CHAPTER III.
MURMURINGS OF THE PEASANTS.
Michelle Flechard was in the midst of the crowd.
She had not listened, but one can hear what one does not listen to. She had heard this word, la Tourgue. She raised her head.
"Hey!" she repeated, "la Tourgue?"
The people stared at her. She looked as though she were demented. She was in rags. Voices murmured,—
"She looks like a brigand."
A peasant woman carrying some buckwheat cakes in a basket approached her, and said in an undertone,—
"Hold your tongue."
Michelle Fléchard looked at the woman in amazement.
Again she failed to understand. This name la Tourgue had passed by like a flash of lightning, and then it grew dark again. Had she no right to ask questions? What was the matter with them, that they looked at her so?
In the meantime, the drum had beaten a last ban, the bill-poster had pasted up the placard, the mayor had gone into the town hall, the crier had departed for some other village, and the crowd had scattered.
A group remained in front of the placard. Michelle Fléchard joined this group.
They were commenting on the names of those men who were outlawed.
There were peasants and citizens in the group; that is to say, Whites and Blues.
A peasant said,—
"No matter, they do not count everybody. Nineteen is only nineteen. They do not count Riou, they do not count Benjamin Moulins, they do not count Goupil, of the parish of Andouillé."
"Nor Lorieul, of Montjean," said another.
Others added,—
