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 petition 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.