At the Convention the Bill read by Couthon was received with loud
protests, and the subsequent debate opened amid turbulence and
uproar.  That the judgments of the Revolutionary Tribunal should be
accelerated by the suppression of evidence and cross-examinations had
already frightened not a few; but when it became a question of
transmitting to the Committee of Public Safety the right of life or
death, the whole assembly was filled with fear.  Up to that time the
Convention alone had the right to sit in judgment on a representative
of the people!

A voice was heard exclaiming--

"If that law is passed, nothing is left but to blow out our brains!"

Robespierre appeared in the tribune.  The Bill was voted.  The next
day several attempts were made in the Convention to repeal the
atrocious law which brought the Terror into their very midst, but all
such efforts failed.

With so trenchant a law, a two-edged weapon which could be turned at
will either against the Committee of Public Safety or against the
Convention, according to the intricate windings of his subtle policy,
with such a weapon Robespierre could keep his enemies of the
Committee at bay.  He had in future but to accuse them, and have them
replaced by creatures of his own, satellites of his will.

However, all was going well.  His adversaries, blind and unwary, had
begun to tear each other to pieces in party disputes, and to split up
into factions, the very day after the passing of the atrocious law
which made him so dreaded.

The Incorruptible tried to take advantage of these cabals, but he was
too hasty.  The Committee, realising their danger, united against
him; and this was the prelude to a terrible and decisive struggle,
for in case of failure there remained nothing for Robespierre but to
have recourse to force.  Realising this to the full, he no longer
attended the sittings of the Committee, but worked silently in the
shade, preparing the _coup d'état_ which was to rid him at once and
for ever of all his enemies,--with Saint-Just, whom he had sent for
from the Northern Army, with Hauriot, Commander-in-Chief of the armed
force; Fleuriot-Lescot, Mayor of Paris; Payan, Agent of the Commune;
and Dumas, President; and Coffinhal, Vice-President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal.  His design was very simple.  He would
denounce his adversaries of the Committee of Public Safety at the bar
of the Convention and ask for their arrest and judgment.  Should the
Convention resist, he would subdue them with the help of Hauriot and
his troops, and of all sections of the Commune, who on a sign from
him and from Fleuriot, Payan, Dumas, Coffinhal, and their friends,
would be stirred to insurrection, and would take the Tuileries by
storm.

As to Olivier and the two women, they were always under his hand.
Olivier, at La Force Prison, was in no way disturbed.  Clarisse and
Thérèse had been kept at La Bourbe by his orders.  Twice the names of
Olivier's mother and _fiancée_ had appeared on the list of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, and twice their names had been struck off by
Robespierre, who, anxious and watchful, took care that all lists
should be submitted to him.

Soon the decisive hour approached.  It was the 7th Thermidor.  Six
weeks had elapsed since the memorable Fête of the Supreme Being, and
the passing of the horrible Prairial law, which had sent hundreds of
victims to the scaffold.  The Terror was at its height, and France,
prostrate before the knife of the guillotine, was awaiting in
distracted anxiety the result of the struggle.  The guillotine was
also waiting, ready to devour whichever of the two parties was
vanquished--Robespierre's opponents or Robespierre himself and his
partisans.

The Incorruptible, driven to the last extremity, had fixed the battle
for the next day, the 8th Thermidor, when he would throw off his mask
and accuse his adversaries of the Committee of Public Safety in
presence of the Convention.  Although he was almost certain of the
issue, he deemed it none the less prudent to take infinite
precautions, and to put Olivier and the two women in perfect safety,
in case of defeat, however impossible it might seem.  They must be
taken from prison, and all three placed in some secure retreat, out
of the reach of danger, from whence they could escape if necessary.

Robespierre thought of the Hôtel de Ville, where he reigned supreme.
Behind this, in the Rue du Martroy, were some unoccupied apartments,
in a building connected with and forming part of the hotel.  Clarisse
might live there with her niece and Olivier until they could with
safety leave Paris.  He unfolded his projects to Lebas, who alone
knew of the secret drama which poisoned the private life of the
Incorruptible at the very moment when his public career was reaching
its climax.  Lebas approved the plan.

"I am entirely at your service!"

"Thanks.  I was counting on your help.  But don't let us be too
hasty.  To-morrow will be time enough.  Everything depends on the
sitting.  If you see that the majority hesitate from the
commencement, go immediately to La Bourbe and take the two women out,
then to La Force and see about my son.  The apartments are ready.
You have only to take them there.  But save the women first.  Olivier
must find his mother and his _fiancée_ when he arrives."

Then taking two papers from his pocket, he added, "Here are the
warrants of release."

"Agreed!" said Lebas, after reading them.

Next day at the Convention, Lebas, a parliamentary expert, judged
that Robespierre would come out victorious from the contest, nor was
he mistaken.  The Incorruptible had brought a general accusation,
without mentioning names, against members of the Committee of Public
Safety and General Security.  This was received in anxious silence, a
few only daring to protest.  But the printing of the speech, and its
circulation in all the communes of Paris, was none the less voted.
It was an official accusation, by the voice of Robespierre, of his
adversaries, before the whole of France.  It was victory; and nothing
was left but to name the victims.

But the implicated members of the Committee of Public Safety did not
give him time.  Vadier boldly made for the tribune, followed by
Cambon, who, feeling it was a case of kill or cure, played a daring
game, and replied to the general accusation of Robespierre by a
direct, personal accusation, denouncing him openly to the astonished
Assembly.  The real traitor, he declared, was this masterful
Robespierre, who paralysed the will of the National Convention!

There was a counter-wave of feeling among the members of the Assembly
at this public indictment, and censure of their slavish submission to
Robespierre.  They seemed suddenly to realise their position, and the
more daring members, seeing the tide turn, prepared for the fight.
Thus the attacked were in their turn attacking.

Billaud-Varennes succeeded Cambon at the tribune.

"The mask must be torn aside, no matter whose face it covers!" he
cried.  "I would rather my corpse should be the stepping-stone of the
ambitious than by my silence be an accomplice of their crimes!"

Others succeeded Billaud-Varennes, reiterating his accusations more
boldly and insultingly.  Robespierre, disconcerted, tried to face the
storm, but it was too late.  In confining himself to a general
accusation, in mentioning no names, he had frightened every one.  The
Assembly revoked their previous decision, and amended the Bill.  The
speech was not to be sent to the Communes, but to the Committee, to
be examined.

"What!" cried Robespierre, "I have the courage to make before the
Convention revelations which I believe necessary to the salvation of
the country, and my speech is to be submitted for examination to the
very men whom I accuse!"

Victory had been followed by defeat; a partial defeat, it was true,
for, seeing the hesitating attitude of the Convention, Robespierre
hoped to win them back again the next day.  He must, however, be
prepared for every emergency!  That very evening he would take steps
to organise an insurrection of the Communes, which, in case of
resistance, would annihilate the whole set of dastardly cowards.  The
Incorruptible wished to act within legal bounds as long as possible,
and only to overstep them when forced to do so.

Robespierre looked round for Lebas, but he had disappeared, and this
gave him grounds for hope that the two women, and perhaps Olivier,
had reached the private apartments chosen by him in the Rue du
Martroy.

"I must go and make sure that all is well," he said to himself;
"there is not a moment to lose"--and leaving the Convention, he
hastened in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville.

CHAPTER X

THE TUMBRILS

At that very moment Lebas reached the Hôtel de Ville with Clarisse
and Thérèse.  On leaving the prison of La Bourbe he had given a false
address to the coachman who drove the prisoners, and he followed them
at a distance in another carriage, accompanied by a man to
superintend the luggage, who was one of the attendants at the Hôtel
de Ville, and a devoted adherent of Robespierre.  The second carriage
soon overtook the first, when Lebas gave the correct address to the
driver--

"13, Rue du Martroy!"

Clarisse and Thérèse mounted the stairs more dead than alive, ushered
up respectfully by Lebas, and Urbain, the attendant, carrying their
luggage.  Where were they going?  Who were these people?  Lebas at
the prison had scarcely spoken to Clarisse.

"For your safety," he had said simply, "for your niece's safety, do
not question me before we arrive at our destination."

For her safety?  For Thérèse's safety!  Then they were to be saved?
Who could save them?  She would surely learn now who it was.

The two men stopped on the third floor, and Urbain opened a door.

"It is here!" said Lebas, making way for them to pass in.

The two women entered, and found themselves in a plain sitting-room
with fittings and furniture of dark grey wood.  Urbain took the
luggage to a door opening on the left, through which a bedroom was
visible.

"You must make yourself quite at home, here," said Lebas.

And he informed them that they were free, but from motives of
prudence he who had saved them, and for whom Lebas was acting, had
judged it advisable to offer them these apartments as a temporary
residence, where they would be entirely out of danger's reach.
Clarisse and Thérèse could not recover from their surprise, and
wished to know to whom they owed their deliverance.  But Lebas would
not tell them, having received no orders to that effect.  All he
could say to reassure them was that their protector was all-powerful
at the Paris Commune, and that the apartments were in direct
communication, through a door which he indicated, with the Hôtel de
Ville, so that they were under his immediate care.

Clarisse started.  She understood now.  She owed her safety to the
Incorruptible!  Her letter of the preceding month had reached
Robespierre.  She knew this already, as he had acknowledged it in a
few brief words three days after receiving it--"Fear nothing, your
son is safe!" And this was all she had heard.

Lebas was still giving the women particulars of their new
surroundings.  Everything had been arranged to render them as
comfortable as possible.  The man who had accompanied them was
entirely at their disposal, and it was to his interest to serve them
well.  His wife would see also to their wants, and take charge of
their apartments, where they would be absolutely free and
unrestrained.

Only one precaution was earnestly recommended to them; to show
themselves as little as possible at the windows of their sitting or
bed room, so as not to attract the attention of neighbours.  They
were especially told to avoid this in the afternoon, from four to
six.  The windows looked on to the Rue du Martroy, through which the
carts carrying the condemned passed.  The scaffold was now installed
at the Barrière du Trône Renversé, and it was the shortest way.

The two women shuddered.

"Unhappily we had no choice," Lebas added, seeing their repugnance,
"but you will be warned by the cries of the crowd, and you can then
retire to the dining-room which looks on to the courtyard.  It lasts
but a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, at the most."

But Clarisse scarcely listened, her whole mind occupied with one
thought, the longing to inform Olivier, whose whereabouts she hoped
soon to learn, of their release from prison.

"Could I write a few words to some one who is very dear to me?" she
asked.  "I wish to set his mind at rest about our welfare."

Lebas replied in the affirmative, and she thanked him gratefully.  He
politely protested; she owed him no thanks, these were solely due to
him whose orders he was executing.  He then offered to take the
letter himself, saying he would return for it in a quarter of an
hour, as he had another urgent duty to fulfil.  And he retired,
leaving the two women with Urbain, who busied himself arranging the
furniture of the sitting-room.

Thérèse, now full of hope, gave thanks to God.  They would perhaps
soon see Olivier again.  What joy!  But to whom did they owe their
release?  She looked inquiringly at her aunt.  Clarisse owned that
she believed it was to an ex-secretary of Thérèse's grandfather, now
all-powerful, and to whom she had written from the prison of La
Bourbe.  Thérèse seemed astonished that her aunt had not told her of
this.  But Clarisse made the very plausible excuse that she did not
wish to raise her hopes, not knowing whether her appeal would have
success.

The young girl was now looking through the shutters of one of the
windows which Urbain had partly opened.

"Ah! there is a church!" she exclaimed, and immediately she thought
that if they were allowed to go out she would go and pray for their
protector, for he could not be all-powerful and not have done wrong;
he must belong also to the Government of Terror.

At the mention of a church, Clarisse approached the window.  She
recognised the building; it was St. Gervais Church, on whose portal
could be read in large letters the sadly ironical inscription:
"National Property, to be let as a Warehouse."

At Clarisse's request Urbain had placed an ink-stand and
blotting-paper on the table, and Clarisse hearing it was ready turned
round joyfully.  "At last I can write to Olivier!" she thought.

She then seated herself at the table and began to write, while
Thérèse was making a tour round the room, taking a survey of the
furniture.  Suddenly catching sight of an illustrated paper on a
sofa, she took it up to pass the time away.  It was five weeks old,
and had been preserved no doubt on account of the illustrations.  Its
pages gave an elaborate account of the Fête of the Supreme Being of
which she had heard Olivier speak, and against which he had so
vehemently protested during his visit to the prison of La Bourbe.  It
had taken place, then?

She became interested and commenced reading to herself in a low
voice: "_Description of the Procession.--Fireworks at the Fountain of
the Tuileries.--Typical Groups.--Arrest of a Chouan.--Popular
Indignation!_"

"I saw that myself," interrupted Urbain.

Thérèse turned to the servant, who was now dusting the mantelpiece,
and asked him why the man had been arrested.

"Why?  Because he cried: 'Down with the scaffold!'"

The words struck Clarisse, who looked up from her writing.  Only the
day before the _fête_ Olivier had reproached the French for not
daring to throw that cry in the teeth of the Government of Terror.
Thérèse, seeing her aunt look up from her writing, was struck with
the same coincidence, and both, almost in the same breath, questioned
the domestic, who said that, as far as he could remember, the young
man appeared to be about twenty.  He had been arrested at once to
save him from the crowd, who would otherwise have torn him to pieces.

"His name? his name?" they both gasped.

That Urbain could not tell them.  Clarisse rose, mastering her
emotion, and with all a mother's solicitude set herself to reassure
Thérèse.  Yes, they both had the same thought, hadn't they?  She also
was thinking of Olivier, but it could not be he.  He would have
written to them.  Why, it was six weeks ago, and his visit to the
prison would have been remembered!  They would have been involved,
but they had, on the contrary, been in no way made to feel it, and
had been treated with every consideration.

"That is true," answered Thérèse, glad enough to be convinced.

Clarisse took the paper gently from her hands, saying, "Instead of
reading all this awful news, which inflames your imagination, go,
dear, and arrange our room a little."  And she added in half a
reproachful tone: "You have not even looked at it, yet!"

