At last he said:. I had the assurance lately of no less a personage than the great Couthon, Robespierre's bosom friend, that the Committee of Public Safety will never touch me while I carry on such important experiments. The sense of safety would add zest to your work and you would spare your daughter who loves you a cruel anxiety. She was such a pretty girl! But I will come with you, milor'! Therefore," he added, with a bashful little smile, "I will even ask you, milor', to excuse me.
The light is growing dim, and I. He stood up in the narrow, bare room, a giant in height and strength, looking down with that kindly, all-understanding glance of his on this tiny, wizened form of his friend.
He went to the window and stood for a few seconds looking down on the street below. Then he beckoned to the little man, who, compelled somewhat against his will, stepped down from his high stool, very much like a lean, long-legged stork getting off its perch. The Englishman was pointing to a group of men in the street and Rollin obediently looked down, too.
The men wore tattered military tunics and ragged breeches. Their bare feet were thrust into shoes stuffed up with straw; they wore the regulation caps adorned with soiled tri-colour cockades.
Two or three of them were leaning against the wall of the house opposite, the others stood desultorily about. He is a great man, is Citoyen Couthon, and these men are, I think, his bodyguard. He gave a light laugh and then a sigh. Obviously there was nothing more to be said. The old scientist was like a bewildered rabbit, anxious to get back to its burrow. But there was astonishing courage in that feeble body with a quiet philosophy which so gallant a sportsman as Sir Percy Blakeney could not fail to admire.
With a final hasty good-bye he left Professor Rollin to his tubes and retorts, and with a quick, firm step made his way out of the laboratory and then down several flights of stairs to a dark and disused cellar situated in the basement of the house. The house itself was one of those vast tenements, which for the past century and more had sprung up all over Paris.
It had its inevitable square courtyard, with a well in the centre and rows of iron balconies overlooking it from every floor. Hundreds of lodgers in various stages of poverty, mostly abject, dwelt in the tenements. Families of three or four, or sometimes as many as seven, were herded in single rooms.
At each of the four angles of the courtyard there was a staircase, dark, dank and unspeakably dirty, since it was no one's business to keep them clean. It was out of this rabbit warren that, an hour or two later, there stepped into the street an ugly, misshapen creature in ragged shirt and tattered breeches, wearing a knitted cap over a mop of unkempt and mouse-coloured hair. He hobbled along on one leg and a wooden stump, which he banged against the stairs as he came up from the basement where were situated the most squalid of all the apartments, some of them little more than unlit, unventilated cellars.
The group of men whom Professor Rollin had described as Couthon's bodyguard scarcely glance at him. Their attention appeared to be mostly taken up with a window on one of the upper floors, through which could be perceived the wizened figure of Professor Rollin, busy with his test-tubes and microscope.
The commissariat of police of the English Section was a low, narrow building sandwiched between a couple of taller houses in the narrow, ill-lit Rue Monge. It was not one of the busy commissariats of the city, because, being situated in so poor and squalid a quarter, there was not a great number of bourgeois and aristocrats to be hauled up before the commissary in the course of the day. True that once or twice proscribed aristos ahd been discovered lurking perdu in one of other of the tenement houses where only the poor congregate but, on the whole, the citizen commissary, by name Bossut, had mostly to deal with malefactors, night birds and suchlike, not bad enough to send to the guillotine, and thus obtain commendation for his zeal, or even promotion such as came in the way of colleagues who were able to make successful hauls of suspects and traitors.
Indeed, the citizen commissary felt distinctly depressed on this evening. He had sent a couple of pilferers to gaol, three young ruffians to the whipping-post and arrested a stupid old man named Rollin, who styled himself professor and spent his time playing about with glass tubes and instruments and all sorts of poisonous concoctions.
But, alas, nothing so far had come of this arrest. It was hard luck. And now that the lamp was lighted and sent its black, sooty smoke up to the ceiling, without shedding much light into the room, Citizen Bossut felt that there was nothing else to do but to drown his melancholy in a bottle of wine, the best that could be got these hard times. He was just beginning to feel comfortably drowsy, and sat stretched out in a rickety armchair in front of the iron stove, toasting his legs, when his lieutenant, Citizen Grisar, came to announce that a man, who wouldn't give his name, desired to speak with the citizen commissary.
Grisar slouched out of the room and the worthy commissary once more tried to compose himself to sleep; but the next moment he was rudely brought to his feet by the sound of loud altercation, much shouting and swearing, and finally by the door of his own sanctum being violently thrown open and a raucous voice shouting hoarsely:. An ugly, misshapen creature stood in the doorway, still hurling anathemas over his shoulder at the unfortunate Grisar, whom he had sent sprawling across the room with a vigorous play of his elbow.
