1114 Les Miserables
ing.
He had peasant parents whom he had contrived to imbue
with respect for their son.
He said of them: ‘They are peasants and not bourgeois;
that is the reason they are intelligent.’
Bahorel, a man of caprice, was scattered over numerous
cafes; the others had habits, he had none. He sauntered. To
stray is human. To saunter is Parisian. In reality, he had a
penetrating mind and was more of a thinker than appeared
to view.
He served as a connecting link between the Friends of
the A B C and other still unorganized groups, which were
destined to take form later on.
In this conclave of young heads, there was one bald
member.
The Marquis d’Avaray, whom Louis XVIII. made a duke
for having assisted him to enter a hackney-coach on the day
when he emigrated, was wont to relate, that in 1814, on his
return to France, as the King was disembarking at Calais, a
man handed him a petition.
‘What is your request?’ said the King.
‘Sire, a post-office.’
‘What is your name?’
‘L’Aigle.’
The King frowned, glanced at the signature of the pe-
tition and beheld the name written thus: LESGLE. This
non-Bonoparte orthography touched the King and he began
to smile. ‘Sire,’ resumed the man with the petition, ‘I had for
ancestor a keeper of the hounds surnamed Lesgueules. This