"Nothing can be more simple: you will presently leave this room, and go and conceal yourself in your mother's house, and this evening you can assemble your friends and come and seize the town-hall again." Macquart did not conceal his extreme surprise.

He did not understand it at all.
"I thought," he said, "that you were victorious." "Oh! I haven't got time now to tell you all about it," the old woman replied, somewhat impatiently.

"Do you accept or not ?" "Well, no; I don't accept--I want to think it over.

It would be very stupid of me to risk a possible fortune for a thousand francs." Felicite rose.

"Just as you like my dear fellow," she said, coldly.