" For the pools of blood were drying on the pavement,
and the corpses proclaimed to what a degree of audacity the party of
disorder, pillage, and murder had gone, and what an iron hand had been
required to put down the insurrection.
Moreover, the whole crowd was eager to congratulate Granoux, and shake
hands with him. The story of the hammer had become known. By an innocent
falsehood, however, of which he himself soon became unconscious, he
asserted that, having been the first to see the insurgents, he had set
about striking the bell, in order to sound the alarm, so that, but for
him, the national guards would have been massacred. This doubled his
importance. His achievement was declared prodigious. People spoke of him
now as "Monsieur Isidore, don't you know? the gentleman who sounded
the tocsin with a hammer!" Although the sentence was somewhat lengthy,
Granoux would willingly have accepted it as a title of nobility; and
from that day forward he never heard the word "hammer" pronounced
without imagining it to be some delicate flattery.
While the corpses were being removed, Aristide came to look at them. He
examined them on all sides, sniffing and looking inquisitively at
their faces. His eyes were bright, and he had a sharp expression of
countenance. In order to see some wound the better he even lifted up the
blouse of one corpse with the very hand which on the previous day had
been suspended in a sling. This examination seemed to convince him and
remove all doubt from his mind.
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