chair he sank down on it, wiping great beads of perspiration from his
brow.  Then he turned to Urbain.

"Open the window, it is stifling!"

He raised his eyes to Clarisse, who was standing near.

"Excuse me.... but I am almost broken down ... Come closer ... Take
this chair ... Urbain has told you how things have gone with me?"

"Yes," Clarisse answered, seating herself, whilst Thérèse, standing
by her side, examined with mixed feelings the face of the man whose
terrible name she had so lately learnt.

A painful silence ensued.  Clarisse, who burned to question him about
Olivier, hesitated in view of the utter prostration of the man before
her, whose own head was now at stake, but Robespierre divined her
thoughts.

"You are thinking of your son?" he said.

"Yes, my son!  Where is he?"

"Alas!  I know nothing!" answered Robespierre.

Then, in a fainting voice, he told her of his useless inquiries at
the Conciergerie, of the conspiracy of the Committee of Public
Safety, who kept Olivier hidden away--where he did not know.

"Had I won the day at the Convention I should have delivered him--but
now...."

Clarisse had risen in new terror.  Was her martyrdom to recommence?
But Robespierre reassured her.  He might yet be victorious in the
struggle between the Communes and the Convention.  Once master of the
Assembly, master of the Committee, he could save Olivier.

"But if ... but if you should not succeed?" asked Clarisse, allowing
her mother's heart to overcome her.

"He will be saved all the same!  His only crime was that he insulted
me.  At my fall he will be looked upon as a hero.  He will be
restored to you both ... to you both," he repeated gently, looking at
Thérèse the while.

"Give me your hand, my child, and do not let it tremble in mine....
It is on your youthful love I shall have smiled for the last time...."

Clarisse, deeply moved by the scene, tried to speak, but Robespierre
interrupted her--

"In the meantime you must not stay here....  You must remain in the
room by which you entered...  Urbain will fetch you as soon as we
have started for the Tuileries, and will take you to a safe retreat,
where you will await the course of events...  If I am vanquished
again you are also free...."

And looking at them sadly he added--

"For are not you also my victims?"

Clarisse, touched with pity, stopped him and spoke words of
consolation.  Why should he talk as if everything were lost!

Alas!  Everything was nearly lost!  He had been persuaded to hasten
the attack on the Convention.  It was a trap that had been set in
vengeance.

"But by whom?" asked Clarisse.

"By the dead!"

Clarisse and Thérèse were startled.

"The dead?"

"Yes ...  But you cannot understand..."

Robespierre looked straight before him as if following the train of
some fleeting thought....  Suddenly he rose.

"Enough of that, however.  Let us think of your safety."

He then beckoned to Urbain, who advanced.

"Conduct the _citoyennes_ to the next room, and do as I have already
instructed you!"

Loud cries and calls from the Commune's Council Hall, resounded
through the open door.

"Go quickly!  My friends are coming!" said Robespierre, as he
hastened the departure of the two women, conducting them to the
threshold of the antechamber.  But his friends, Lebas, Augustin
Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, Fleuriot-Lescot, Coffinhal, Payan,
Dumas, were now entering, shutting the door sharply behind them, in a
great flurry in their impatience to be alone.

"This is hardly the moment to dally with women!" exclaimed one of
them in irritation.

It was Coffinhal, vice-president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and
one of the most ardent promoters of the insurrection.  Robespierre
replied in a weary tone--

"For God's sake, have not I the right to be a man!" and he sank into
an armchair.

Just then the door opened again.  A group of patriots entered in
great excitement, speaking at the top of their voices, and
gesticulating wildly.  They immediately surrounded Robespierre.  What
was to be done? they asked.  Were they to march on the Tuileries?  If
the attack were put off any longer the Convention would take the
offensive....  Every moment was precious!  It was really ridiculous
to beat to arms and ring the tocsin, and then waste time discussing
all night long!  What were they waiting for, and for whom?

Some of the patriots approached the windows.  The howling crowd
which, a few minutes ago swarmed in the Place de la Grêve, had
perceptibly thinned.