Then gently pushing her into the room, she shut the door sharply
behind her.

A terrible fear had taken possession of Clarisse.  Why in his letter
to her had Robespierre sedulously avoided mentioning Olivier's
whereabouts?  Turning to Urbain, she addressed him in a hoarse voice:
"You say you saw this young fellow?"

The good man evinced surprise at her strange recurrence to the
subject.

"I had the honour to tell you so just now, _citoyenne_."

Then Urbain would recollect him?  What was he like?  His face?  The
colour of his eyes?  But that was too much to ask.  He was in such a
state, so broken down.  How was he dressed?

Urbain could just remember.  He described the costume: grey
carmagnole and breeches, black and grey striped waistcoat.

It was Olivier's costume!  There was no longer any possible doubt.
It was he!

"It is he!  It is he!" she kept repeating, falling at last into a
chair, on the point of swooning.

At this moment the door opened and a man appeared, who without
crossing the threshold signed to the servant, to whom he spoke in a
whisper.  Urbain came towards Clarisse and delivered the message.
"The _citoyen_ Robespierre wishes to speak with you."

"Where is he?  Oh! let him come! let him come!" she cried through her
blinding tears.

The man left the room followed by Urbain.  Clarisse waited in
breathless suspense, her eyes fixed in mute agony on the half-opened
door.

The Incorruptible came in, and before he had time to greet her, she
had risen and was standing before him.

"My son?  Where is my son?"

"Be assured, your son is safe."

She recoiled a step and fixed her eyes on him in amazed silence.

So it was true, the young man who had been arrested was Olivier!

Robespierre, greatly agitated, again essayed to reassure her, but she
interrupted him eagerly.  Where was he?  In prison?

Robespierre lowered his eyes.

What!  Had Olivier been sent to prison by him?  Ah! things had come
to a pretty pass.  He was then the gaoler of his own son!

Robespierre made a gesture as if to protest.  Then, mastering with
difficulty his emotion, he explained everything.  He had kept Olivier
in prison as the only means of saving him.  Had the lad been released
he would have been reimprisoned by the Committee of Public Safety,
who would have sent him to the scaffold, if it were only to show
Robespierre that he had no right to grant a pardon!  But Olivier
would be free now.  Lebas was at that very moment at La Force prison,
and would soon bring him secretly from thence to them.  Olivier
should remain with his mother and Thérèse until the day when they
could all three leave without danger, and seek safety in the
provinces.

Clarisse listened, now calm and reassured.  But how had Robespierre
known?

"Who he was?  Oh, in the most unexpected manner, with the assistance
of some letters found in his valise, for he absolutely refused to
give me his name."

Clarisse looked at Robespierre with a new fear in her eyes.  Then he
had seen him?  Olivier knew the terrible secret of his birth?

"Oh, no!" replied the Incorruptible sadly, "don't be uneasy about
that.  I have not said a word, to lessen his love and trust in you,
or disarm the bitter hatred he has for me, which avenges you too
well..."

But Clarisse interrupted him.  Robespierre was mistaking her
feelings.  She did not ask to be avenged, she did not even think any
more of reproaching him with the past which divided them.  It was all
so far, so far away, that past!

The Incorruptible looked at her with eyes full of sadness and regret.
Yes, there she stood, in her faded prison dress, her face lined
before its time, a living reproach, a poor pale ghost of bygone days.
Those blanched lips, with their melancholy droop, the token of long
suffering and resignation, those lips had received his first kiss!

Clarisse would think no more of the past!  He thought of it though,
thought of it there, looking at her.  Had he been so culpable, after
all?  Why had Monsieur de Pontivy filled his heart with hate and
rancour by refusing him her hand and turning him out like a lackey?
On account of a difference of caste?  Well, from this prejudice had
sprung the Revolution which had levelled all under the knife of the
guillotine!  That sad past, the terrible present, were both due to
the pride of Clarisse's father.  For he would not have thrown himself
madly into the turmoil....

But Clarisse again interrupted him.  The past was dead now, quite
dead!

"No," he cried, "the past is not dead, since your son is here, the
living proof of what has been..."

Clarisse shook her head.

"The punishment is mine, for if his hatred has been a blow to your
pride, causing you some transient pain, it is I who must live out my
life beside that hatred.  Each time my son pronounces your name with
loathing and indignation, I can only ask myself in terrified agony,
if he will ever pardon me for having given him a father such as you!"

Robespierre, thoroughly disheartened, looked at her sadly.  "You
also!" he exclaimed.  What! did Clarisse share the general error?
Did not she penetrate through the apparent violence of his policy to
the sublime end he had in view?  He sought to explain his views to
her, his notions for ensuring the universal happiness of mankind; he
depicted the sacred ideal he dreamt of reaching by purging France of
all base and evil-minded traitors who defiled her.  He an assassin!
He a tyrant!  No! he was an avenger, an apostle of justice and
virtue!  He was not responsible for the excesses of a nation who had
been enslaved for centuries, and had suddenly cast off their chains.
Every conquest was of necessity accompanied by carnage, every
revolution left the stains of blood behind!

Clarisse contemplated him with the same astonishment Vaughan had
experienced in the forest of Montmorency, when Robespierre had
unfolded to the Englishman his projects and visions of universal
happiness, which could only be realised by the help of the guillotine.

"The future will justify me!" he continued.  "When I am in power my
deeds will convince you."

"But are you not all-powerful now?" Clarisse exclaimed in spite of
herself.

He showed her she was mistaken.  No, he was not supreme!  Not yet!
Enemies barred his way; but they were the last, and he was about to
overthrow them in one decisive contest!  Yes, he yearned for that
moment to come, for his strength would not hold out much longer.

Then, lowering his voice, and trembling lest he should be heard, he
told her of the wretched life he led; hunted down on all sides,
hated, betrayed, his every movement watched, a dagger ever hanging
over his head.  He spoke of his sleepless nights!  Oh! how he would
hasten that last battle!  To make the victory sure it would be as
terrible as possible; the whole horde of wretches who had caused him
such unspeakable torture should be swept from his path!  Peace!
Peace! how glad he should be to welcome it with open arms...

Clarisse listened in amazement to this wild tirade.  He had spoken of
his haunted life, his sleepless nights.  But were not these ever the
lot of tyrants?  He sought forgetfulness, peace, a renewal of some of
the joys of life?  Then why did he not stay the infamous proceedings
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and throw wide the prison doors?  From
every breast would then resound a cry of deliverance which would
atone for all!  What greater happiness for him, after causing so many
tears than to dry them again!  "Impossible! impossible!" answered
Robespierre.  Not yet!  He would have to pay for it with his life
like Danton!  The hour had not yet come!  Clemency was treason, mercy
meant death.  In order to survive it was necessary to denounce,
accuse, strike, and slay remorselessly.  For it was the fear of death
which prompted the French to their most inhuman acts.  It influenced
every one, from the Convention, the Committees, the Revolutionary
Tribunal, to the very crowd who had become the abject slaves of that
terror which held France in absolute subjection.  They had well
called this Government "the Terror."  Oh, yes! it was a terror for
the victims, for the accusers, for the judges, a terror for all!

Clarisse looked at him, in bewilderment.  There was no more hope,
then?  France was to perish under that rule of abject cowardice?
Would no one take this evil by the throat and strangle it?

"Yes," replied Robespierre.

"But who, my God! who?"

"I!"

"You?"

"Yes, I myself!"

And Robespierre unfolded his plans.  When once the Committee of
Public Safety had perished on the scaffold he would be master, a
master strong enough perhaps to do away with the executioner and to
decree clemency!  When would that day come?  He could not tell yet!
Perhaps in a few days!  For the moment it was the vigil of arms.
Nothing was now possible but patience?

Clarisse was listening to a far-off sound which reached them like the
muffled roar of distant waves.  What was that noise?

Robespierre had heard it also and started up pale and nervous.

It was the crowd greeting fresh cartloads of condemned, which were
passing the Place de la Grêve.

Clarisse groaned; she understood!  The death on the scaffold, the
last ride of those condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal!  Lebas
had warned her; it was just the time!  The tumbrils would pass there,
in that street, under these very windows!  Robespierre hastened to
close the shutters.

Clarisse, completely unnerved, gave way to grief and despair.  So,
all those people were doomed to die, because the hour of mercy had
not yet come!  In a few days, Robespierre had said it himself, in a
few days they might be saved!  The unfortunate victims must die on
the very eve of deliverance!  Oh, it was horrible!  horrible!
horrible!

"What can be done?  I am powerless," repeated the Incorruptible.

What! he could do nothing?  Could he not now, at this moment, do what
he thought to do in three days' time?  Could he not call out from the
window to the mob, the long-yearned-for-cry, "Mercy! oh, have mercy!"
He had but to call these words out to the crowd whose idol he was,
and it would be an atonement for all his life.  "Mercy!" and he was a
hero, a savior!  "Mercy!" and his son would no longer have the right
to hate him, and to curse his name!

Robespierre was grieved and distressed beyond measure.  Clarisse did
not know what she was saying!  How could he stop the tumbrils, arrest
that crowd, composed of the very scum of the nation?  Why, there was
not one self-respecting man among them!  Nothing but a mob mad with
the lust of blood.  The only power they feared or respected was the
Terror--the Scaffold!  He, Robespierre, their idol?  Nay, he was not!
Their idol was the executioner!  To fight single-handed against such
a besotted, blinded rabble would be madness, sheer madness!

Clarisse paid no heed, but continued supplicating him with uplifted
hands, deaf to all argument.

The tumult of the mob, which sounded nearer, causing the very sashes
to shake, announced the approach of the tumbrils.  Robespierre, drawn
in spite of himself to the window, partly opened the shutters to look
out, followed by Clarisse who stopped as the hubbub of the crowd grew
suddenly louder, and uttered a stifled cry--

"Here they are!"

Robespierre closed the shutters again.  Tears started to Clarisse's
eyes.  She appealed to the kindly qualities of his youth.  She had
known him ever compassionate and generous.  He had but to call to
mind how he had revolted against injustice, how solicitous he had
ever been for the weak and oppressed.  Think of that time!  Think of
it! and all the spirit of her youth rose to her lips in that cry of
pity for the innocent victims of misrule.  Yes, innocent!  They were
innocent!  And he refused to save them!

"Once more I tell you it is madness," Robespierre groaned in despair.
Would she not understand, it was his death she was crying out for,
her own death too, and the death of her niece?  He had only to
attempt to save those unhappy victims, and the crowd would at once
turn upon him with the fury of wild beasts!  He would be accused of
treason by the _sans-culottes_, and the fishwives dancing yonder
under the windows and howling the _Carmagnole_!  He would be cut to
pieces by the swords of the prison escort, crushed under the
cartwheels, and cast into the gutter by the rabble for having dared
to arrest the reign of Terror!  Was that what Clarisse wanted?  Or
would she perhaps allow him to live still to be able to save her, to
save her niece and her son?

The entrance door was pushed open.  Robespierre turned, and seeing
Urbain understood that Lebas had at last arrived with Olivier.  He
did not, however, wish to be seen by his son.

"Let Citoyen Lebas and his companion wait outside till I have gone,"
he said.

Urbain looked astonished.

"But there is no one with Citoyen Lebas," he replied.

Clarisse started up.

"What! no one?" asked Robespierre.

"And Olivier?" Clarisse said in a low voice, trembling with suspense.

Robespierre moved towards the door and called anxiously to Lebas.
The day was fast closing, the setting sun, peering in through the
half-open shutters, shed a crimson light in the apartment, staining
here and there in patches and streaks the furniture and curtains with
the hue of blood.

Lebas came in alone.

Olivier was no longer at the prison of La Force!

"Escaped?" asked Robespierre breathlessly.

"Unfortunately not!" said Lebas, "but taken by Coulongeon, the
police-agent, by order of the Committee of Public Safety, to ...
Where?  No one could tell!  To the Conciergerie perhaps?"

"Before the Tribunal!" Clarisse almost screamed.

Robespierre was stunned.  The wretched members of the Committee had
placed Olivier on trial!  He had been, perhaps, condemned, and might
even now be on the road to the scaffold, in one of those approaching
tumbrils.  He cried breathlessly to Lebas--

"Oh, quick!  Go down and see!"

Lebas rushed off, and Robespierre ran to the window, Clarisse in mad
despair following him.

"If he is ... you will, you must, cry out to the people that he is
your son!"

Alas!  Could he?  The populace would answer that his son was a
_Chouan_! that he might thank the Tribunal for freeing him from such
disgrace.

Thérèse, drawn from the bedroom by the deafening cries of the crowd,
now entered, trembling with fear.  The carts were there...  She could
hear them!

"Mamma! mamma! do you hear?"

She stopped at sight of Robespierre.

"The friend who saved us," said Clarisse, answering her look of
surprise.

Thérèse went straight to the window, but Clarisse barred the way.

"Oh, no! she must not look at such a spectacle.  Better kneel down
and pray....  Pray for those about to die and for them also, yes for
themselves, with all her soul!"

Thérèse fell on her knees and joined her hands, her large blue eyes,
brimful of tears, lifted towards Saint Gervais, the deserted church,
where the lingering spirit of outraged religion might perhaps
accomplish a miracle!

The terrible tumult now burst on their ears like the rumble of
thunder.  As it drew nearer, separate sounds were distinguishable;
screams, ribald laughter, hooting, degrading clamour, and coarse
jokes reached them; all the hatred and fury of the Parisian populace
was manifest in those hideous revels.  The crowd was ushering the
first tumbril into the Rue du Martroy, preceded by the mænads of the
guillotine, loathsome, drinkbesotted viragoes, who yelled, and
contorted themselves, dancing the _Carmagnole_ in front of the
condemned.  Discordant strains of revolutionary songs rose above the
rumbling of the cart-wheels, the clank of horses' hoofs, and the
cracking of whips.

Robespierre had half opened the shutters, and tried to distinguish
the first cart through the dense crowd.  Clarisse struggled with him
to look also, but the Incorruptible held her back resolutely.

"No; I will look alone!"

