How many
times haven't I heard him making his calculations: there's such a one to
be used up, then such a one, and then such a one, so that he himself may
at last reign. And it's always to come off in six months at the latest.
The misfortune is, however, that others are always springing up, and so
his turn never comes at all."
Little Massot openly made merry over it. Then, slightly lowering his
voice, he asked: "And Sagnier, do you know him? No? Do you see that
red-haired man with the bull's neck--the one who looks like a butcher?
That one yonder who is talking in a little group of frayed frock-coats."
Pierre at last perceived the man in question. He had broad red ears, a
hanging under-lip, a large nose, and big, projecting dull eyes.
"I know that one thoroughly, as well," continued Massot; "I was on the
'Voix du Peuple' under him before I went on the 'Globe.' The one thing
that nobody is exactly aware of is whence Sagnier first came. He long
dragged out his life in the lower depths of journalism, doing nothing at
all brilliant, but wild with ambition and appetite. Perhaps you remember
the first hubbub he made, that rather dirty affair of a new Louis XVII.
which he tried to launch, and which made him the extraordinary Royalist
that he still is. Then it occurred to him to espouse the cause of the
masses, and he made a display of vengeful Catholic socialism, attacking
the Republic and all the abominations of the times in the name of justice
and morality, under the pretext of curing them.
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