Robespierre remained seated, silently wiping his brow, irritated
beyond measure by all this needless commotion.  At last out of all
patience, he started up....  What prevented him from marching
forward?  What was he waiting for?  Waiting!  He was purely and
simply waiting for Paris, the whole of Paris, which at the voice of
his friends, must rise in his defence!  Had they come?  Yes, they had
come ... and gone again, too!  He had only to look out on the square
to convince himself of it! ...

The groups round the windows gave signs of assent.

"They have grown tired of waiting," said Fleuriot-Lescot.

"And it is their supper-time," observed the Incorruptible, with a
bitter smile as he sat down again.

The sky was suddenly overclouded, and rain poured down in torrents.

"That will help to empty the square!" observed Robespierre.

The patriots now leant out of the windows trying to call back those
who were running to escape the shower.

"Hallo, there!  Wait a while!  Where are you running to, cowards?
Everything is ready for the onset!"

Lebas, who had also approached one of the windows, stood back
discouraged.

"They are deserting us by hundreds!" he exclaimed.

The patriots again eagerly pressed Robespierre.  There was all the
more reason for them to march on the Tuileries at once.

"Decide, for goodness' sake!" said Coffinhal; "enough time has been
lost already!"

Robespierre rose from his seat, and answered wearily--

"Very well! let us go!  And God grant that the defenders of the
Convention be as valiant as ours!" he added in bitter sarcasm.

"Before starting," suggested Payan, "you had better sign this last
proclamation.  It will serve to rouse the sectioners of the Pignes
Quarter."

"Very well!  Give it to me!"

Lebas handed him a pen.

Robespierre wrote the first letters of his name, Rob....

He stopped suddenly.  A distant sound, as of a trumpet-call, rang out
in fearful warning.  They look at each other anxiously.  What could
it be?

A man ran in upon them, in breathless haste.  It was Didier,
Robespierre's agent.

"The attack!" he panted.  "The troops of the Convention are coming
upon us, led by Barras!"

"But what does it all mean?" they cried wildly.  "What has happened?"

There was not a moment to lose!  The assailants were advancing in
double column; Leonard Bourdon reading by the light of the torches
the decree of the Convention declaring the insurgents outlaws.  Yes,
outlaws!  Anybody was at liberty to fire on them!

"But the people," asked Lebas, "the people are with us?"

No! the people were no longer with the insurgents.  They had turned
back, and were following the assailants with loud cheers.
Robespierre and his friends could even then hear their deafening
shouts and threats.

"Hark!  Do you hear them?" said Didier.  "They are on the quay!"

Now followed a regular panic.  The maddest proposals succeeded each
other.  They ought to fall back on to the Faubourg! said one.  No, to
the arsenal! suggested another.

But Robespierre resolutely and authoritatively interposed--

"It would be absolute madness!  Prepare yourselves for the fight!
Get the guns ready.  There are artillerymen enough in the square to
shoot them all down."

"Yes!  That is the best plan!  The Incorruptible is right."

Coffinhal ran to the window to give a signal to the gunners.  A loud
cry of "Long live the Republic!" answered him.  Robespierre
recommended prudence to Coffinhal.  He must instruct the gunners to
let the enemy first reach the square, and then at close quarters fire
on them, while Bourdon would be reading the decree.

Every one approved this plan, and the order was repeated to
Coffinhal.  Prudence and self-possession were necessary.  Didier, on
being questioned, assured them that the cannon still commanded the
square.  They were a match for any assailants!  Robespierre continued
to give orders.  The patriots in the next room, the General Council
Chamber, must be informed of the plan.  Lebas went to open the door,
but started back on the threshold.

"The room is empty!" he cried.  "The cowards! they have fled!"

They looked at each other in dumb amazement.  The men on watch at the
windows now announced that the assailants were in sight.  They could
discern the gleam of torches, but the gunners had not moved.

Again that brazen trumpet-call fell ominously on their ears,
accompanied by the low rumbling of distant thunder.  A sudden roll of
drums burst out, and then all was hushed.  The sound of a voice,
coming up from the square in solemn, measured tones, broke upon the
silence.

"In the name of the French Republic, the National Convention decrees
Robespierre and all those who have taken part in the rebellion to be
out of law."

A vague, indistinct murmur now arose from the square.

The voice continued with startling resonance--

"_Citoyens!_ the Convention command you to make way for us!"