"Do you see him?  Tell me; is he there?"

"No," he replied, still preventing her from approaching.

Then, as Robespierre made an eager movement, she gasped in her agony--

"He is there; I know it!" and again she struggled to reach the window.

"I swear to you he is not there!" and exhausted he quitted hold of
her to wipe his brow.

The first tumbril had passed.  The songs and cries of the mob
surrounding it were lost in distance, and these muffled sounds were
mingled with the murmurs of the crowd awaiting the other tumbrils.
Olivier was not in the first.  But the second?  He was perhaps in the
second?

Clarisse would have cried out in her despair, but she struggled
against the mad impulse and suppressed her choking sobs lest she
should reveal the awful truth to Thérèse, who, still on her knees,
her eyes turned to the desecrated church, prayed aloud:

"_Our Father Which art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom
come; Thy will be done...._"

But she was interrupted by another outburst from the mob announcing
the second tumbril.  Already scraps of the furies' songs reached her
from the distance:

  "_Dansons la Carmagnole!
      Vive le son
      Vive le son
  Dansons la Carmagnole
      Vive le son
      Du canon!..._"

Clarisse, taking advantage in a moment of Robespierre's relaxed
vigilance, pressed nearer to the windows.

"The second cartload!"

"There are two of them," said Robespierre, who, taller than she,
could command a more distant view.

Two! two carts!  It was impossible for Olivier not to be in one of
them.  Clarisse felt it!  He must be there!

"He is there, I feel it....  I tell you he is there!"

In her anxiety to see better she grew regardless of precaution.
Robespierre struggled to draw her from the window.  It was madness.
She might be seen!

Thérèse still raised her voice, choked with tears, in supplications
to heaven:

"_Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour
of our death.  Amen!_"

A cry of anguish rent the air.  Clarisse had recognised Olivier!
"There in that cart!"  Robespierre strained his eyes, half dead with
fear....  "Where?  Where?"  He could not see him!  "Oh yes!  Yes!
there, in the second cart!  That young man standing, his head
bent!..."  And unable longer to contain herself, in the madness of
grief, she placed her hand on the window clasp and would have opened
it; but Robespierre prevented her, and the struggle began again.  No!
she was mistaken!  She need only look!  The young man was raising his
head.

"There, you see, it is not he!"

"Then he must be in another cart!..."  And worn out with agonising
suspense and excitement she sank down in a chair.  Again the noisy
clamour died into the distance.

Robespierre took courage now.  It was surely the last cartload!

"You look!" cried Clarisse....  "I cannot look again!"

Oh! if it were the last!  If it were the last and their torture at an
end!

She leant her head on her hands and closed her eyes, in order to see
no more, while great silent tears trickled through her fingers.

Robespierre lifted the shutters and stopped to look through, but
quickly let them fall again.  Alas!  It was not over!  There was
still another tumbril.  The buzz of sounds advancing gradually
betokened it too well!

In one bound Clarisse was at the window.

"Will it never end!"

Robespierre made a gesture to close her mouth.

"For God's sake, do not scream!"

But Clarisse did not heed him; she would go out!  Out, into the
street!  It was too awful!  She would put an end to it all!
Robespierre held her back with fresh entreaties.  Maddened by the
restraint, she struggled desperately to free herself.

Thérèse, distracted from her orisons by the violence of the scene,
turned her head.  Seeing Clarisse's state, she understood all in a
moment.  Olivier was there in one of those tumbrils!  Olivier was on
the way to the scaffold! ... And Clarisse, now regardless of
consequences, owned the truth.

"Oh yes, Olivier, our Olivier, he is there!  They are going to kill
him!..."

"Olivier! kill him!" repeated Thérèse, half dazed; then the awful
reality rushed suddenly upon her.  She started to her feet with a cry
that echoed through the house.

"Olivier going to die?  Oh! mamma, mamma!"

Robespierre continued his supplications, holding Clarisse, who still
struggled, in his grasp.  She would have her son!  She would go and
demand him from the executioner!  Every mother there would intercede
for her!

"If they will not give him to me, let them kill me, kill me with him!
I will go!  I will go!  I must save my son!  For God's sake, let me
go!"

Robespierre implored Thérèse to help him hold Clarisse back.  The
young girl, realising the madness of the act, appealed also to her
aunt, speaking words of consolation and of hope.

But her voice was drowned in the roar of the mob, that rose and beat
against the window-panes like the waves of an angry sea.

  "_Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!_"

howled the Mænads, flinging their fearful watch-word on the wind,
heralding the dreadful spectacle of advancing doom, dancing a
veritable dance of death.

  "_Ah!  Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
  Les aristocrats à la lanterne;
  Ah!  Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
  Let aristocrats on les pendra._"

Clarisse had now freed herself, and ran to the door to open it.  But
Robespierre, quick as thought, stood before her and barred the way.

"Remain where you are, I charge you!"

Then resolutely and solemnly he added--

"I myself will go!  And if he is in that cart, I will brave all to
save him!"  Seeing that Clarisse seemed doubtful, he added with
emphasis--"I swear it to you!"

A flood of tears, tears of gratitude, was Clarisse's only answer.

"May you be forgiven all for those brave words!" she sobbed.

He led her to a chair near the window, and in a state of exhaustion
she allowed herself to be seated.  Thérèse bending over her forgot
her own tears, in drying those of Clarisse.  Robespierre, drawn to
the window by a fresh outburst in the street, turned and looked out.
There was but one more cart now!  The prison escort followed in the
rear.  It was indeed the last!

The last!  It was the last cartload!  If Olivier was not there, he
was saved!  But he must be!  Alas, he must; where else could he be?
Struggling between hope and fear, Clarisse fell on her knees, and
with clasped hands prayed aloud.

"O Lord, my God! my God!  God of mercy and compassion, grant that my
child may not be there!"

Thérèse had also fallen on her knees beside Clarisse, so that the two
now knelt, locked in each other's arms, and prayers and supplications
rose from both their lips.

  "_Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!_"

howled the mob.

"Lord, my God, have pity on us!" repeated the women.

Robespierre, livid to the lips, continued his agonising watch.

Growing anxious at the silence of the Incorruptible, Clarisse would
have risen, but her strength failed her, and she sank down again on
her knees, her eyes fixed on Olivier's father, trying to read in his
drawn features evidence of his hopes or fears.  Thérèse joined her in
this mute questioning.

Robespierre was alternately raising himself, bending aside, or
stooping lower to see more plainly.

Suddenly he gave an exultant cry--

"He is not there!"

"Are you sure?  Are you sure?" gasped Clarisse, trying to rise.

Thérèse, more easily convinced, kissed the poor mother in a burst of
joy.

"Are you sure?  Are you sure, though?" repeated Clarisse in a
fainting voice.

Robespierre to convince her came and raised her, and supporting her
in his arms, carried her to the window.

"Do you believe me now?" he said.

It was true.  There were only women in the cart.

"Only women!  My God, what a relief!" exclaimed Clarisse leaving the
window.

But she suddenly realised that her mother's heart had made her
selfish and inhuman, and with joined hands she implored pardon of
those unfortunate victims.  She had fallen on her knees again, her
head on the back of a chair, thoroughly prostrate with exhaustion.

Robespierre was now preoccupied with thoughts of Olivier.  He was not
in the tumbrils!  Where was he, then?

Confiding Clarisse to the young girl's care, he took his hat to go.

"Whoever you are, sir, may God bless you!" said Thérèse with a long
look of gratitude.

Robespierre turned and looked earnestly at her.  He tried to speak,
but his voice failed him.  Feeling his eyes fill with tears, he
hurried from the room.

Vague, far-away murmurs came to them from the distance, then ceased
entirely, while the belfry clock of Saint Gervais struck six.

CHAPTER XI

"ALL THESE GLIDING GHOSTS"

On the stairs Robespierre met Urbain who was just coming up.

"Quick! fetch me a hackney-coach!" he called.

The man turned and hurried down the stairs two steps at a time.  A
fiacre was crossing the street, crawling as if waiting for a fare,
and the driver cynically inquired if he should take him to the
scaffold.

"Place du Trône Renversé, _citoyen_?  The fun hasn't commenced yet!"

Urbain opened the door while Robespierre gave the address: "To the
Committee of Public Safety! and make haste!"

He then threw himself back in the carriage, which turned round, and
rolled rapidly in the direction of the Tuileries.  The Incorruptible
would soon have the key to the mystery!  The police-agent of the
Committee, Coulongeau, could tell him at once where to find Olivier.
He would wring the secret from him by force if necessary!

When he arrived at the Tuileries, Robespierre looked vainly for the
police-agent; he wandered from room to room, questioning every one he
met, putting the whole official staff at their wits' end, but no
Coulongeau was to be found.

The absence of the police-agent confirmed Robespierre's suspicions.
Olivier must then be at the Conciergerie under guard.

"Oh!  I can be there in time!" he thought, and leaving the Tuileries,
he went home to supper at the Duplays.

It was now seven.  The family, who had waited supper for Robespierre
and Lebas, were growing anxious, as they knew that the sitting of the
Convention had been long finished.  Duplay, who had just returned
from the Revolutionary Tribunal, took an optimistic view of things.
The sitting had been certainly a failure for Robespierre, but he was
not a man to be trifled with!  He would promptly retaliate, and
assuredly the meeting at the Jacobin Club that evening would turn the
tables upon his foes.  The women with one consent decided to attend,
feeling it was but right to show their sympathy, though Duplay raised
a few feeble objections, mainly as a matter of form.

"But since you are so sure we shall be victorious," urged little
Maurice ingenuously, "what do we risk?"

Robespierre appeared at that moment, his face drawn and haggard.  He
tried, however, to smile as if nothing were amiss before the family,
and said, in answer to inquiries for Lebas, "He will soon be here; I
saw him less than an hour ago."

"Where?"

"At the Hôtel de Ville."

They understood, of course.  Robespierre and Lebas had been to assure
themselves that the forces of the Commune were in readiness in case
some fresh phase of affairs might force the Incorruptible to break
the bounds of the law; and when they proposed to go with him to the
Jacobin Club after supper he seemed touched, and, feeling sure of
success, was not unwilling that his intimate friends should witness
his triumph.

The front door opened.  It was Lebas returning, completely out of
breath, from the Place du Trône.  After having assured himself that
Olivier was not in the tumbrils, he had gone, to be quite certain, to
the very foot of the scaffold.  The Incorruptible met him with
questioning looks.

"You can be at rest!  He is safe for to-day..."

"Yes, I know," said Robespierre, "but have you found out where he is?"

"No," answered Lebas.

"He can only be at the Conciergerie, then.  I will go there this
evening after the meeting at the Jacobins."

Supper was soon over.  Robespierre wished to be at the Jacobins at
eight o'clock, at the very beginning of the sitting, for fear of
being taken unawares by the Committee, who were capable of anything.

"I am sure my worst enemies will be there," he muttered to Duplay,
who assured him to the contrary, as the family started along the Rue
Sainte-Honoré in anxious groups.  The Incorruptible walked ahead, at
some distance from them; Cornélie noticed in astonishment that he did
not offer her his arm as usual, and said so to Lebas, who, forcing a
smile, answered, "He is so preoccupied just now!"

Cornélie tossed her head.  It was not the first time she had
accompanied him to the Jacobin Club in times of anxiety, and on those
days he was most attentive, and seemed to feel in special need of
sympathy.  Lebas did not reply, thinking of Clarisse and Olivier,
whilst Cornélie continued her threnody of woes.  Robespierre was a
few paces in front of her, walking alone, and did not even turn to
bestow on her a single glance.

"Something is amiss," she said.  "I never saw him thus before."

He was in fact thinking of Clarisse, of her joy a few hours hence to
have her son again, for Robespierre would take Olivier from the
Conciergerie directly he was sure of his triumph at the Jacobins; he
thought also of this triumph, now so certain, which would seem all
the greater if Clarisse could witness it.  She would see then how
highly he was esteemed, admired, and loved by all true, honest
Republicans, by all staunch soldiers of justice and humanity.
Suddenly he stopped at the door of the Jacobins, and went in without
even turning to see if any one was following.

This building, once the property of the monks of St. James, had
recently been turned by the Revolutionists into a political club.  A
powerful party reigned there, exercising an occult influence on the
direction of public affairs and on the rulings of the Convention,
whom they terrorised by their democratic arrogance and their violent,
obstinate fanaticism.

The meetings were held in a part of the building formerly known as
the convent-church, opening on to a long gallery hung with portraits
of monks, which led to the ancient library.  At the lower end of this
assembly-room an altar was still standing, stripped of all its
ornaments and symbols of sacred services, now forgotten in the hall
where fierce fanatics, breathing slaughter, hounded to death the
victims of the guillotine.

When empty, with its amphitheatre, its presidential stand, its
tribune, the room had the aspect of an ordinary debating hall.  When
full, it was a tribunal of inquisition, the headquarters of terror
and of fear.

Robespierre had become the ruling spirit of the Club.  He was their
lord-paramount, whose word was absolute, and he was greeted on his
appearance by a thunder of applause.  The hall was filled with an
enthusiastic crowd, exasperated at the partial defeat of their idol
at the Tuileries.  Robespierre, deeply touched, returned their
salutations gratefully, and re-read his speech prepared for the
Convention, interrupted at every point by loud approval.  In order to
stir their minds to the necessary pitch of excitement, he spoke of
this as his last testament, and so induced another outburst of
extravagant sympathy.

"I will die with you, Robespierre!" called out one deputy.

"Your enemies are the enemies of the whole nation!" cried another.
"Say the word, and they shall no longer exist!"

Robespierre looked at them with eyes full of gratitude.  He was
hoping that some one would commence an attack, that he might
retaliate there and then, and so accentuate his triumph.  He had
perceived among the crowd his adversaries, Billaud-Varennes and
Collot d'Herbois.  They tried to speak, and were hissed; they
persisted, and were greeted with cries of "To death with them!"
Daggers even were drawn, and they had scarcely time to escape.

The name of Robespierre was in every mouth in that vast hall,
acclaimed with cries of wild approval that re-echoed to the very
Tuileries.

