Half-a-dozen orators were speaking at once, and no one was listening to
them. Here and there amidst the rabble a voice was raised at times with
suspicious persistence.

"_Vive le Roi!_" it cried. "Long live the King!"

A few took up the refrain, but the general tone was negative. It was not
so much a question of upholding anything as of throwing down that which
was already up.

"Down with the Republic!" was the favourite cry. "Down with the
President! Down with everything!"

And each man cried down his favourite enemy.

The Citizen Morot listened, and his contemptuous mouth was twisted with
a delicate, subtle smile.

"Ah!" he muttered. "The voice of the people. The howling of the wolves.
Go on, go on, my braves. Cry 'Long live the King,' and soon you will
begin to believe that you mean it. They are barking now. Let them bark.
Soon we shall teach them to bite, and then--then, who knows?"

His voice dropped almost to a whisper, and he stood there amidst the din
and hubbub--dreaming. At last he raised his hand to his forehead--a
prominent, rounded forehead, flat as the palm of one's hand from eyebrow
to eyebrow, and curving at either side, sharply, back to deep-sunken
temples.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, with a little laugh; and he drew from an inner