A furniture-dealer, of the Rue Moreau, inquired: “Well, when are you going to make the attack?”
Another shopkeeper said:—
“The attack will be made soon.”
“I know it. A month ago, there were fifteen thousand of you, now there are twenty-five thousand.” He offered his gun, and a neighbor offered a small pistol which he was willing to sell for seven francs.
Moreover, the revolutionary fever was growing. Not a point in Paris nor in France was exempt from it. The artery was beating everywhere. Like those membranes which arise from certain inflammations and form in the human body, the network of secret societies began to spread all over the country. From the associations of the Friends of the People, which was at the same time public and secret, sprang the Society of the Rights of Man, which also dated from one of the orders of the day: “Pluviôse, Year 40 of the republican era,” which was destined to survive even the mandate of the Court of Assizes which pronounced its dissolution, and which did not hesitate to bestow on