The Duplay family, as may be imagined, beside themselves with joy,
waited for Robespierre outside, but he was nowhere to be seen.  It
was in vain they inquired of every likely passer-by.  He had
completely disappeared.

Leaving the Assembly-room among the first he had slipped out under
cover of night, taking a short cut to the Tuileries, whose dark mass
aided his further flight.  For he was flying from his glorification,
escaping from his rabid admirers, who would have borne him in triumph
through the streets of sleeping Paris, making them ring with
thunderous shouts of triumph.  Creeping along the side of the walls,
his face muffled in his collar, he hastened his steps to the
Conciergerie, and as he walked his thoughts reverted to the subject
of his reception.  The Jacobins' enthusiasm must have resounded to
the chamber of the Committee of Public Safety, and fallen like a
thunderbolt among the traitors in the very midst of their dark plots!
The effect must have been terrible!  He already pictured the
Convention appealing to him with servile supplication, delivering the
Committee into his hands, and asking the names of his enemies, that
they might pass sentence on them all.  He smiled triumphantly as he
crossed the Pont-Neuf, without casting a glance at the splendid
spectacle which lay at his feet on either side of the bridge; for it
was July, and all the glory of a summer sky studded with stars was
mirrored in the stream.

He walked on quickly, wrapt in his own thoughts.  Ah! not only did
they wish to ruin him, but they would have sent Olivier to his death!
He had forestalled them, however.  The very next day they should take
his son's vacant place in that same Conciergerie, the antechamber of
the guillotine!

Robespierre had reached the quay, and was now at the foot of the
Silver Tower, whose pointed spire stood out in the moonlight like a
gigantic finger raised to heaven.  It was in that tower that
Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary
Tribunal--death's henchman--lived.  Robespierre scanned the windows.
All lights were out.  Fouquier slept, then?  What brute
insensibility!  But he would sleep also, he told himself.  Ah, yes!
the terrors of the scaffold would soon be over!  No more butchery, no
more guillotine!  He had promised it to the mother of his son, and he
would keep his word ... he would, within three days.

Reaching the side entrance of the Conciergerie, he gave three knocks,
and a grating was opened in the door.

"It is I--Citoyen Robespierre."

The gate swung back on its hinges, and a voice was heard exclaiming--

"_Salut et fraternité, citoyen!_"

It was Collas, the turnkey, on duty.

"I want Citoyen Fouquier-Tinville."

"He has not returned, _citoyen_."

Robespierre betrayed impatience.

"Can I do anything for you, _citoyen_?" said Collas.

"I wish to know if you have among your prisoners a certain Germain,
lately at La Force prison."

"Well, we can see that on the prison register, _citoyen_.  Nothing
will be easier, if the registrar is still here.  Let me ascertain
through the watchman.  Would you care to follow me?  Just wait a
moment; I have not the keys."

Collas went back into his lodge, and returned with a bunch of keys.
Then, taking down a lantern from the wall, he commenced threading the
mazy alleys of the Conciergerie, followed by the Incorruptible.  It
was the first time Robespierre had entered this prison in which so
many of his victims had been immured.  The two men turned into the
old banqueting hall of the Kings of France, a long gallery with a
vaulted ceiling of oval arches supported on massive pillars; keeping
to the left, they came upon an iron trellised gate, which the turnkey
opened.  Robespierre found himself in a railed enclosure, a kind of
antechamber leading to another vaulted gallery, which in the dim
light seemed of indefinite length.  Two towering gates on the left
opened into a court on which the moon shone, lighting up vividly a
pile of buildings surrounded with grey arcades.

As Robespierre and the turnkey advanced they came upon a man sleeping
in a chair, with a lantern at his feet.  It was the night watchman.

"Hallo, Barassin!" called the turnkey, shaking his bunch of keys in
his ears.

The man woke with a start.  At the mention of Robespierre he rose in
a tremor of fear at being caught slumbering on duty.  He excused
himself profusely--he had been so hard-worked this last month; there
was no sleeping at all with the cart-loads of prisoners coming at
every moment.  Then, with officious zeal, he invited Robespierre to
remain with him while Collas went to ascertain if the registrar was
still there, though this was very unlikely at that late hour.  The
turnkey went on his errand.

"What part of the prison is this?" asked Robespierre, looking around.

"We are between the two gates, _citoyen_.  Have you never been to the
Conciergerie before?"

"No; never."

Now was his chance!  Barassin had a subject to interest the
Incorruptible, and he launched forth into a long description,
overcrowded with details.

On the other side of that little door to the right was the ward of
the male prisoners.  Here at the end was the women's courtyard,
facing the arched building in which were their cells.  Robespierre
had but to advance a little, and he could see through the gate the
fountain in which they washed their linen, for they remained dainty
to the last, and wished to ascend the scaffold in spotless clothes.
Barassin laughed a loud brutish laugh, happy at the seeming interest
Robespierre took in his explanations.

"Is the Recorder's office on the left, then?" questioned the
Incorruptible, his eyes fixed on the dark gallery through which the
turnkey had disappeared.

Barassin began another string of details.  Yes, that gallery led to
it, and to the exit as well, through the concierge's lodge, where the
condemned had their hair cut after the roll-call.

"The call takes place here, just where you are standing," he
explained.

Robespierre started, and moved away.  His eyes rested on the long
line of cells, whose doors were lost in long perspective under the
vaulted archway he had noticed on his entrance, and which had seemed
so vast through the iron bars of the second gate.  He lowered his
voice to ask if those cells were occupied.  Barassin's reply
reassured him; there was no one there just then.  Then, indicating a
cell opposite Robespierre, the watchman continued, carried away by
his subject--

"This is the cell in which the Queen was locked up."

He opened a panel in the door that Robespierre might glance within.
The Incorruptible hesitated at first, and as he bent over resolutely
to look, Barassin found further material for his questionable wit:

"It's not such a palace as her Versailles, eh?"

Robespierre quickly closed the aperture, on the outside of which he
perceived a black cross.

"What! a cross?" he exclaimed, staring the while at the sign of
redemption.

The watchman told him that some prisoner had probably daubed this
cross on the panel after the Queen's death.  The prisoners always
stopped before it to pray, and it was their habit to scribble in that
way over the prison walls with pencils, or even nails.

"Why, here's your name!" he chuckled, highly amused.

Robespierre shuddered.

"My name?"

Barassin raised his lantern, throwing the light on an inscription in
large letters on the wall, under some prison notices.

The Incorruptible read--

"We shall be avenged, Robespierre, monster! your turn will come!"

The watchman swung his lantern from place to place, lighting up, for
the Incorruptible's benefit, other ominous inscriptions addressed to
him.

"Robespierre, the tyrant!"

"Robespierre, the assassin!"

The Incorruptible turned pale.

He was well accustomed to insult and abuse, no doubt, but these
imprecations on the walls, in that gruesome and silent prison, seemed
like the last curses of the dead, written in letters of fire and
blood!

"They must occupy themselves, I suppose!" remarked Barassin, still
laughing.

The Incorruptible turned away, feeling ill at ease.  Again he
questioned the man, fixing him the while as if he would fathom the
depths of his experience.  Did he keep watch every night?  He must
have witnessed some heart-rending scenes?  Was he not disturbed in
his sleep, living thus in continual contact with the dread spectre of
death?  Could he really sleep?  Did not the cries of the victims
disturb his slumber?  Was he not haunted by their solemn leavetakings
and their sobs?

Citoyen Robespierre could rest assured!  Barassin slept soundly
enough!  Such fancies were very well for women!  In the first place,
the dead never returned, and then, after all, it was not Barassin who
killed the victims, was it?

Steps were heard advancing, and the turnkey made his reappearance.
The registrar had gone away and taken the keys with him.  It was
impossible to get at the prison register.  He then suggested that
Robespierre should go with him to the men's ward.

"Let us awake the prisoners.  If the man you seek is there you will
easily recognize him."

The Incorruptible refused, starting involuntarily.  He had no wish to
be seen by the prisoners.

Then, there was but one course left.  Barrassin might accompany him,
and speak to the men's turnkey, who would look for this Germain from
bed to bed, and Barassin would bring back to Robespierre the result
of the inquiry, as he himself had to return to his post.  Robespierre
would have to wait a little while, of course.  And Collas moved the
watchman's chair towards him.

"Very good!  I will wait, but be quick!"

The two men went away, turning to the left, through the small gate,
which Barassin carefully closed behind him.  Robespierre followed the
watchman with his eyes.

"Happy brute!  He can sleep in peace!" he exclaimed.

So this man's sleep was not disturbed by such horrible visions as
haunted Robespierre!  But then, as the watchman said, _he_ had not
killed the victims; his name had not been inscribed on these walls as
a term and brand of infamy and hatred.

That writing on the wall seemed to be dancing before his eyes.
"Robespierre, assassin; your turn will come!"  So this was the cry
which rose from every breast!  If he was vanquished in the morrow's
struggle, if he had to ascend the scaffold without having
accomplished the act of social regeneration of which he had so long
dreamt, he would leave behind him the execrated memory of a despot
and bloodthirsty tyrant!  His name would be coupled with all the
monsters of history!  Robespierre would be cited by posterity side by
side with Nero, Caligula, Tiberius!

Stepping slowly towards the watchman's seat, he sat down sideways,
his eyes fixed, like a somnambulist's, and his arm resting on the
back of the chair, as he repeated in a low murmur--

"Your turn will come!"

Almost the same dread, ominous words had the night before forced him
to start up suddenly, and impelled him to rush towards the window of
his room.

"Arise, Robespierre, arise?  Your hour has come!"

It was the shade of Camille Desmoulins that had uttered the grim
summons!  Camille, accompanied by his wife, the pale and sweet
Lucile, sought to draw him to them, to drag him along with them on
the blood-strewn way to which they had been doomed!  But the phantoms
had all vanished with the refreshing dawn.  It was fever, of course!
He was subject to it; it peopled his sleep with harrowing visions and
fearful dreams.  But these were nothing but excited hallucinations,
creatures of his overwrought brain....

Robespierre had now closed his eyes, overcome with fatigue, and still
continued the thread of his thoughts and fancies.  His ideas were
becoming confused.  He was vaguely wondering whether such imaginings
were due to fever after all?  If this was not the case, it was
perhaps his conscience that awakened from its torpor, and rose at
night to confront him with his victims?  Yes, his conscience that
relentlessly gnawed at his heart-strings, and wrung from him a
gasping confession of alarm!  Had not Fouquier-Tinville seen the
Seine one night from his terrace rolling waves of blood?  This was
also a mere delusion ... the outcome of remorse, perhaps?  Remorse?
Why?  Remorse for a just deed, for a work of redemption?  No!  It
sprung rather from a diseased imagination caused by an over-excited
and over-active brain, which, weakened by excess, clothed the
simplest objects with supernatural attributes.

Robespierre's eyes were now half-closed, and wandered dreamily to the
women's courtyard, where grey arches stood out in clear and sharp
relief under the soft moonlight.  He was in deep reverie, wondering
what could be the true cause of such strange illusions, and as he
wondered, examples from past history came crowding to his mind.

Yes ... did not Brutus imagine that he saw the shade of Cæsar gliding
into his tent, when it could have been nothing but the flicker of a
lamp on the curtains moved by the wind, or a moonbeam playing, as
that one yonder, on a pillar?

As he gazed his eyes dilated in horror.  It was no moonbeam.  The
outlines of a woman's form, ethereal and transparent, stood
motionless against the pillar.  It moved!  Another form, white and
shadowy, glided towards the first, and a third emerged from the dim
background and joined them.  Robespierre followed every movement with
horror-stricken gaze.  He rose, crept nearer: was he awake, or was it
indeed a dream?  Had he again fallen a prey to delusions at the very
moment when he was persuading himself of their unreality?  He was not
asleep!  He was wide awake!  He felt the hot blood coursing through
his veins, he walked to and fro, and was completely self-possessed!
He knew he was at the Conciergerie, and had come to fetch his son
Olivier.  A little while ago he had conversed with two men there, on
that very spot, the turnkey and the night watchman.  And yet his
nervous imagination conjured up before his eyes those chimerical
visions clothed with the semblance of reality!  For, of course, he
was not deceived, he knew well enough they were unreal delusions, and
yet he felt nervous and ill at ease!

"What strange beings we are!" he thought.  "Poor human nature!  We
pride ourselves on our strength of mind, and yet we are subject to
such hallucinations!"

Again he was startled from his musings.  Other forms suddenly
appeared in the white moonlit courtyard, walking slowly up and down,
in pairs, singly, or in groups.  They came and went, stopped,
conversed with or took leave of each other, all in a great hush,
without seeming to notice the Incorruptible, who in his fear kept as
much as possible aloof, never moving his eyes from them a moment.

Suddenly, he uttered a cry.  He had bent forward to examine their
features and had recognised ... Madame Roland! ... Madame Roland! ...
and Madame Elizabeth, the king's sister; ... Good God! and there was
Charlotte Corday, the girl who had killed Marat!  The courtyard
filled with new forms, blanched and wan, gliding about with
supernatural grace in the pale moonlight.  Robespierre stood rooted
to the spot, seized with wild terror.

"Am I mad?" he asked himself.

Ghosts!  Yes, they were ghosts!  What! was he going to believe in
ghosts, like old women and children?  It was folly, crass folly, and
he repeated aloud--"Madness! sheer madness!"

But what did it all mean!  What were those wandering forms which
reminded him of beings long dead?  Were they subtle effluences of
their bodies that could pass through the prison walls, invisible by
day, but luminous at night, as phosphorescent spectres were said to
flit among tombstones in churchyards by moonlight, to the dismay of
the weak and credulous.

"Yes, the weak and credulous!" he repeated, in a voice which quavered
none the less, "the weak and credulous, easily prone to fear and
remorse..."

He went towards the gate of the men's ward livid with fright, in the
hope that the watchman would come and put an end to these harrowing
phantasms.

He cried out in desperation--

"Does the man never mean to come!"