Robespierre and his friends were leaning out of the windows
breathless with suspense, their eyes fastened on the artillery.

"Why don't they fire?" said Coffinhal.

Robespierre leant on a bar of the window, his hands clenched over it,
his face pale, perspiration trickling down his forehead.

"Can't you fire at them, you dolts!"

Ah! they were getting their guns ready; they would fire now!

There was a sudden movement of relief and hopefulness that lasted
only for a moment and then gave place to horror.

The sectioners had turned their cannon against the Hôtel de Ville!

One cry, the despairing cry of the vanquished, echoed through the
room.

"We are betrayed!  _Sauve qui peut!_"

Then followed an indescribable scene of panic.  All was irreparably
lost.  Defeat, merciless and sanguinary, stared them in the face.
Cries and shouts came up from the square, but one cry rose above all.

"_En avant!_  Forward!"

Drums beat the charge.

Some ran to the doors, others to the windows to get upon the roof.
Augustin Robespierre already on the ledge of one of the windows,
prepared to escape by the cornice.  His foot slipped and he fell on
to the pavement amidst derisive shouts.

"They shall not have me alive!" cried Lebas, drawing two pistols from
his belt; and he placed one on the table near Robespierre, who had
fallen prostrate on a chair.

"That is for you, Robespierre!  Adieu!" and he rushed put.

Robespierre looked at the pistol, and pushed it aside with an
expression of utter weariness.

"Why should I?  Let death come as it pleases!"

Just then a door opened and Clarisse, breathless with fear, rushed
in, clasping Thérèse tightly by the hand.  Fearful and threatening
sounds entered with her through the open door.

Robespierre turned and saw her.

"Unhappy woman!  Not gone yet!"

Almost mad with terror, she told him that they could not escape, the
assailants were at their heels.

Robespierre wildly seized the pistol from the table and pointed to
the other exit.

"Fly that way!  I will kill the first to gain time!"

Clarisse dragged Thérèse towards the door, but recoiled with a
terrified shriek.  Loud shouts were heard coming that way.
Robespierre rushed forward and pushed them towards another door
opposite.

"This way, then!  Fly! for pity's sake, fly!"

Clarisse and Thérèse crossed over to the other exit.  But through the
door they had just left a fearful cry entered, and nailed them to the
spot.

"This way!  Follow me!"

It was Olivier's voice!  Robespierre recognised it also, and was
struck dumb with horror!  All three fastened their eyes on the door
in agonised suspense.

Olivier, all dishevelled, his clothes in disorder, appeared on the
threshold.  His eyes met Robespierre's, who was standing near the
platform.  He rushed on him, pistol in his hand, exclaiming--

"Ah! villain.  You will kill no one else, now!" and was about to
fire, but Clarisse threw herself on him, and held his arm.

"Oh! you, Olivier! you of all the world!  Oh! horror!"

And she tore the pistol from his grasp and flung it away.  He looked
first at her, then at Thérèse, bewildered at their presence.
Robespierre, still grasping his pistol, silently watched the scene.
His son's act was his death-blow.  Deliberately he turned the muzzle
of the weapon towards himself.

"I shall kill no one else ... but myself!" he sighed, and with the
word he pulled the trigger and fell wounded on the steps of the
platform.  The bullet had broken his jaw.

Clarisse, beside herself at this double shock, rushed to
Robespierre's side and attempted to staunch the blood flowing from
his wound.  As he fell, some drops of blood splashed on the
half-signed proclamation, and added a ghastly flourish to the initial
letters R...o...b...

Thérèse, standing near Olivier, was weeping bitterly and telling him
of the efforts Robespierre had made to save them all.

"He?" cried Olivier, still incredulous.

The room filled rapidly from every side with the assailants armed
with pikes, swords, knives, and muskets.  They rushed in, screaming
and shouting "Victory!  Victory!"  But all drew back on seeing
Robespierre stretched on the ground, bathed in blood.  A national
representative ran to the window and announced the news to the crowd
swarming in the Place de la Grêve.

"_Citoyens!_ the tyrant has shot himself!  The tyrant has forestalled
the law!  Long live the Convention!"

Cries of "Long live the Convention!" re-echoed from the square, and
were taken up and repeated from afar, till they gradually died in the
distance.

