyes: "After all, there's no telling. Salvat is a man of sentiment."

Then Bache, who was quite upset by the news of the explosion, tried to
think how his friend Guillaume, to whom he was much attached, might be
extricated from any charge of complicity should he be denounced. And