At that moment a man's form appeared in the gallery to his right, and
he went towards it hopefully.  Barassin?  But he recoiled.  No! it
was not he!  The form grew more distinct, others followed.  There
were now six, eight, ten, twenty of them, a band of prisoners slowly
and silently moving towards the gate.  They were coming, all coming!
He recognised them:

"The Girondins! .. Brissot! .. Vergniaud! .."

Were all his victims then going to show themselves behind those iron
bars like avengers, to torture and madden him?

Robespierre was suddenly dazzled by a stream of moonlight
illuminating an iron grating just above him, which he had not noticed
on his entrance.  Outlines of fresh forms appeared behind the bars,
gradually growing more distinct.  They were the ghosts of other
victims!  For he recognised them, while they, apparently, were
unconscious of his presence.

He took his eyes off these for a moment to see if the spectres
gathered behind the grating of the ground floor were still there.
Yes!  They were still there.  They were everywhere then?  Everywhere!
... What were they doing?  Why did they come and force the past upon
him in this way?  After spending the day in struggling with the
living, must his nights be spent in encounters with the dead?  He
continued staring in mute and fascinated horror, as motionless as
those ghosts gathered behind the closed grill, and seeming to await
the gruesome roll-call of the condemned.

At their silence he presently took heart.  None of them had their
eyes fixed on him.  This was proof, he thought, that they existed
only in his imagination.  For, after all, if they were real, they
would have stared at him in anger, with terrible and threatening
looks ... they would have rushed upon him, one and all.  Those iron
barriers would have yielded to their united effort, and burst asunder!

Even as he thought this the gratings swung back noiselessly.

Robespierre recoiled, his flesh creeping, cold beads of perspiration
starting on his forehead.

The gates had opened!  It was all true then!  They were real!  The
whole array of spectres was coming down upon him!  They were
advancing slowly, they were entering the courtyard!  No, they had not
seen him!  Robespierre was still retreating, step by step.

"They haven't seen me!" he gasped.  If he could gain the passage to
the left of the archway, which was the only exit available, he was
safe!  He would escape them!  For they were not likely to follow him
into the street....

He reached the vaulted passage, stepping cautiously backwards,
keeping them in sight all the while, like a criminal in dread of
detection.  But at the entrance of the passage Danton and Camille
Desmoulins confronted him.

"Danton!  Camille!"

He started back, shaking with fear.  Every exit was barred!

These two noted victims were advancing carelessly, conversing
together.  They had not noticed him either!

The door of the Queen's cell now moved.

What! was that going to open too?

Marie Antoinette appeared on the threshold, descended the few steps
and joined the others, who all made deep obeisance at the approach of
their sovereign.

The Queen! it was indeed the Queen!

Robespierre felt now that he was lost.  Flight had become impossible.
The one remaining means of escape was by the little grating of the
men's courtyard.  He tried to reach it, still walking backwards,
without once losing sight of the apparitions, his arms stretched
behind him, every muscle strained, and both hands clenched
convulsively.  He soon came in contact with the grating, and tried to
push it open with his back.  Not succeeding he abruptly turned round.
It was locked!  He tried madly to force it, but the massive iron bars
proved too much for his strength.  He seized and shook the lattice in
his agony.  The rattling noise made him turn quickly, thinking all
the spectres had come down upon him.  But no!  They stood still in
the same places, motionless, and apparently unconscious of his
presence.  But this could not last; ... they must see him sooner or
later!  And if he were seen he would surely be the prey of these
arisen tenants of the tomb!  He wiped the cold sweat from his brow,
panting and breathless, and made a sudden frantic effort in his
overwhelming panic to repel the ghastly vision, turning away from it.

"It is absurd!  The dead never return!" he cried, stamping violently.

He persuaded himself that it was only necessary to disbelieve in it
and the vision would fade, to refuse to look, and he would no longer
see the phantoms.  He then turned round boldly, as if to prove his
words.

Every eye was upon him.  They appeared terrible in the awful majesty
of their wrongs, as if accusing him, as if judging him.  He remained
motionless, terror-stricken.  Yes, they were all looking at him!
Slowly, silently they glided towards him.

"Oh! no further! no further!" he cried.  "I implore you!  I am
frightened!..."

Every limb trembled, as he thus prayed them to desist.

"Oh yes!  I know what you are going to say, I see the word trembling
on your lips: 'Assassin!'"

The victims seemed to him to bend their heads in mute assent.  He
feared they would speak, and hastened to prevent them....  Yes, he
was an assassin, he knew it! ... It was just and right they should
call him so!  He knew, yes, he knew, what they wanted of him....  He
must set free the prisoners, overthrow the scaffold?

The victims again nodded approval.

Yes! ... Yes! ... he would do everything, anything they asked.  He
swore it to them....

"But in pity go!  I entreat you!  Oh go! in pity, go and leave me!"

The spectres remained motionless, their eyes still fixed upon him.

"Mercy!" he cried.  "Have mercy!"

Yes, mercy! ... he begged for mercy!  Their looks would kill him!  He
could not bear it any longer!  It was too much!  His fright now
bordered on madness, and he cried out: "Let me alone!  I am
frightened!  horribly frightened!"

So saying he tottered forward, ready to drop from exhaustion, and
tried to grasp the back of the chair for support.  But it gave way.

"Help! help!" he screamed.

"Hullo! who's calling?" cried a voice outside.

It was Barassin returning from the registrar's office.  He opened the
grating and entered, then drew back in bewilderment at the sight of
Robespierre on the ground, his head buried in his hands.  The
watchman at once thought that he must have fallen asleep on the
chair, and slipped on to the paved courtyard.  He laid down his
lantern, and tried to raise the Incorruptible.  Robespierre awoke and
lifted his haggard eyes.  At sight of the man he violently pushed him
away.

"I see, you're not quite awake yet!" laughed Barassin.

Robespierre rubbed his eyes, and looked anxiously around.

"You've had a dream? ... A nightmare, eh?"

"Yes!" answered Robespierre, now himself again.  "I have had a
fearful dream."  Then rising with difficulty, he fell exhausted on
the chair which the watchman held out to him.

Barassin now told Robespierre the result of his quest.  They had
interrogated the prisoners, from bed to bed.  The young man he sought
was not among them.

Robespierre, still uneasy, and casting anxious and furtive glances in
every corner, expressed his thanks.

Suddenly he rose and seized Barassin by the arm.

"Are we alone, here?" he asked.

"Why, yes!" answered the man in some surprise.

"Then let us go!" said Robespierre, impatiently, "let us go at once!"

Barassin took his lantern, and walked in front.

"This way!" he said, opening the wicket through which they had
entered.

In the gallery Robespierre again seized the man's arm, and bent
forward to see if the way was clear; then feeling immense relief, he
rushed towards the exit, almost running, and followed with difficulty
by Barassin, who with the lantern dangling in his hand could scarcely
keep pace with him.

"Hallo!  Citoyen Robespierre!" he panted, "you're going too fast!"

But the Incorruptible continued his headlong flight.

CHAPTER XII

THE EVE OF THE BATTLE

Robespierre could breathe again.  He was once more in the open, the
silent stars above him, the Seine flecked with white bars of
reflected moonlight, flowing at his feet.  But he dared not linger
there.  He turned quickly, and darted along close to the walls,
fearing that for him, as once for Fouquier-Tinville, the water would
take the crimson hue of blood.  By slow degrees he became calmer.
Refreshing gusts of cool night air fanned his fevered brow, and
restored him to reality.  He thought of Olivier again.  If he were
not in the Conciergerie, where could he be?

Entering the inner court of the Tuileries, at first he seemed
undecided, and then, as if under a sudden impulse, went straight
towards the Pavilion of Liberty.  The Committee of Public Safety held
its meetings there, in the very apartment once occupied by Louis XVI.
This committee usually worked far into the night, and Robespierre was
sure of finding some one.  As he expected, he met Billaud-Varennes
and Collot d'Herbois, who were crossing the vestibule of the ground
floor at that moment.  He accosted them angrily, for the two men, who
had been hissed and hooted at the Jacobin Club, now seemed to exult,
as though they held some secret threat over his head.  The ironical
smiles he fancied he saw playing round their lips aggravated his fury.

"So you have released the prisoner I sent to La Force?" he cried.

"Quite true!" replied Billaud-Varennes, relishing Robespierre's
discomfiture as a set-off against the Jacobins' hooting.

"For what reason?"

"To cross-examine him."

"Where is he?"

"That is for you to find out."

"I command you to send him back immediately to La Force!"

"We receive no orders from you!"

"Then it is to be war between us?  You shall have it, scoundrels! war
to the knife!  And to-morrow too!" and turning away abruptly, he went
towards the steps, and pushed the door open in a violent rage.

Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois retraced their steps to apprise
their colleagues at the Convention of their stormy interview with
Robespierre.  But on the threshold of the Assembly-room Billaud
stopped his companion.

"Wait a moment," he said, "let me cross-examine the young man first."

So saying, he went upstairs to the attics, where Olivier had been
locked up ever since five o'clock under the charge of a gendarme, to
whom Coulongeon, the Committee's agent, had confided him, with strict
orders that the prisoner was to be kept entirely out of sight until
the Committee had decided on his fate.

Coulongeon was one of the sharpest detectives of the Committee.  It
was he who, disguised as a beggar, had been the object of Blount's
sudden barks in the forest of Montmorency, where he had witnessed the
interview between Robespierre and Vaughan.  Driven away by
Robespierre's agents, he had gone immediately to the entrance of the
forest, expecting vainly the Englishman's reappearance.

On his return to Paris the same evening he had reported his discovery
at once to the Committee of Public Safety.  Billaud-Varennes rubbed
his hands gleefully.  He was on the scent of a plot.  An Englishman?
That could be no other than Vaughan, Fox's agent, who was known to
have been already two days in Paris.  Ah!  Robespierre had secret
interviews with him, had he?  A plot, of course!  It was splendid!
Nothing could be more opportune!

"Run quickly, and ascertain if the Englishman is still at the
American Consulate, while we draw up the warrant of arrest!" was his
immediate order.

But at the Consulate the detective was told that Vaughan had just
left Paris.  Suspecting a trick, he took other means to continue his
inquiries, only to find after all that the Englishman had started for
Geneva directly after leaving Montmorency.

The members of the Committee were greatly disappointed on learning
that the plot must remain unravelled, for how could they prove the
interview without witnesses?  Coulongeon was the only one who had
seen Robespierre speaking with Vaughan, but he was in the pay of the
Committee, and no one would believe him.  They rested their hopes on
the probable return of the Englishman, but they waited to no purpose,
and were finally obliged to abandon the attempt.

One evening, however, Coulongeon had brought the Committee an
unlooked-for piece of news.  Having had a message to take to the
prison of La Bourbe, he had found himself in the Acacia courtyard
among the prisoners just at their supper-hour.  Two female prisoners
had attracted his attention.  It seemed to him as if it was not the
first time he had seen them, and after searching his memory for a
moment, he recognised them as the two women who were with Vaughan in
the forest of Montmorency before Robespierre arrived on the scene.
Yes, he remembered it all now!  It was so!  There was not the
slightest doubt!  The gaoler, when questioned, completely confirmed
his suspicions.  The women did come from Montmorency, where they had
been arrested by Robespierre's orders.  "Now we have two witnesses!"
Billaud-Varennes cried in delight.

"Three!" the agent interjected.  "For, now I come to think of it,
there was a young man with them."

"He must be found also!  Quick to Montmorency, and bring him back
with you!"

At Montmorency, after two days of fruitless search, the detective
discovered Clarisse's house in the forest.  The gardener on being
interrogated replied that he was completely ignorant of the
whereabouts of Olivier, who had disappeared the very day his mother
and his _fiancée_ were arrested....  Perhaps Leonard the locksmith
could tell him.  Questioned in his turn, Leonard replied evasively.
Coulongeon then informed him who he was, and threatened him with the
law, so that Leonard ended by owning that the young man had started
the same night for Paris.  He swore that was all he knew.
Coulongeon, pretending to be quite satisfied, thanked him and went
away.  But returning soon after he adroitly questioned the neighbours
on Leonard's connections and acquaintances.  The agent learnt that
when the locksmith went to Paris he took up his abode in furnished
apartments in the Rue de Rocher, kept by a certain widow Beaugrand.

"Now I am on the right track," thought Coulongeon.

Once back in Paris the agent had little difficulty in making the good
woman speak.  Did the widow Beaugrand know the young man?  Pardieu!
She knew him too well!  He was the daring insulter of Robespierre,
the young madman arrested on the Fête of the Supreme Being who was
now imprisoned at La Force.

The joy of the Committee knew no bounds, when they learnt the news on
leaving the hall of the Convention on the 8th Thermidor.

Billaud-Varennes, as can be imagined, was also overjoyed.

"We will have the three prisoners out of gaol, at once, and keep them
here at hand."

Two orders of release had been immediately drafted, one for the
prison of La Bourbe, the other for La Force.

Coulongeon had gone first of all to La Force to fetch Olivier, whom
he conducted straight to the Tuileries and locked in a little chamber
above the Committee-room under charge of a gendarme.  But at the
prison of La Bourbe he was too late; the two women had been taken
away by Lebas, under an order of release from Robespierre.

On his return the police-agent had sought Billaud-Varennes to apprise
him of the result of his errand, but finding that he was away until
after the meeting of the Jacobins, he left a sealed note for him with
full particulars.

Billaud received this on his return from the Jacobins accompanied by
Collot d'Herbois.

"Out of three witnesses, only one is left to us!" he exclaimed on
reading it.  "The most important one, however!  We have the man
himself who insulted the traitor!  We must cross-examine him
directly.  It will be amusing."

Robespierre just then appeared on the scene and hastened the
examination by his violent outburst.

Billaud-Varennes began to cross-examine Olivier in the little chamber
above the Committee-room.  The young man knew nothing of the plot.
Robespierre might have had an interview with Vaughan in the forest,
this was very possible, but he, Olivier, had left just after the
Englishman's arrival.

"You spoke to him, I suppose?"

"To whom?"

"To Vaughan."

"Why, yes!  I exchanged a few words with him."