Robespierre, raising himself with Clarisse's aid, looked around for
Olivier and Thérèse among the crowd.

"At all events, the child is saved and you also," he said....  "Let
me not pass away without your forgiveness!"

"Oh yes!  I forgive you!" Clarisse murmured amidst her tears.

"I thank you!" he answered feebly, and fell back fainting.

A rough, commanding voice broke in on Clarisse's grief.

"Take him up!"

Clarisse still remained, kneeling, but they pushed her aside.

"Now then!  Get out of the way!"

She rose with difficulty, every limb trembling, and escaped from the
crowd with Thérèse and Olivier through an open door.  Some men
advanced to carry Robespierre away, who looked already like a corpse,
with his eyes closed, and the blood gushing through his lips.  One
man held his head, another his legs, and thus the ghastly burden was
carried through the crowd of assailants, who stood aside to make way
for it.  Clarisse, standing in one of the doorways as the gloomy
procession passed, clung to her son, imploring his pity.

"Oh! pardon him!  Do you too pardon him!  I beg you, pardon him!"

"Make room for the Incorruptible!" shouted a voice in ribald mockery.

They shrunk back, but Clarisse all the while passionately entreated
her son to pardon Robespierre.

"Oh, hear me, my son, I implore you!  Say that you forgive him!"

"Yes, mother, I forgive him, and may God have mercy on him!" Olivier
murmured, casting a long look after the grim procession till it was
lost to sight.

Olivier then turned to his mother and his fiancée.

"Now, let us get away from here!" he says.

"Is it really true?  Are you free?" asked Clarisse.

"Yes, quite free!  I will tell you all about it presently.  But we
must secure a passport if we want to leave Paris....  Let us make
haste!"

The two women passed out under Olivier's protection, and descended
the Hôtel de Ville's grand staircase through the crowd, which
followed fallen Robespierre with cries of "Victory!  Victory!"

CHAPTER XV

DEATH'S KINDLY VEIL

Robespierre has thus been vanquished for the second time!

Where will they take him?  To the Tuileries, to the Convention, into
the very midst of the victorious National Assembly, where the dying
despot is to be exposed to the raillery of the populace, before being
carried to the scaffold.  Robespierre is laid down in the courtyard
of the Hôtel de Ville, and placed with infinite care on a litter.
They lift his head and bind up his wound, for he must live long
enough to receive the final retribution.  The bullet has but half
robbed the scaffold of its prey.

Artillerymen now come forward, and take him up again, but
Robespierre, still unconscious, knows nothing of what is passing
round him.  They lift the wreck of what was once the Incorruptible
and continue their way.  Saint-Just walks in the rear between two
gendarmes, his hands bound behind him, very pale, with head erect,
and perfectly indifferent to the insults hurled at him--the only one
of his allies who is with Robespierre in the hour of defeat.  The
others are either dead, hidden or fled.  But their turn will come,
for hot search is afoot for the cowards and fugitives.

The gloomy _cortège_ crosses the Place de la Grêve, and moves in the
direction of the quay, on its way to the Tuileries, beneath a
cloudless sky that smiles after the rain, as the stars are gradually
effaced by the first gleams of dawn.  It is three o'clock.  The
_cortège_ is followed by a curious and gaping crowd.  Passers-by stop
and ask, "What is it?"

"Robespierre, who is wounded.  They are taking him to the Convention."

Then the inquirers' faces light up with joy.

"It is all over, then! ... The tyrant is going to die! ... There will
be no more scaffold!"

And the passers-by joined the crowd.

But at the Convention the order had been given that the "monster" was
not to be received.  Even a captive and almost a corpse, they will
not allow Robespierre again to cross the threshold, once he has been
banished from their midst.  The Incorruptible, as an outlaw, belongs
to justice only.  So the wounded man is taken up and laid at the foot
of the grand staircase leading to the Committee of Public Safety.

There, on the very spot where, two days before, Robespierre,
returning from the Conciergerie, hurled defiance at Billaud-Varennes,
he now lies on a litter, vanquished, ruined, gasping out his life!

A peremptory order is given, and flies from mouth to mouth.
Robespierre is to be transported to the Committee's waiting-room.
Saint-Just walks in front now, with Dumas, President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, who has been discovered hidden in a corner of
the Hôtel de Ville, and several others whose arrest and arrival is
also announced.

