This key clearly signified that he must take up arms.

So he turned away again, unable to comprehend why his wife had prevented him from going upstairs, and imagining the most horrible things.
He now went straight to Roudier, whom he found dressed and ready to march, but completely ignorant of the events of the night.

Roudier lived at the far end of the new town, as in a desert, whither no tidings of the insurgents' movements had penetrated.

Pierre, however, proposed to him that they should go to Granoux, whose house stood on one of the corners of the Place des Recollets, and under whose windows the insurgent contingents must have passed.

The municipal councillor's servant remained for a long time parleying before consenting to admit them, and they heard poor Granoux calling from the first floor in a trembling voice: "Don't open the door, Catherine! The streets are full of bandits." He was in his bedroom, in the dark.