"You knew him, then?"

"My mother knew him.  He was an old friend of hers."

"She knew then what he came to Montmorency for?"

"Not in the least.  It was quite a chance-meeting.  He had lost his
way, when they..."

"And you know absolutely nothing of what passed after your departure?"

"Nothing, except that my mother and my _fiancée_ were arrested by
Robespierre's infamous orders."

Billaud-Varennes left the room greatly disappointed.  He wondered if,
after all, Olivier was telling the truth.

"However, the young man has the night to reflect over it," he said to
himself, as he descended the stair.  "I will question him again
to-morrow after having conferred with the Committee, perhaps by that
time he will have decided to speak!  And yet I cannot but think he
was sincere."

With this he re-entered the room where his colleagues were assembled.
But such an extraordinary scene of animation presented itself when he
opened the door that he forgot the object of his visit.

This Committee-room, like the others next to it, formed part of a
suite of apartments recently belonging to the King.  It offered a
strange spectacle, with its mixture of elegance and vulgarity, which
said more than words for the ravages of the Revolution.

Over the five doors, two of which opened on to a long corridor, the
royal arms surmounted by a crown had been roughly erased.  The walls
and panels of the doors were covered with printed decrees of the
Convention, and tricolour placards were pasted up everywhere.  This
array of Revolutionary literature struck the observer as at once
ominous and pathetic, in the midst of all the grace and beauty of
that white and gold reception-room, decorated in the purest Louis XV.
style, with its daintily carved cornices and painted ceiling, where
Nymphs and Cupids sported in the glowing spring-tide among flowers.
The contrast was even more apparent in the furniture.  Gilded
armchairs covered with rare tapestry, now all torn, stood side by
side with plain deal seats, some of which were very rickety.  A
sideboard laden with eatables and wine-bottles completed the
installation of the Terror in the palace of the Tuileries.

Billaud-Varennes was still standing there on the threshold.  Collot
d'Herbois, surrounded by Barère, Carnot, Prieur, and Elie Lacoste,
was violently addressing Saint-Just, Robespierre's friend, who was
seated at the table, engaged in writing the speech he was to deliver
before the Convention on the morrow.  Saint-Just, calm and
contemptuous, replied to their insults by a shrug of the shoulders.
This disdain exasperated Collot d'Herbois beyond measure, and
Saint-Just aggravated him still more by ironical inquiries about the
Jacobins' meeting.

"You are nothing more than a traitor!" cried Collot; "it is our
indictment you are drawing up there, I suppose?"

"Yes, traitor! threefold traitor!" exclaimed Elie Lacoste.  "Traitor
and perjurer, you form with Robespierre and Couthon a triumvirate of
calumny, falsehood, and betrayal."

Saint-Just, without losing self-possession a moment, stopped in his
writing, and coldly offered to read them his speech.

Barère disdainfully refused to listen.

"We fear neither you nor your accomplices!  You are but a child,
Couthon a miserable cripple, and as to Robespierre..."

At this moment an usher brought in a letter to Barère.  He looked
uneasy after he had read it, and signed to his colleagues to follow,
leaving Saint-Just free to continue his work.  In the lobby Barère
told them it was a letter from Lecointre announcing the approaching
attack upon the Committee by the troops of the Commune, and offering
the battalion of his section for their defence.

"It is exactly as I told you!" cried Elie Lacoste.  "The leaders of
the Commune must be instantly arrested, and with them Robespierre and
his two accomplices!"

"Commencing with Saint-Just and his speech," said Collot.

"Robespierre was here just now," observed Billaud-Varennes, who had
followed his colleagues out of the room; "he wanted to know what we
had done with the prisoner from La Force.  We told him we had not to
render account to him, whereupon he went away in a rage, crying out,
'You want war?  War you shall have then!'  We have been warned by the
Incorruptible himself, you see!"

"Yes, but we shall crush him through his Englishman!  We have
witnesses enough now!"

"Nay, unhappily we have not!" replied Billaud.

"What! we have no witnesses?" exclaimed Barère in surprise.  "What do
you mean? ... Has not Coulongeon...?"

"Coulongeon arrived too late at La Bourbe Lebas had just taken them
off, by Robespierre's orders--no one knows whither."

"Oh! the villain! he suspected something, then, and abducted them to
suppress their evidence; but we have at any rate the young man from
La Force."

"He is upstairs, but he knows nothing."

"He lies, he is a traitor!"

"No, he seemed quite sincere, and he execrates Robespierre; but I
shall question him again to-morrow."

"And meanwhile we must resort to stratagem," remarked Barère.

They discussed and debated the question, and all came to the
conclusion that Barère was right.  Their safety lay in stratagem.
After all, there was no immediate peril.  Robespierre was not fond of
violent measures, he would not break the bounds of the law unless
driven to it.  It was out of sheer vexation that he had thrown that
challenge in Billaud-Varennes' face; and after all, since Saint-Just
had again assured them of the Incorruptible's pure intentions, it
would be perhaps prudent to dissemble and to disarm the triumvirate
by simulating confidence.

On the whole the members of the Committee were undecided, hesitating
between two alternatives, one as dangerous as the other.  Either they
must openly attack Robespierre and overthrow him, and thus add to the
already unbounded power of the Committee, which would then more
easily crush the Convention; or they must leave the power in
Robespierre's hands, who, when once master, would lose no time in
annihilating them.

The members returned to the Committee-room where Saint-Just was still
writing.  They spoke as if they had altered their mind on thinking
things over.  They regretted their hasty words, for after all the
patriotism of Robespierre and his friends had stood a long test.
They spoke of precautions to be taken in case of an unexpected
attack, for warnings had reached them from every quarter.  All this
was discussed aloud before Saint-Just, ostensibly to show their
complete confidence in him.

Saint-Just, to all appearance the dupe of their hypocrisy, assured
them they were unnecessarily alarmed.  If the Jacobins and the
Commune had formed any projects against the Committee, he would have
heard of it.  There was certainly considerable excitement in the
streets among the people whose anger had been aroused at the
calumnies to which Robespierre had been subject.  But the
Incorruptible would soon calm them down.  As far as he, Saint-Just,
was concerned, he was ready to forget the somewhat hasty words which
one of his colleagues had addressed to him in the heat of the moment.

Collot d'Herbois upon a sign from Barère feigned to regret his hasty
speech, which was, of course, he said, the outcome of excitement.  It
was so easy in these times of anger and enmity to be carried away by
the fever of the moment.  The dissensions of the Committee were
making them the laughing-stock of their enemies.

Saint-Just, cold and impassive as before, quietly assented, and
meanwhile continued to draft his speech, and when he had finished put
it in his pocket, and looked up at the clock.  It was five in morning.

"At ten, the speech will be copied, and I shall read it to you before
the sitting, so that there may be no unpleasantness," said
Saint-Just, rising to go.

Taking his hat and stick, he moved off, the others, to all appearance
reassured, pretending to do likewise; but Saint-Just had no sooner
disappeared than they returned to the Committee-room.  It was agreed
to send for the three leaders suspected of assisting Robespierre in
the insurrection: Hauriot, the Commander of the troops; Payan, the
Commune agent; and Fleuriot-Lescot, Mayor of Paris.  The ushers
returned with the two last named, but Hauriot was not to be found.
For the space of four hours they retained Payan and Fleuriot-Lescot,
smoking, drinking, eating, talking, and discussing, in the sultry and
oppressive heat which heralded the near approach of a storm.  They
thus held them in check for the time being, overwhelming them
meanwhile with questions, to which they replied in terms that tended
to calm the anxiety of the Committee.

During this time the Parisian populace, who had not slept either, had
entered the Convention, the assembly-hall of which, situated also in
the palace of the Tuileries, within ear-shot of the Committee, had
been filling since five o'clock that morning, though the sitting was
not to commence until noon.

Every moment messengers arrived at the Committee-room, ushers out of
breath bringing news, messages, and reports in an endless succession,
which increased as the hours advanced.  Payan and Fleuriot-Lescot had
just left, after completely reassuring the Committee.  It was now
half-past ten, and the sitting was opened.  Saint-Just did not put in
an appearance, but the thump of crutches was heard in the corridor,
announcing the arrival of Couthon, the cripple.

"Where is Saint-Just?"

"He is coming!"

For one hour Couthon kept the Committee in suspense, entertaining
them with Saint-Just's favourite theme, Robespierre's single-minded
patriotism, but still no Saint-Just appeared.  The Committee began to
feel annoyed, and soon Carnot, who suspected treachery, spoke out
boldly.  It was nothing less, he said, than a preconcerted plan
between Couthon, Saint-Just, and Robespierre.

Couthon protested.

"You do wrong to speak ill of the patriot Robespierre!  You are
basely calumniating a friend of your childhood!"

"If I am base, you are a traitor!" retorted Carnot, beside himself
with rage.

But Couthon, anticipating a storm, took up his crutches and stumped
off, protesting as he went.  Sinister sounds now reached the
Committee.  They had been betrayed!  Saint-Just was going to denounce
them from the tribune!  The document he had been drafting before
them, there on that table, was nothing more or less than the
indictment of the Committee!  Barère had just received trustworthy
information to that effect.  Robespierre had drawn up a list of
eighteen names of those destined for the scaffold.  A deputy entered
and asked for Billaud-Varennes.  He was told that Billaud had just
gone out, but would return shortly.

"Ah!  Here is Fouché!" some one exclaimed.

It was in truth Fouché, the deputy, who now entered.  He was beset
with questions.  Yes! they were not mistaken, he told them.
Robespierre was now going to throw off the mask, and denounce some of
his colleagues.  "And I am sure he has not forgotten me," added
Fouché, ironically.

He was immediately surrounded by eager questioners.  The names?  Did
he know the names? they asked anxiously.  Fouché did not know; but
everybody was threatened, and each must look after himself; the
sitting would soon begin.

All turned their eyes anxiously to the clock.  It was not yet noon;
they had still twelve minutes!  Now another deputy came in,
breathless with the news that Robespierre had just entered the Hall
of the Convention, with his brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint-Just,
Lebas, and all his followers.  The galleries, crowded to excess, had
received the Incorruptible with loud cheers.

"Hark, the rabble are applauding; he has hired his usual _claque_,"
said one.

"That's true," another answered.  "Since five this morning the
Robespierrists, male and female, have taken possession of the
galleries, yelling, feasting, and drinking."

"They are already drunk."

"Well!  Let us go and offer our heads to the drunkards!" exclaimed
Fouché.

But just then a door on the right opened, and Billaud-Varennes
entered.  Every one paused.

"Here is Billaud at last."

Billaud was looking anxious, and wiping his brow, worn out with the
heat, he asked for a glass of beer.  They eagerly questioned him.

"Was it true, then?  They would have to fight?"

"Yes! fight to the death.  They ought to have listened to him.
Robespierre had told him plainly enough that there would be war.  And
now that they could not prove the plot...."

"What plot?" asked Fouché.

"Ah, yes!  It's true; you don't know...."

Billaud made a sign to shut the doors, as Robespierre had spies in
all the corridors.  The doors securely closed, Billaud-Varennes again
told the story of the Englishman.  Fouché listened with curiosity.
Other members, Vadier, Amar, Voullaud, who had just entered, also
followed Billaud's story with keen interest, while those who already
knew of the plot, came and went, deep in discussion, waiting for
Billaud to finish, to give their opinion.

Billaud-Varennes now produced the order of release for the two women,
signed by Robespierre, and brought from the prison of La Bourbe by
Coulongeon.

"There can be no doubt.  We have in this quite enough to ruin him,"
said Fouché; "but what about that young man from La Force?"

"I questioned him again closely just now in the next room.  He
persists in his first statement, which appears to me quite
genuine--as genuine as is his rage against Robespierre, whom he
regrets, he says, not to have stabbed at the Fête of the Supreme
Being."

"Ah! if he had! what a riddance!" was the cry with which one and all
greeted Billaud's last words.

"True; but he has not done it," observed Fouché drily.  "As to the
plot, it has escaped our grasp."

"Not so," some one remarked; "his treason is evident."

A warm discussion ensued.  The treachery was obvious to the
Committee, but it would not be so in the eyes of the public.  It must
be proved.  And where was the Englishman?  Where were the women?  To
accuse Robespierre thus, without sufficient proof, was sheer folly.
The only witness available, the agent Coulongeon, was in the pay of
the Committee.  Robespierre would make a speech on it, call it a
concocted plan, and annihilate his accusers with an oratorical
flourish.

"Nothing truer!" remarked another deputy.

"He has only to open his mouth and every one trembles."

"Very well; let us gag him," said Fouché.  "It's the only means of
putting an end to it all."

They looked at him, not quite catching his meaning.  Fouché explained
his idea.  They had but to drown Robespierre's voice at the sitting
by their clamour.  They had but to howl, scream, vociferate; the
people in the galleries would protest noisily, and their outcry would
add to the tumult.  Robespierre would strain his voice in vain to be
heard above the uproar, and then fall back exhausted and vanquished.

"That's it," they cried unanimously.

Billaud also thought this an excellent idea, and at once began to
arrange for letting all their friends know as soon as possible, for
Robespierre must be prevented from uttering a single audible word.
Every one approved.  Just then a door opened.

"Be quick!  Saint-Just is ascending the tribune!" called a voice.

"Very well.  We may as well commence with him."

And they one and all made for the doors in an indescribable disorder.

"Now for it," cried Billaud, laying his glass down on the sideboard.

But meanwhile Fouché signed to Vadier, Amar, and Voullaud to remain.
They looked at him in surprise.  Fouché waited for the noise to
subside, then assuring himself that no one could overhear him, he
confided his fears to them.  It was not everything to drown
Robespierre's voice.  Even arrested, condemned, and on the
death-tumbril, his hands bound, Robespierre would still be dangerous;
a sudden rush and riot could deliver him, and crush them all!  Then
lowering his voice, he continued--

"The young madman of whom Billaud spoke just now...."

"Well?"

"Where is he?"

Amar pointed to a door on the left.

"Let him come in!" said Fouché; "I will speak to him in the name of
the Committee."