The litter is carried into the room.  Robespierre still unconscious
is lifted out and laid on a table, and his head is pillowed on a deal
box, containing samples of munition bread.  His shirt, loosened at
the neck, and leaving the throat bare, is covered with blood which
still flows freely from the mutilated jaw.  The sky-blue coat is
soiled and torn, the nankeen breeches, the white stockings, washed
and ironed by Cornélie Duplay, are now all stained and disfigured.

The Incorruptible is a mutilated mass, but a living mass, still
breathing and still suffering.

Robespierre has opened his eyes; he raises his right hand, groping
instinctively for his handkerchief, wishing to wipe his mouth.  His
trembling fingers come in contact with a white leather pistol-case,
which he lifts to his lips to staunch the blood.  By an irony of fate
the case bears the inscription--"_The Great Monarch; Lecourt,
manufacturer to the King_."

Robespierre appears to revive.  He looks round, and his eyes fall on
Saint-Just and Dumas, side by side in the recess of one of the
windows, shrugging their shoulders at the rudeness of the people who
pass through the room and stare at them as if they were curiosities.
The insults are now directed against Robespierre, who turns
away:--"There is fallen majesty for you!" exclaims one....  "Majesty
laid low," says another....  "With his bandages he looks like a mummy
or a nun!" ... "Yes, a nun with her head-gear awry!" ... "He is
thinking of his Supreme Being!  It's just the right moment!"

But Robespierre, under this railing clamour and abuse, does not stir.
There he lies, stretched out motionless, his eyes fixed on the
ceiling, the very embodiment of silent scorn.  Slowly and without a
word, he drinks the cup of bitterness; he will drink it so, to the
very dregs.  A conqueror, he would have been to them a god;
vanquished, they nail him to the pillory.  Such is the constant
perfidy of human nature!  And yet he had been so near success, so
near!  If the Convention had not proved so cowardly at the sitting,
had not succumbed directly before Tallien's attack! ... If they had
but let him speak!  If they had allowed him to defend himself!  But
the plot had been too well laid.  Then Robespierre's thoughts wander
to the other wretches, the Communes, the cowards on whom he had
counted, the vile traitors and base deserters!

His bitter meditations are suddenly cut short by a shooting pain in
the knee, which runs through him like a knife.  It is his garter,
which is too tightly drawn.  He raises himself and stretches out his
hand to undo it, but his strength fails, and he falls back again.
Suddenly he feels some one gently loosening it.  He lifts himself
again and bends forward.  Can he be dreaming?  That young man ...
yes, it is Olivier! ... Olivier, himself!

"Oh, thank you, my ... thank you, my ... thank you, monsieur!" he
says hastily.

He is on the point of saying, "my son!" but has strength enough left
to recollect himself.  No!  Olivier must never know the secret of his
birth, never, never!

Robespierre falls back again.  The emotion is too much for him, and
he faints away.

Yes, it is Olivier, who has just obtained from the Committee a
passport for his mother, his _fiancée_, and himself.  Crossing the
waiting-room he had seen Robespierre stretched out on the table in
front of him.  Touched with pity at his vain and painful attempts to
undo the garter, he had come to his assistance.

Olivier now leaves the Committee of Public Safety to rejoin Clarisse
and Thérèse, who are waiting for him in the Tuileries Gardens, and
overcome with fatigue have sat down on a bench, and seeing them in
the distance hastens his steps.

"I have the passport!" he exclaims.

"Then let us go, and lose no time!" Clarisse answers; "let us return
to Montmorency, at once!  I long to leave the city of woe and misery."

"We cannot go yet," replies Olivier.  "The passport must bear the
stamp of the Committee of General Security to be of any use, and I
must present myself before the Committee at three o'clock."

"Then, what are we to do?  Where shall we go?" asks Clarisse wearily.

"We can only go to the Rue du Rocher, to Leonard's landlady.  She
will receive me with open arms, you will see, now she has no longer
Robespierre to fear."

It is five o'clock, and day has just dawned.  The air is soft and
fresh, the sky above of sapphire blue; the trees, the streets, the
very houses, seem smiling with renewed life, after the refreshing
shower.

