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.