Page 1438 - les-miserables

The honest bourgeois into whose hands this list fell knew
its significance. It appears that this list was the complete no-
menclature of the sections of the fourth arondissement of
the Society of the Rights of Man, with the names and dwell-
ings of the chiefs of sections. To-day, when all these facts
which were obscure are nothing more than history, we may
publish them. It should be added, that the foundation of the
Society of the Rights of Man seems to have been posterior to
the date when this paper was found. Perhaps this was only
a rough draft.
Still, according to all the remarks and the words, ac-
cording to written notes, material facts begin to make their
appearance.
In the Rue Popincourt, in the house of a dealer in bric-
abrac, there were seized seven sheets of gray paper, all
folded alike lengthwise and in four; these sheets enclosed
twenty-six squares of this same gray paper folded in the
form of a cartridge, and a card, on which was written the
following:—

Saltpetre … … …. . 12 ounces.
Sulphur … … …. . 2 ounces.
Charcoal … … …. . 2 ounces and a half.
Water … … …. . 2 ounces.

The report of the seizure stated that the drawer exhaled a
strong smell of powder.
A mason returning from his day’s work, left behind him
a little package on a bench near the bridge of Austerlitz.

1438 Les Miserables