They did not yet quite grasp his meaning, but Voullaud went all the
same and opened the door.

"Hush!" said Fouché, "here is the young man!"

Olivier entered, followed by a gendarme, who, on seeing Fouché and
the other members, stopped on the threshold.  Olivier looked at them
indifferently, expecting to be again cross-examined about the
Englishman.  Fouché had taken his hat and put it on, as if going out.

"Young man, you were the first to charge the despot, whom we are
about to fight, with his crimes!  This is sufficient to recommend you
to the indulgence of the Committee."

As Olivier advanced in astonishment, he continued--

"You may go if you like!"

Fouché turned to the gendarme--

"The citoyen is free!"

The gendarme retired.

Vadier now understood Fouché's idea.  Taking up his hat also, he
remarked--

"And if our enemy is victorious, take care not to fall again into his
clutches!"

Olivier who was preparing to go, stopped suddenly.  Unhappily, he
said, he had not only himself to tremble for.  His mother and
_fiancée_ were in prison and Robespierre would revenge himself on
them.

"Most probably!" replied Fouché.

"Then the Committee ought to release them also, and with even more
reason!"

Fouché shrugged his shoulders regretfully.

It had been the intention of the Committee, but the two prisoners
were beyond their reach.

"How?" asked Olivier anxiously.

Simply because they were no longer at the prison of La Bourbe.

Olivier gasped--

"Condemned?"

"Not yet!  But Lebas had taken them away with an order from
Robespierre."

Here Fouché, picking up the order left on the table by
Billaud-Varennes, showed it to Olivier, who read it in horrified
amazement.

"Where are they then," he cried.

"At the Conciergerie, where they would be judged within twenty-four
hours."

"The wretch! the wretch!"

He implored them that they might be released.  The Committee were
all-powerful!--They, powerful, indeed?  They looked at him pityingly.
He believed that?  What simplicity!  How could they release the two
women when they were on the point of being sacrificed themselves?
They would have difficulty enough to save their own heads!

"To-morrow," continued Fouché, "we shall most likely be with your
mother, at the foot of the scaffold."

Olivier looked at them in terror.  Was it possible?  Was there no one
that could be found to kill this dangerous wild beast?

Fouché, who had consulted his colleagues in a rapid glance, now felt
the moment ripe.

"Assassinate him, you mean?" he asked.

Olivier lost all self-control.  Is a mad dog assassinated?  He is
killed, that's all!  What did it matter if the one who did it were
torn to pieces; he would have had his revenge, and would save further
victims.

"Certainly," said Fouché, "and if Robespierre is victorious, it is
the only chance of saving your mother."

"But don't rely on that!" Vadier remarked.

Amar went even further.

"Patriots like Brutus are not often found!" he said.

But Olivier cried out in his fury that only one was wanted, and then
looked about for the door.

"Which is the way out?"

Vadier pointed to the exit.

"Thank you, citoyens! ... Adieu! au revoir!"

The four men silently watched him disappear, and then looked at each
other....  Would he do it?  It was not impossible!

"Meanwhile, let us go and howl!" suggested Fouché.

And they rushed into the Convention-room.

CHAPTER XIII

A BROKEN IDOL

Saint-Just is in the tribune.  Collot d'Herbois occupies the
presidential chair, Collot who, at two in the morning, suspecting
Saint-Just's treachery, had openly charged him with it.  War is in
the air, and every member is at his post.

Fouché looks round for Robespierre as he crosses to his seat.  There
he is; in the semicircle before the bust of Brutus, at the foot of
the tribune which he seems to guard like a vigilant sentinel.

"He is dressed as he was at the Fête of the Supreme Being," whispers
Fouché ironically to his neighbour.

Yes, the Incorruptible has on his sky-blue coat, white-silk
embroidered waistcoat, and nankeen knee-breeches buttoned over white
stockings, nor has he omitted the powder and the curls.  What a
strange figure, with his dapper daintiness, his old-fashioned attire,
in that seething furnace of fifteen hundred people, actors and
spectators, so closely packed, and, most of them with bared breasts,
suffocating in the awful heat which oppresses them!  The
_sans-culottes_ up in the gallery have even taken off their
traditional red nightcaps, which they hang on the handles of their
sword-sticks like bloodstained trophies.

It is as they expected.  Since five the hall has been taken
possession of by Robespierrists.  All the worst scum of Paris has
gathered there; all the bloodhounds of the Revolution, all the
riff-raff who accompany the death-tumbrils to the scaffold to the
song of the _Carmagnole_; fish-wives and rowdies, recruited and hired
at twenty-four sous apiece to drown with their vociferations every
hostile attempt made against the idol of the Commune.

This brutish mob, reeking of sausages, pressed meat, gingerbread and
beer, eating and drinking, poison the atmosphere of the Hall.

Robespierre's arrival at twelve o'clock is hailed by repeated rounds
of loud applause, which he acknowledges with a gracious bow, proud
and smiling.  Turning to Lebas who accompanies him, he remarks, "Did
I not tell you it would be a success?"

So certain is he of victory that before starting he had set the
Duplays quite at ease as to the issue of the struggle.  "Believe me,"
he had said, "the greater part of the Convention are unbiassed."

But suddenly, at the commencement of the sitting, when Saint-Just
appears in the tribune, a counter movement makes itself felt in the
assembly.  Robespierre realising the importance of at once preventing
any hostile demonstration, advances to the foot of the tribune,
determined to daunt his opponents by a bold front.  Saint-Just at
once renews the accusation brought against the Committee by the
Incorruptible the day before, accentuating it without mentioning
names.

It is now that the anti-Robespierrist plot, admirably planned, begins
to work.

Tallien, one of the conspirators, breaks in upon Saint-Just violently.

"Enough of these vague accusations!" he cries.  "The names!  Let us
have the names!"

Saint-Just, encouraged by a look from Robespierre, simply shrugs his
shoulders, and continues.  But his voice is immediately drowned in a
thundering clamour, and in spite of the vehement protestations of
Robespierre, he is unable to finish his speech.  The
anti-Robespierrist cabal are playing their part well.  They simply
roar.

Billaud-Varennes demands a hearing.  He is already in the tribune,
greeted by sustained applause.

Robespierre, growing excited, protests and persists in speaking, but
his voice is drowned in cries of "Silence!  Silence!  Let
Billaud-Varennes speak!"  Collot d'Herbois rings the president's
bell, and adds to the noise under the pretext of repressing it.

"Let Billaud-Varennes speak!  Let Billaud-Varennes speak!"

But Robespierre continues to protest--

"Don't listen to that man!  His words are but poisonous drivel!"

Immediately loud cries are heard--

"Order!  Order!  Robespierre is not in the tribune!  Billaud-Varennes
is in the tribune!  Silence!  Silence!"

And Robespierre, with a shrug of contempt, returns to his place.

Silence being gradually restored, Billaud-Varennes begins to speak.

"I was at the Jacobins' yesterday; the room was crowded with men
posted there to insult the National representatives, and to
calumniate the Committee of Public Safety which devotes its days and
nights to kneading bread for you, to forging arms and raising armies
for you, to sending them forth to victory!"

A voice is heard in approval, and fresh applause breaks out; but the
gaze of the orator is fixed on that part of the assembly called the
Mountain.  He seems to recognise some one, at whom he points with
lifted arm.

"I see yonder, on the Mountain, one of the wretches who insulted us
yesterday.  There he stands!"

This is the signal for renewed uproar.  Several members spring up and
turn round towards the person indicated.

"Yes, yes, behold him!" cries Billaud.

The agitation increases.  Cries of "To the door with him!  Turn him
out!" are heard.  The man pleads innocence, and tries to weather the
storm, but seeing the majority against him escapes as best he can,
mixes with the crowd and disappears.  Silence is with difficulty
restored among the infuriated members.

The orator continues, throwing violent and insidious phrases
broadcast among the assembly like lighted fire-brands.  His thrusts
strike nearer home now; he accuses Robespierre openly to his face.

"You will shudder when I tell you that the soldiery is under the
unscrupulous control of that man who has the audacity to place at the
head of the section-men and artillery of the city the degraded
Hauriot, and that without consulting you at all, solely according to
his own will, for he listens to no other dictates.  He has, he says,
deserted the Committees because they oppressed him.  He lies!"

Robespierre rises, his lips quivering at the insult, and attempts to
reply from his place.

"Yes, you lie!" continues Billaud.  "You left us because you did not
find among us either partisans, flatterers, or accomplices in your
infamous projects against Liberty.  Your sole aim has been to sow
dissension, to disunite us that you might attack us singly and remain
in power at the head of drunkards and debauchees, like that secretary
who stole a hundred and fifty thousand livres, and whom you took
under your wing, you, the Incorruptible, you who make such boast of
your strict virtue and integrity!"

Laughter, mixed with some applause is heard, but Robespierre shrugs
his shoulders contemptuously at such vulgar abuse.  Fouché, from his
bench, laughs loudly with the rest, and leaning towards his
neighbour, whispers--

"Clever tactics! ... Billaud is splendid!"

The speaker, in conclusion, appeals to the patriotism of the
assembly, and implores the members to watch over its safety.  If they
do not take energetic measures against this madman, he says, the
Convention is lost, for he only speaks of purifying it that he may
send to the scaffold all those who stand in the way of his personal
ambition.  It is, he insists, the preservation of the Convention
which is at stake, the safety of the Republic, the salvation of their
country.

"I demand," so runs his peroration, "that the Convention sit
permanently until it has baffled the plans of this new Catiline,
whose only aim is to cross the trench which still separates him from
supremacy by filling it with our heads!"

Thunders of applause greet Billaud-Varennes' words; shouts, cheers,
and waving of hands which continue long after he has left the tribune.

Robespierre now leaves his seat in great agitation, crying--

"It is all false, and I will prove it!"

But his words are again drowned in an uproar of voices, and cries of
"Silence!  Silence!"

"I will give the traitor his answer!" exclaims Robespierre, trying to
make himself heard above the tumult which increases at every word he
utters, so that his voice is now completely lost.  Some of the
members rush into the semicircle, forming a living rampart round the
tribune.

The din is dominated by a new voice from the presidential chair.

"Silence, let no man speak!" it thunders forth.

It is Thuriot, who has just replaced Collot d'Herbois in the chair.

"I demand a hearing!" vociferates the Incorruptible, "and I will be
heard!"

"You shall not!"

"I wish to speak!" cries a deputy, taking at the same time possession
of the tribune.

It is Vadier.

Thuriot rings the president's bell.

"Vadier has speech!"

"Yes, Vadier!  Vadier!" members exclaim from all sides.

Robespierre continues to protest, disputing frantically with his
neighbours in his fury.

"It is infamous treachery!  Infamous!"

Again they call out--

"Vadier!  Silence!  Vadier!  Vadier!"

"_Citoyens!_" commences Vadier--

But the speaker is interrupted by Robespierre who furiously persists
in claiming a hearing.

"Compel him to be quiet!" cries some one.

Thuriot rings his bell, and orders Robespierre to let Vadier speak.

"Vadier is to speak!  Silence!"

Robespierre once more resigns himself to his fate, and returns to his
place.

The tumult dies away in a low murmur, above which Vadier's
mellifluous voice is heard.

"_Citoyens!_" he begins, "not until the 22nd Prairial did I open my
eyes to the double-dealing of that man who wears so many masks, and
when he cannot save one of his creatures consigns him to the
scaffold!"

Laughter and applause run round the assembly.  Thus encouraged,
Vadier continues--

"Only listen to him.  He will tell you, with his usual modesty, that
he is the sole defender of Liberty, but so harassed, so discouraged,
so persecuted! ... And it is he who attacks every one himself!"

"Hear, hear!" shouts a voice.  "Excellent!  That's it, exactly!"

"He says," continues Vadier, "that he is prevented from speaking.
Yet, strange to say, no one ever speaks but he!"

This new sally is hailed with renewed roars of laughter, and on every
side members are convulsed with merriment.  Robespierre writhes in
his seat, casting glances of hatred and contempt around him.

But Vadier is in the right mood, and goes on--

"This is his regular refrain: 'I am the best friend of the Republic,
and as So-and-so has looked askance at me, So-and-so conspires
against the Republic, since I and the Republic are one!'"

Again laughter and cheers.  "Very good, Vadier!  That's it, Vadier!"

By this time the orator's ironical and facetious allusions have
served their purpose well, covering Robespierre with ridicule, and
lowering him in the eyes of many who were still wavering, hardly
daring to join the opposition.

But Vadier, carried away by success, wanders presently from the main
point, and loses himself in a maze of petty details.  He repeats
anecdotes going the rounds of taverns and wine-shops, speaks of
Robespierre's spies dogging the heels of the Committee, and quotes
his personal experience.  The attention of the assembly begins to
flag.  Robespierre feels this and, taking instant advantage of it,
tries to bring the Convention back to a sense of its dignity.

"What! can you give credence to such arrant nonsense?"

But Tallien has realised the danger, and rushing towards the tribune
cries--

"I demand a hearing!  We are wandering from the main question!"

"Fear not!  I shall return to it!" replies Robespierre, who has now
reached the semicircle, and tries to enter the tribune by another
stairway.

But several members standing on the steps push him back.

"No! we will have Tallien!  Tallien!"

"After me!" cries Robespierre, still struggling.

"Tallien!  Tallien has speech now!"

But Robespierre climbs up by the banister with the fury of a madman.

"Unjust, infamous judges!  Will you then only listen to my enemies!"

The Incorruptible is answered by the one cry rising from a hundred
throats.

"Silence!  Order!  Order!  Tallien!  Tallien!"

Tallien is in the tribune.

"_Citoyens!_" he breaks out in a stentorian voice.

"Hold!  Scoundrel!" shouts Robespierre, desperately.

"Have the madman arrested!" cries a voice in the crowd.

Robespierre still does his utmost to force a passage on the stairway.

"I will speak!  I will be heard, wretches!  I will speak!"

The uproar increases, aggravated by Robespierre's boisterous
pertinacity.  The jingling of Thuriot's bell at last restores order,
though not without difficulty.

