CHAPTER XX.
The Cheval Borgne.
It was close upon midnight.
The place had become suffocatingly hot; the fumes of rank tobacco, of rancid butter, and of raw spirits hung like a vapour in mid-air.
The principal room in the "Auberge du Cheval Borgne" had been used for the past five years now as the chief meeting-place of the ultra-sansculotte party of the Republic.
The house itself was squalid and dirty, up one of those mean streets which, by their narrow way and shelving buildings, shut out sun, air, and light from their miserable inhabitants.
The Cheval Borgne was one of the most wretched-looking dwellings in this street of evil repute.

The plaster was cracked, the walls themselves seemed bulging outward, preparatory to a final collapse.

The ceilings were low, and supported by beams black with age and dirt.
At one time it had been celebrated for its vast cellarage, which had contained some rare old wines.

And in the days of the Grand Monarch young bucks were wont to quit the gay salons of the ladies, in order to repair to the Cheval Borgne for a night's carouse.
In those days the vast cellarage was witness of many a dark encounter, of many a mysterious death; could the slimy walls have told their own tale, it would have been one which would have put to shame the wildest chronicles of M.Vidoq.
Now it was no longer so.
Things were done in broad daylight on the Place de la Revolution: there was no need for dark, mysterious cellars, in which to accomplish deeds of murder and of revenge.
Rats and vermin of all sorts worked their way now in the underground portion of the building.

They ate up each other, and held their orgies in the cellars, whilst men did the same sort of thing in the rooms above.
It was a club of Equality and Fraternity.