"Which floor?" I asked La Font.

"The highest," he answered.

I went up softly and he followed me. Under the tiles I found a door, and heard some one moving beyond it. Bidding La Font remain on guard, and come to my aid only if I called him, I knocked boldly. A gentle voice bade me enter, and I did so.

There was only one person in the room, a young woman with fair waving hair, a pale freckled face, and blue eyes; who, seeing a cloaked stranger instead of the neighbour she anticipated, stared at me in the utmost wonder and in some alarm. The room, though poorly furnished, was neat and clean; which, taken with the woman's complexion, left me in no doubt as to her province. On the floor near the fire stood a cradle; and in the window a cage with a singing bird completed the homely aspect of this interior, which was such, indeed, as I would fain multiply by thousands in every town of France.

A lamp, which the woman was in the act of lighting, enabled me to see these details, and also discovered me to her. I asked politely if I spoke to Madame Felix, the wife of M. Felix, of the Chamber of Accounts.

"I am Madame Felix," she answered, advancing slowly towards me. "My husband is late. Do you come from him? It is not—bad news, Monsieur?"

The tone of anxiety in which she uttered the last question, and the quickness with which she raised her lamp to scan my face, went to a heart already softened by the sight of this young mother in her home. I hastened to answer that I had no bad news, and wished to see her husband on business connected with his employment.

"He is very late," she said, a shade of perplexity crossing her face. "I have never known him so late before. Monsieur is unfortunate."

I replied that with her leave I would wait; on which she very readily placed a stool for me, and sat down by the cradle. I remarked that perhaps M. Nicholas had detained her husband: she answered that it might be so, but that she had never known it happen before.

"M. Felix has evening employment?" I asked, after a moment's reflection.

She looked at me in some wonder. "No," she said. "He spends his evenings with me, Monsieur. It is not much, for he is at work all day."

I bowed, and was preparing another question, when the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs reached my ears, and led me to pause. Madame heard the noise at the same moment and rose to her feet. "It is my husband," she said, looking towards the door with such a light in her eyes as betrayed the sweetheart lingering in the wife. "I was afraid—I do not know what I feared," she muttered to herself.

Proposing to have the advantage of seeing Felix before he saw me, I pushed back my stool into the shadow, contriving to do this so discreetly that the young woman noticed nothing. A moment later it appeared that I might have spared my pains; for at sight of her husband, and particularly of the lack-lustre eye and drooping head with which he entered, she sprang forward with a cry of dismay, and, forgetting my presence, appealed to him to know what was the matter.

He let himself fall on a stool, the first he reached, and, leaning his elbows on the table in an attitude of dejection, he covered his face with his hands. "What is it?" he said in a hollow tone. "We are ruined, Margot. That is what it is. I have no more work. I am dismissed."

"Dismissed?" she ejaculated.

He nodded. "Nicholas discharged me this morning," he said, almost in a whisper. He dared not speak louder, for he could not command his voice.

"Why?" she asked, as she leant over him, her hands busy about him. "What had you done?"

"Nothing!" he answered with bitterness. "He has missed a place he thought to get; and I must suffer for it."

"But did he say nothing? Did he give no reason?"

"Ay," he answered. "He said clerks were plentiful, and the King or I must starve."

Hitherto I had witnessed the scene in silence, a prey to emotions so various I will not attempt to describe them. But hearing the King's name thus prostituted I started forward with a violence which made my presence known. Felix, confounded by the sight of a stranger at his elbow, rose from his seat, and retreating before me with alarm painted on his countenance, he asked with a faltering tongue who I was.

I replied as gently as possible that I was a friend, anxious to assist him. Notwithstanding that, seeing that I kept my cloak about my face—for I was not willing to be recognized—he continued to look at me with distrust.

"What is your will?" he said, raising the lamp much as his wife had done, to see me the better.

