In another, a Norman horse-dealer talked in low whispers with two thieves.

In a third, a gold- wire drawer addressed an admiring group from the Sorbonne; and meantime the middle of the floor grew into a seething mass of muttering, scowling men, through whom the last comers, thrust as they might, had much ado to force their way.
And from all under the low ceiling rose a ceaseless hum, though none spoke loud.

"Kill! kill! kill!" was the burden; the accompaniment such profanities and blasphemies as had long disgraced the Paris pulpits, and day by day had fanned the bigotry--already at a white heat--of the Parisian populace.

Tignonville turned sick as he listened, and would fain have closed his ears.

But for his life he dared not.