In this brightening dawn Robespierre is being taken to the
Conciergerie, for the Committee of Public Safety have altered their
decision.  Robespierre and his accomplices, now found and arrested,
are to be confined in the Conciergerie in order to undergo the
formality of identification.  From thence they are to be taken to the
scaffold without trial or judgment, as outlaws.

So Robespierre is replaced on the litter, followed by the gaping
crowd.  He sleeps the whole way, lulled by the measured tread of the
men who carry him, and only awakes to find himself in a narrow cell,
in charge of a gendarme.

"Can I write?" he asks.

"No!"

"Where am I?"

"At the Conciergerie."

His eyes flash for a second.  He looks round uneasily and
repeats--"At the Conciergerie!  In what part of the Conciergerie?"

"Between the Queen's cell and the Girondins' Chapel."

Between his victims!  He is between his victims!  The fearful warning
on the prison walls passes again before his eyes: "Robespierre, your
hour will come!..."  The dead were right!  If he had done away with
the guillotine in time, he would perhaps not be there, himself a
victim of the Terror he had let loose!  But he could not!  No, he
could not, it was too soon....  He would have been engulfed in the
turmoil, just the same! ... In continuing the Revolutionary Tribunal,
in keeping the executioner at his post, he was merely protecting his
own head!

His mind is flooded with ideas....  He is, dreaming vaguely, his dim
eyes fixed on the low ceiling of his cell....  His youth smiles at
him through the mist of years, every detail of the past comes back to
him in clear and lucid vision.

He sees Clarisse seated at her harpsichord, he is turning over the
leaves of her music ... but the vision trembles, and then fades away.
Fever gradually rises to his brain, takes entire possession of him,
and deadens his senses, so that he is completely unconscious, and
when Fouquier-Tinville, his creature of the Revolutionary Tribunal,
his accomplice in the days of bloodshed, comes forward to identify
him, he does not recognise his voice.

The end is now approaching.  At five in the afternoon the gendarmes
come to conduct Robespierre to the scaffold.  The Convention has
decreed that for this occasion the guillotine shall be erected at the
Place de la Révolution.  Robespierre is borne on the litter through
the crowd of prisoners, the victims of his hatred and his laws, and
when the dying man has passed the threshold they breathe again.  With
him death departs and new life comes in.

The tumbril is waiting in the courtyard, surrounded by a crowd of
_sans-culottes_ and Mænads, and hundreds of spectators eager to
witness the startling spectacle, are swarming in the streets to hoot
and abuse Robespierre as heartily as they had cheered and applauded
him at the Fête of the Supreme Being!  To effect this startling
change one sitting of the Convention has sufficed!

Robespierre is now in sight.  This is the signal for the wildest
uproar.  He is seated on a bench in the first tumbril, and fastened
against the bars of the cart to keep him from falling.  The fresh air
has revived him; he allows them to do as they please, looking on in
silent scorn.  Others of the condemned are placed in the same
tumbril: Augustin Robespierre, Saint-Just, Dumas the president,
Hauriot, and Couthon.  The two last are seated right and left of
Robespierre.  Four other carts follow, equally loaded.  The condemned
number twenty-two in all.

Now Robespierre's _via dolorosa_ begins.

Abuse and insults rain down on them in torrents, covering Robespierre
and his accomplices with ignominy.

The ghastly procession crosses the Pont-au-Change, the Quay de la
Mégisserie, and passing the Rue de la Monnaie it enters the Rue
Saint-Honoré.

Curses are heard mingling with the shrieks of the rabble, for among
the crowd there are many victims of the Terror, widows and orphans
conjuring up the memory of all their anguish, all the drama of the
guillotine, the work of the Incorruptible.

A woman clutches at the tumbril in which Robespierre sits, a woman
whose two children had been torn from her by the Prairial law.

"Monster!" she cries, "vile monster! in the name of all mothers, I
curse you to hell!"

The crowd following the _cortège_ grows denser as it proceeds.  It is
_Decadi_, the Republican Sunday.  All Paris is out of doors.  The
windows and balconies are thronged with men and women in festal
attire, pressing forward to see the procession file past, and
showering down shouts of joy and triumph, for the passing of those
tumbrils means also the passing away of the reign of Terror.