"The answers to two or three questions," I replied. "Answer them truly, and I promise you your troubles are at an end." So saying, I drew from my pouch the scrap of paper which had come to me so strangely. "When did you write this, my friend?" I continued, placing it before him.

He drew a deep breath at sight of it, and a look of comprehension crossed his face. For a moment he hesitated. Then in a hurried manner he said that he had never seen the paper.

"Come," I rejoined sternly, "look at it again. Let there be no mistake. When did you write that, and why?"

Still he shook his head; and, though I pressed him, he continued so stubborn in his denial that, but for the look I had seen on his face when I produced the paper, and the strange coincidence of his dismissal, I might have believed him. As it was, I saw nothing for it but to have him arrested and brought to my house, where I did not doubt he would tell the truth; and I was about to retire to give the order, when something in a sidelong glance which he cast at his wife caught my eye, and furnished me with a new idea. Acting on it, I affected to be satisfied. I apologized for my intrusion on the ground of mistake; and, withdrawing to the door, I asked him at the last moment to light me downstairs.

Complying with a shaking hand, he went out before me, and had nearly reached the foot of the staircase when I touched him on the shoulder.

"Now," I said, fixing him with my eyes, "your wife is no longer listening, and you can tell me the truth. Who employed you to write those words?"

Trembling so violently that he had to lean on the balustrade for support, he told me.

"Madame Nicholas," he whispered.

"What?" I cried, recoiling. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth. "The secretary's wife, do you mean? Be careful, man."

He nodded.

"When?" I asked suspiciously.

"Yesterday," he answered. "She is an old cat!" he continued, with a grimace. "I hate her! But my wife is jealous, and would think all things."

"And did you throw it into a coach," I said, "on the Pont du Change to-day?"

"God forbid!" he replied, shrinking into himself again. "I wrote it for her, and she took it away. She said it was a jest that she was playing. That is all I know."

I saw that he spoke the truth, and after a few more words I dismissed him, bidding him keep silence, and remain at home in case I needed him. At the last, he plucked up spirit to ask who I was; but preferring to keep that discovery for a day to come, when I might appear as the benefactor of this little family, I told him only that I was one of the King's servants, and so left him.

It will be believed that I found the information I had received little to my mind. The longer I dwelt on it, the more serious seemed the matter. While I could not imagine circumstances in which a woman would be likely to inform against her husband without cause, I could recall more than one conspiracy which had been frustrated by informers of that class—sometimes out of regard for the persons against whom they informed. Viewed in this light, the warning seemed to my mind sufficiently alarming; but when I came also to consider the secrecy with which Madame Nicholas had both prepared it and conveyed it to me, the aspect of the case grew yet more formidable. In the result, I had not passed through two streets before my mind was made up to lay the case before the King, and be guided by the sagacity which was never wanting to my gracious master.

An unexpected meeting which awaited me on my return to the Arsenal confirmed me in this resolution and enabled me to carry it into effect. We entered without difficulty, and duly found Maignan on guard at the door of my apartments. But a glance at his face sufficed to show that something was wrong; nor did it need the look of penitence which he assumed on seeing us—a look so piteous that at another time it must have diverted me—to convince me that he had infringed my orders.

"How now, sirrah?" I said, without waiting for him to speak. "What have you been doing?"

"They would take no refusal, my lord," he answered plaintively, waving his hand towards the door.

"What!" I cried sternly; for this was an instance of such direct disobedience as I could scarce understand. "Did I not give you the strictest orders to deny me to everybody?"

"They would take no refusal, my lord," he answered penitently, edging away from me as he spoke.

"Who are they?" I asked, leaving the question of his punishment for another season. "Speak, rascal, though it shall not save you."

"There are M. le Marquis de la Varenne, and M. de Vitry," he said slowly, "and M. de Vic, and M. Erard the engineer, and M. de Fontange, and——"

"Pardieu!" I cried, cutting him short in a rage; for he was going on counting on his fingers in a manner the most provoking. "Have you let in all Paris, dolt? Grace! that I should be served by a fool! Open the door, and let me see them."

