Page 1436 - les-miserables

‘I knew of none and I recognized none.’
There was nothing but words, transparent but vague;
sometimes idle reports, rumors, hearsay. Other indications
cropped up.
A carpenter, occupied in nailing boards to a fence around
the ground on which a house was in process of construction,
in the Rue de Reuilly found on that plot the torn fragment
of a letter on which were still legible the following lines:—
The committee must take measures to prevent recruiting
in the sections for the different societies.
And, as a postscript:—
We have learned that there are guns in the Rue du Fau-
bourg-Poissonniere, No. 5 [bis], to the number of five or six
thousand, in the house of a gunsmith in that court. The sec-
tion owns no arms.
What excited the carpenter and caused him to show this
thing to his neighbors was the fact, that a few paces fur-
ther on he picked up another paper, torn like the first, and
still more significant, of which we reproduce a facsimile,
because of the historical interest attaching to these strange
documents:—

+————————————————————————
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| Q | C | D | E | Learn this list by heart. After so doing | | | | |
| you will tear it up. The men admitted | | | | | | will do the
same when you have transmitted | | | | | | their orders to them.
| | | | | | Health and Fraternity, | | | | | | u og a fe L. |
+————————————————————————

1436 Les Miserables