Most of them did not know.
“A provincial from the north,” said one
of the men at last; “he has been here several
times before now, and last year he was a fairly constant
attendant. I believe he is a butcher by trade,
and I fancy he comes from Calais. He was originally
brought here by Citizen Brogard, who is good patriot
enough.”
One by one the members of this bond of Fraternity
began to file out of the Cheval Borgne. They
nodded curt good-nights to each other, and then went
to their respective abodes, which surely could not
be dignified with the name of home.
Tinville remained one of the last; he and Merlin seemed
suddenly to have buried the hatchet, which a few hours
ago had threatened to destroy one of the other of
these whilom bosom friends.
Two or three of the most ardent of these ardent extremists
had gathered round the Public Prosecutor, and Merlin,
the framer of the Law of the Suspect.
“What say you, citizens?” said Tinville
at last quietly. “That man Lenoir, meseems,
is too eloquent—eh?”
“Dangerous,” pronounced Merlin, whilst
the others nodded approval.
“But his scheme is good,” suggested one
of the men.
“And we’ll avail ourselves of it,”
assented Tinville, “but afterwards...”
He paused, and once more everyone nodded approval.
“Yes; he is dangerous. We’ll leave
him in peace to-morrow, but afterwards...”
With a gentle hand Tinville caressed the tall double
post, which stood in the centre of the room, and which
was shaped like the guillotine. An evil look
was on his face: the grin of a death-dealing monster,
savage and envious. The others laughed in grim
content. Merlin grunted a surly approval.
He had no cause to love the provincial coal-heaver
who had raised a raucous voice to threaten him.
Then, nodding to one another, the last of the patriots,
satisfied with this night’s work, passed out
into the night.
The watchman was making his rounds, carrying his lantern,
and shouting his customary cry:
“Inhabitants of Paris, sleep quietly.
Everything is in order, everything is at peace.”
Deroulede had spent the whole of this same night
in a wild, impassioned search for Juliette.
Earlier in the day, soon after Anne Mie’s revelations,
he had sought out his English friend, Sir Percy Blakeney,
and talked over with him the final arrangements for
the removal of Madame Deroulede and Anne Mie from
Paris.
Though he was a born idealist and a Utopian, Paul
Deroulede had never for a moment had any illusions
with regard to his own popularity. He knew that
at any time, and for any trivial cause, the love which
the mob bore him would readily turn to hate.
He had seen Mirabeau’s popularity wane, La Fayette’s,
Desmoulin’s—was it likely that he
alone would survive the inevitable death of so ephemeral
a thing?