The opening words of Tallien's speech are already audible, amidst
enthusiastic cheers.  Robespierre, held firmly by some of the
deputies, has ceased his struggles, and stands on the steps in an
indignant attitude, his features twitching convulsively, his eyes,
glaring in hatred, fixed on the new speaker who is preparing to hurl
at him another shower of insults.

"The masks are torn away!" cries Tallien.

"Bravo!  Bravo!"

"It was the speech delivered yesterday in this very hall, and
repeated the same evening at the Jacobin Club, that brought us face
to face with this unmasked tyrant, this vaunted patriot, who at the
memorable epoch of the invasion of the Tuileries and the arrest of
the King, only emerged from his den three days after the fight..."

Sneers and hisses reach Robespierre, repeated up to the very steps of
the tribune, below which he stands.

"This honourable citizen, who poses before the Committee of Public
Safety as champion of the oppressed, goes home, and in the secrecy of
his own house draws up the death-lists which have stained the altar
of new-born Liberty with so much blood!"

Renewed cheers and cries of "Hear! hear!" rise from nearly every seat
in the hall.

"But his dark designs are unveiled!" continues Tallien.  "We shall
crush the tyrant before he has succeeded in swelling the river of
blood with which France is already inundated.  His long and
successful career of crime has made him forget his habitual prudence.
He has betrayed himself at the very moment of triumph, when nothing
is wanting to him but the name of king! ... I also was at the
Jacobins' yesterday, and I trembled for the Republic when I saw the
vast army that flocked to the standard of this new Cromwell.  I
invoked the shade of Brutus, and if the Convention will not have
recourse to the sword of justice to crush this tyrant, I am armed
with a dagger that shall pierce his heart!"

Tallien makes a movement as if to rush on Robespierre dagger in hand;
but he is arrested by a burst of unanimous applause.  A hundred
deputies have risen and are calling out: "Bravo, Tallien!  Bravo!"

The orator, in an attitude of defiance, gazes steadily at
Robespierre, who, grasping convulsively at the railings of the
tribune, screams himself hoarse, challenging Tallien and the deputies
around, while they answer him with abuse, shaking their fists in his
face.  It is a veritable Babel of cries, appeals, and insults.  The
President, now upstanding, vainly tries to restore order with his
bell.

At last there is a lull, of which Robespierre attempts to take
advantage.

"Vile wretches!" he cries, "would you condemn me unheard?"

But he is answered by a telling home-thrust--

"It is your own Prairial law we are putting into force!"

And applause breaks out again louder than ever.

Robespierre, tired of struggling against the rough gang on the
stairway, descends to the centre of the semicircle, and addresses the
deputies of the Mountain.

"Give me a hearing! _citoyens_!  I pray you give me speech!"

He was answered by an ominous cry--

"No! no!  The arrest!  To the votes for the arrest!"

To the votes!  The arrest!  Robespierre recoils in terror at the
fearful words.  His looks travel to the deputies of the centre, those
of the Plain as they are called.

"It is to the Plain I address myself and not to these traitors!" he
exclaims.

But the Plain remains impassive.

Shouts are now heard from all sides, "The arrest!  The arrest!"

Not a single voice mediates in his favour!  Not one dares to defend
his cause!  The crowd in the gallery have remained silent and unmoved
from the very outset of the stormy scene.

A cry of anguish rises to Robespierre's lips.  "Villains!  Wretches!"
he gasps.

But his voice is again drowned.

"You are the villain!  To death with the tyrant!  To death with him!
To the vote for his arrest!  To the vote for his arrest!"

Robespierre, now completely exhausted, makes one supreme effort,
addressing himself to Thuriot, who is still vainly trying to restore
silence with his bell.

"President of assassins, for the last time I demand the right of
speech."

"No!  No!" cry all the deputies.

"Then decree my murder...."

But his voice breaks, and the last word is lost in a hoarse cry.

"It is Danton's blood that chokes you!"

Robespierre, livid at the taunt, turns to the interrupter.

"Danton?  It is he, then, you will avenge?  Why did you not protect
him, cowards?"

Replies are hurled at him from every corner.  Had he not gagged
Danton's defenders?  Now they were going to avenge him!  Now their
turn had come!

"Did you not hound him to his death, you curs?" shouts Robespierre,
with one last cry of rage.

But a pregnant remark falls on the assembly and hastens the end.

"It is hard work, indeed, to drag down a tyrant!"

There is no more hope for Robespierre.

This interruption recalls the Convention to the danger that threatens
them.  The turmoil is re-doubled.  Tallien, from the tribune, which
he has not yet quitted, demands of the president that the traitor's
arrest be put to the vote.

"To the vote!  To the vote!" echoes through the Hall.

But suddenly an unexpected incident attracts general attention.

A deputy advances to the centre of the semi-circle: "I demand to
share my brother's fate, as I have striven to share his nobler deeds."

It is Augustin Robespierre, who had returned to Paris the day before,
and, acting on a generous impulse, thus offers the sacrifice of his
life, a sacrifice that is accepted out of hand.

"The arrest of the brothers Robespierre!"

"And mine!" calls out Lebas proudly, joining the two.

"And Saint-Just!" cries a voice.

"And Couthon!"

"To the vote!  To the vote!"

The president has risen.  He will put these arrests to the vote when
silence is restored.

"Silence for the voting!  Silence!"

"Every one to his seat!"

The deputies take their respective places.  Then in the deep and
awful silence which follows, under the strained gaze of the mob in
the gallery, the president speaks--

"_Citoyens_, I put to the vote, by standing and sitting, the arrest
of Maximilien Robespierre, of Augustin Robespierre, of Couthon, of
Saint-Just, and of Lebas.  Let those who vote for these arrests stand
up."

A hundred deputies rise.  They are those of the Mountain.

Seeing the men of the Plain remain motionless, a ray of hope cheers
Robespierre's despair.

Since the centre refuses to vote for his arrest, they must be,
surely, on his side.

"Oh, ye at least, righteous men of the Plain!" he pleads.

Those of the Plain start, draw themselves up, then silently and
spontaneously rise to a man!  It is the death-blow!  The whole
assembly are now standing.  The arrests are unanimously voted.

Robespierre is lost.  He totters, and nearly falls on a bench at the
foot of the tribune.

The president now officially announces the result of the voting
amidst deafening shouts of triumph.  The ushers advance to arrest
Robespierre, but he rises, livid with rage, and thrusts them aside.

The President sees this.

"Robespierre refuses to obey!  Ushers, call in the gendarmes!"

The whole assembly echo his words, and shout: "The gendarmes!  Bring
in the gendarmes!"

The spectators in the gallery rise in their excitement and join in
the general clamour.

"_Vive la Liberté!  Vive la Liberté!_"

Robespierre staggers under these crushing blows, and shrieks in his
despair--

"Liberty, indeed!  She is no more!  The triumph of those ruffians is
her death-knell!"

But the guards have entered.  They surround the accused, and push
them towards the door.  Robespierre walks with head erect, and folded
arms between two gendarmes.  He does not even cast a glance on the
crowd who had hailed his entrance with loud cheers, and who now hiss
and hoot him.  The public are descending and mix with the deputies.
The whole floor is crowded.  The Convention-hall where a loud,
incessant buzzing is all that can be heard, resembles a gigantic
beehive, for no single voice is distinguishable in the tempestuous
clamour that follows that solemn act at last accomplished.

A cry rises above the universal hum: "Long live the Convention!" but
is instantaneously succeeded by another more mighty and prevailing
shout: "Long live the Republic!"

Meanwhile the accused have disappeared.

CHAPTER XIV

THE KNELL OF THE TOCSIN

Urbain, who had witnessed Robespierre's signal defeat and downfall
from a seat in the gallery, ran immediately to the Rue du Martroy, to
warn Clarisse and Thérèse that their retreat at the Hôtel de Ville
was no longer safe or secure.

The man found Clarisse in the drawing-room.  At the announcement of
the fearful news, the mother's first thought was for her son.

"Then Olivier is lost!" she cried.

In Robespierre lay her only hope, for Robespierre alone could tear
him from the grasp of the Committee.  Now that Robespierre was
vanquished and powerless, what would become of Olivier?  Urbain,
though he himself felt apprehensive, tried to reassure Clarisse, and
at this moment Thérèse entered the room.  She had heard all!  What!
Robespierre?  Their safety, Olivier's safety, was in the hands of
Robespierre!  She came forward, and asked in amazement--

"What! the man that was here yesterday, our protector, was--"

"Yes, it was he!" answered Clarisse, through her tears, "your
grandfather's former secretary."

As Thérèse, still trembling from the shock of hearing that name, was
about to answer, Clarisse added hastily--

"Hush, child!  Forget all his past, and think of him only as he was
yesterday!  He is now vanquished and fallen, and with him, alas!
falls our last hope!"

Thérèse, putting aside her own fears before her aunt's uncontrollable
grief, mastered her emotion and drove back the tears which rose to
her eyes, to dry those of Clarisse, speaking words of comfort and
hope which she herself could not feel.

"Do not give way to despair, mother!  God will watch over us....  We
have implored Him so much!"

Urbain also tried to comfort her by promising to keep her informed of
whatever happened.  There was some talk of an insurrection of the
Commune, he told her, of an attack on the Convention by an armed
force, headed by Coffinhal, who was entirely devoted to Robespierre.
Who could tell whether the Incorruptible's vengeance might not be
brooding!  Once rescued, he would again be all-powerful, and change
the face of affairs!

"With him, one never knows what may happen!" continued Urbain
hopefully.  "He has so many resources, and he is, besides, so
popular!"

Clarisse, worn out with grief, was, of necessity, resigned.

"May God's will be done!" she sighed.  "I shall wait for you here."

Urbain left them, and the two women knelt in prayer.

The storm which had hung threateningly over Paris all day now burst
out.  Night had just set in when streaks of lurid light shot through
the darkness, heralding a thunder-storm.  Suddenly the sound of a
bell was heard.  It grew louder and louder, pealing a signal of alarm.

Clarisse had risen and stood erect and pale.

"The tocsin!" she gasped, and then ran to the window, followed by
Thérèse.

Troops could be discerned in the distance, brandishing pikes and guns.

A shout reached the two women--

"Down with the Convention!"

Other cries were raised.

"Call out the Sections!  Call out the Sections!  Long live the
Incorruptible!"

The roll of drums was heard.  They were beating to arms!  Horsemen
galloped past in great disorder.  Beyond doubt it was an insurrection!

Then some one knocked, and the two women turned.

"Come in!" cried Clarisse.

Urbain appeared, breathless and bathed in perspiration.

"I told you so!  Robespierre has been rescued!"

"Rescued!" exclaimed both women, unable to conceal their joy.

"Yes! rescued on the way to the Conciergerie, and carried in triumph
to the Hôtel de Ville, where he now is, with his brother and his
friends, Lebas, Couthon, and Saint-Just, rescued with him!  It is war
to the knife between the Communes and the Convention.  Both parties
are arming.  Coffinhal has had to fall back on the Hôtel de Ville."

The cries outside grew louder and nearer, while the tocsin still rang
out.

"To arms!  To arms!  Long live the Incorruptible!"

"Do you hear?  They are stirring up the Sections!  They will make a
new attack on the Tuileries!"

"And what is to become of us?" asked Clarisse, "and of my son?"

"I don't know about your son.  But Citoyen Robespierre has thought of
you two.  It was he who has sent me."

"To tell us?..."

"To tell you that you are no longer safe here.  The street is guarded
by sectioners.  They might come up here at any moment to fire from
the windows in case of attack.  I have orders to conduct you to the
Hôtel de Ville, where Citoyen Robespierre has provided for your
safety, but he wishes to see you first.  You must wait for him in the
antechamber of the Commune's Council Hall, where he is at this moment
conferring with his colleagues.  He will join you as soon as he is at
liberty; you have only to follow me.  This room communicates directly
through a corridor with the Hôtel de Ville."

"Then let us go!" said Clarisse; and, taking Thérèse by the hand, she
followed the man.

The two women crossed a suite of rooms and corridors where officials
came and went in hot haste.  Urbain led the way, turning now and then
to direct them aright.  Presently he stopped and said, pointing to a
door--

"It is in here!" and he opened it.

Clarisse and Thérèse now found themselves in a room decorated with
Revolutionary emblems, the walls covered with a greenish paper.  Two
candlesticks stood on the mantelpiece.

"It was here Citoyen Robespierre told me to bid you wait.  He is in
the next room attending a meeting in the Commune's Council Hall."

Whilst he spoke Urbain indicated a door, a little way from that by
which the two women had entered, behind which a confused murmur of
voices was audible.

"I will go and let him know you are here," he said.

The two women were now alone.  Clarisse cast a hasty glance round.
The apartment was very plainly furnished; in fact, almost void of
furniture.  Against a panelling between two doors on the left was a
raised platform, on which stood a large copper-embossed table.  At
the foot of the platform were a couple of chairs and an armchair, the
only other furniture of a room which had all the gloomy appearance of
a deserted vestibule.

Just then a flash of lightning ran round the apartment.  The two
women turned.  A bust representing the Republic appeared in the vivid
and sudden light, ghastly amid the surrounding darkness, while a
trophy surmounting the bust seemed to emit sparks of fire.  An awful
thunder-clap burst on their ears, and screams and cries reached them
through the two windows.  Clarisse and Thérèse, taking each other by
the hand, tremblingly looked out to see what was happening, and
Clarisse recognised the Place de la Grêve.

A large crowd, sectioners and populace, swarmed in the square.
Cannons were being rolled hither and thither amidst a brandishing of
pikes, guns, bayonets, and flags--all the noise and bustle of war and
riot mingling with the roar of thunder and the flash of lightning.

"Come from the dreadful sight!" said Clarisse, pulling Thérèse gently
away.

At that moment a door opened, and as the two women turned Robespierre
appeared, attended by Urbain.  The Incorruptible bore unmistakable
marks of the anguish of that extraordinary day on his haggard and
sunken face.

"Let us sit down!" he said, "I am worn out!" and going towards a