Some time after the events which we have just recorded, Sieur Boulatruelle experienced a lively emotion. Sieur Boulatruelle was that road-mender of Montfermeil whom the reader has already seen in the gloomy parts of this book.
Boulatruelle, as the reader may, perchance, recall, was a man who was occupied with divers and troublesome matters. He broke stones and damaged travellers on the highway. Road-mender and thief as he was, he cherished one dream; he believed in the treasures buried in the forest of Montfermeil.
He hoped some day to find the money in the earth at the foot of a tree; in the meanwhile, he lived to search the pockets of passers-by. Nevertheless, for an instant, he was prudent. He had just escaped neatly.
He had been, as the reader is aware, picked up in Jondrette’s garret in company with the other ruffians. Utility of a vice: his drunkenness had been his salvation.
The authorities had never been able to make out whether he had been there in the quality of a robber or a man who had been robbed.
An order of nolle prosequi, founded on his well authenticated state of intoxication on the evening of the ambush, had set him at liberty. He had taken to his heels.
He had returned to his road from Gagny to Lagny, to make, under administrative supervision, broken stone for the good of the state, with downcast mien, in a very pensive mood, his ardor for theft somewhat cooled; but he was addicted nonetheless tenderly to the wine which had recently saved him.
As for the lively emotion which he had experienced a short time after his return to his road-mender’s turf-thatched cot, here it is: One morning, Boulatruelle, while on his way as was his wont, to his work, and possibly