Now he hobbled forward on one leg and a wooden stump, with which he banged the floor until it shivered and shook, as without further ceremony he entered the inner sanctum of Citizen Commissary Bossut. Grisar had in the meanwhile sufficiently recovered his balance to call for assistance from the men on duty, when the newcomer once more raised his raucous voice.
But this time he neither sore nor stormed. And," he added, with another knowing wink, "there'll never be another chance of promotion for you as long as you live. The word promotion acted like magic on Bossut's temper. It was the very breath of life to him: he thought of it all day, he dreamed of it by night. He ordered Grisar and the men out of the room, sat down at his desk, and demanded curtly:.
These being the glorious days of fraternity and equality, the miserable caitiff was not going to allow any commissary to order him about. First, he made himself at home; sat down opposite the commissary; poured out a glass of wine, which he drank down at a gulp.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a wide, sooty streak right across his nose and chin. Finally, he disposed his wooden leg as comfortably as he could, then only was he prepared to speak. Bossut smothered his wrath, resolved not to lose his temper with a man who had used the magic word, promotion. The Committees have their spies, as you know, and I am one of them.
But they are hard task-masters, worse than any tyrant, and you may take it from me that, all in good time, they will be sent to the guillotine. Never mind about that," the commissary broke in impatiently.
Get on with what you have to say. I'm coming to it. What I wanted to say was that the Committees demand a lot of work and pay very little for it. I have often brought them information worth the weight of a man's head in gold.
You think they would have given me something extra for my pains. Raised my wages. Not a bit of it! I am sick of them.
Sick, I tell you. Bossut had jumped to his feet. In a moment his excitement was at fever point. The English spy! The Scarlet Pimpernel! There was no ambitious height to which a man could not reach if he helped in the capture of that poisonous enemy of the Republic. The cripple contemplated him with a leer upon his ugly face, while Bossut paced up and down the room in order work off his agitation. At last he sat down again, put his elbows on the desk and gazed with concentrated attention on the misshapen creature before him.
Put it down in writing, citizen commissary, that you will give me one half of the reward offered for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel. While Bossut, with a hand that shook visibly, put the promise down in writing, signed it and strewed sand over it, the cripple continued to mutter under his breath:. And cunning! Here to-day, gone to-morrow. Marking the limits of the area Jardin des Plantes, the Rue Monge resulted from the extensive remodeling of the former Place Maubert during the s.
This area is rich in Gallo Roman remains. The Montagne Saint-Genvieve is the site of their leisure activities-theatres, amphitheatres, Arena and the main Roman Baths.
Today remain only the Thermes de Cluny and some vestiges of the Arena, both interesting sites. The name Monge is an example if this. Whether you are her for a holiday or for work, or just for a Short Break, The Hotel St Christophe is a perfect place to start exploring.
Today the area is a tangle of Roman ruins, medieval remains, and modern buildings, laced with narrow streets and alleys yet well supplied with shopping and urban transportation. The street was named for Gaspard Monge , originally from Beaune in Burgundy , a French mathematician.
Walking along modern Rue Monge you note that many of the buildings date from the 19th century, but what you may not realize is that Rue Monge runs through the oldest district in Paris. In fact, it was during the construction of Rue Monge that the remain of the arena were first uncovered, after having been buried and forgotten for a dozen centuries. In those crazy mad days of Paris rebuilding under Napoleon II and Baron Haussmann they weren't going to let some old stones get in the way of modernization and were about to destroy the remains.
Luckily, a group of citizens, led by none other than Victor Hugo, successfully lobbied to save what was left of the arena. Since it opened only a couple of year ago Hotel Monge has been our go-to hotel in Paris. As its name implies, it's located in the wonderful Rue Monge neighborhood with easy access to the things you want to see while you're in Paris. Everything about the Hotel Monge is excellent — the best hotel beds and pillows ever, fantastic lighting design, great staff and service.
Since we started singing its charms, Hotel Monge has become incredibly busy, so be sure to book early. The escalator up from the Monge Metro station line 7 takes you to Place Monge, the center of the life of the quartier.
There are trees, a nice fountain, and a lot of permanent stalls for the 3-times-week market. Here you will find locals shopping for their daily food needs at the vendors specializing in cheese, meats, produce, olives, flowers, charcuterie, the the other essentials of Parisian life.
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