Robespierre continues his dreadful way, his eyes fixed and glassy,
his face wrapped in the bandage which holds his jaw together, and
partly hides it like some ghastly mask.  By his side sits Hauriot,
livid and terrified, covered with the mud and filth of the sewer into
which he had fallen.  Couthon and Augustin Robespierre, pitifully
mutilated, are lying at the bottom of the cart.  Saint-Just alone
stands erect, his hands bound, and retains his scornful air.

The tumbrils enter the Rue Saint-Honoré near the Jacobin Club, where
two days before the Incorruptible reigned supreme.  The martyrdom is
not over.  They are before the house of the Duplays.

The _cortège_ stops.

At a given signal a child dips a broom in a pail of blood, and
sprinkles the front door.

"Ha!  Robespierre, here is your cavern branded with the blood of your
victims!" cries a voice.

A plaintive howl is heard from behind the blood-smeared door.  It is
Blount, who has scented his master.  Robespierre shuts his eyes but
it is useless, for he can hear!

People question each other in the crowd.  Where are the Duplays?  In
prison!  The father at Plessis, the mother at Sainte-Pilagie with her
young son.  Lebas has killed himself!  His body is there in one of
the carts.  As to the daughters, they have fled, most probably.

But now for the guillotine!

The _cortège_ continues its way, while the heart-rending moans of
Blount can still be heard in the distance.  That cry of the faithful
dog, recognising his master and calling to him, is the last adieu to
Robespierre from his recent home.

The first tumbril is already at the top of the Rue Saint-Florentin.
A man turns out of the street and runs in the direction of the Rue de
la Révolution.

The crowd cry after him--

"Hallo, there! will you not see the Incorruptible's head cut off?
Stop! stop!  Don't be so chicken-hearted!"

But the man is already far away.  It is Olivier, returning from the
Committee of General Security, where he had at last succeeded in
having his passport countersigned, after endless trouble.  He tries
to cross the Rue Saint-Honoré, but the crowd fills the street; so he
retraces his steps, followed the Jardin des Tuileries, and reaches
the Rue Saint-Florentin, at the very moment when the tumbrils are at
hand.

Away from them he hurries, towards the Rue de Rocher, where Clarisse
and Thérèse are impatiently awaiting him in their room.  The
landlady, anxious to be taken back to favour, has been worrying them
with officious attention since the morning.

Olivier bursts in upon them eagerly--

"It's done!  Now we can start!  Is the carriage ready?"

The widow Beaugrand is in despair.

"Then you have decided to go?  Will you not wait until to-morrow?  I
have such a nice supper prepared!"

Olivier grows impatient.  Clarisse and Thérèse get ready to start.

"It's all right!  Everything is arranged," says the landlady.  "The
carriage has been ordered, and is just two steps from here."

She hastens downstairs, followed by Olivier and the two women, who
wait outside.  The street is deserted.  The day melts in a soft
twilight.  Stars already twinkle in the cloudless sky.  Light, happy
laughter comes from a balcony opposite, the echo of childish
merriment, which soon ceases with the closing of a door.

The carriage has arrived, an open _char-à-banc_ with four seats.
Olivier helps his mother and his _fiancée_ in, then climbs up on the
box beside the driver.

"To Montmorency!  And take the shortest cut!"

The carriage rolls away amidst the farewells and good wishes of the
widow Beaugrand.  However, at the end of the Rue du Rocher it stops
suddenly and draws up to the side of the road.  Two carts are coming
at full gallop, driven by men in red nightcaps.  Olivier asks
impatiently--

"What is the matter now?"

"It's the dead bodies of the condemned, citoyen; they are taking them
to the Cemetery des Errancy.  Ah! now, the Incorruptible can kill no
more!"

The two women have heard!

Clarisse and Thérèse fall on their knees, their hands clapped, and
their eyes lifted in prayer.  Olivier bares his head.  The carts are
passing.  Clarisse and Thérèse make the sign of the cross.  Olivier,
pale with emotion, follows their example, turning towards Thérèse and
his mother, whose eyes dwell with strange emotion on his face.  Her
tear-dimmed gaze is full of mute thanksgiving, the secret of which
Olivier will never know.