With that I was about to enter; when the door, which I had not perceived to be ajar, was thrown widely open, and a laughing face thrust out. It was the King's.

"Ha, ha! Grandmaster!" he cried, diverted by the success of his jest and the change which doubtless came over my countenance. "Never was such hospitality, I'll be sworn! But come, pardon this varlet. And now embrace me, and tell me where you have been playing truant."

Saying these words with the charm which never failed him, and in his time won more foes than his sword ever conquered, the King drew me into my room, where I found De Vic, Vitry, Roquelaure, and the rest. They all laughed heartily at my surprise; nor was Maignan, who was the author, it will be remembered, of that whimsical procession to Rosny after the battle of Ivry, which I have elsewhere described, far behind them; the rascal knowing well that the King's presence covered all, and that in my gratification at the honour paid me I should be certain to overlook his impertinence.

Perceiving that this impromptu visit had no other object than to divert Henry—though he was kind enough to say that he felt uneasy when he did not see me often—I begged to know if he would honour me by staying to sup; but this he would not do, though he consented to drink a cup of my Arbois wine, and praised it highly. By-and-by I thought I saw that he was willing to be alone with me; and as I had reason to desire this myself, I made an opportunity. Sending for Arnaud and some of my gentlemen, I committed my other guests to their care, and led the King into my closet, where, after requesting his leave to speak on business, I proceeded to unfold to him the adventure of the snowball, with all the particulars which I have set down.

He listened attentively, drumming on the table with his fingers; nor did he move or speak when I had done, but still continued in the same attitude of thought. At last: "Grandmaster," he said, touching with his hand the mark of the wound on his lip, "how long is it since Chastel's attempt—when I got this?"

"Seven years last Christmas, sire," I answered, after a moment's thought.

"And Barriere's?"

"That was the year before. Avenius' plot was that year too."

"And the Italian's from Milan, of whom the Capuchin Honorio warned us?"

"That was two years ago, sire."

"And how many more attempts have there been against my person?" he continued, in a tone of extreme sadness. "Rosny, my friend, they must succeed at last. No man can fight against his fate. The end is sure, notwithstanding your fidelity and vigilance, and the love you bear me, for which I love you, too. But Nicholas? Nicholas? And yet he has been careless and distraught of late. I have noticed it; and a month back I refused to give him an appointment, of which he wished to have the sale."

I did not dare to speak, and for a time Henry too remained silent. At length he rose with an air of resolution.

"We will clear up this matter within an hour!" he said. "I will send my people back to the Louvre, and do you, Grandmaster, order half a dozen Swiss to be ready to conduct us to this woman's house. When we have heard her we shall know what to do."

I tried my utmost to dissuade him, pleading that his presence could not be necessary, and might prove a hindrance; besides exposing his person to a certain amount of risk. But he would not listen. When I saw, therefore, that his mind was made up, and that as his spirits rose he was inclined to welcome this expedition as a relief from the ennui which at times troubled him, I reluctantly withdrew my opposition and gave the necessary orders. The King dismissed his suite with a few words, and in a short space we were on our way, under cover of darkness, to the secretary's house.

He lived at this time in a court off the Rue St. Jacques, not far from the church of that name; and the house being remote from the eyes and observation of the street, seemed not unfit for secret and desperate uses. Although we noted lights shining behind several of the barred windows, the wintry night, the darkness of the court, and perhaps the errand on which we came, imparted so gloomy an aspect to the place that the King hitched forward his sword, and I begged him to permit the Swiss to go on with us. This, however, he would not allow, and they were left at the entrance to the court with orders to follow at a given signal.

On the steps the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had borrowed one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him into a fit of laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure which promised peril, than his spirits rose to such a degree as to make him the most charming companion in danger man ever had. He was still shaking, and pulling me to and fro in one of those boyish frolics which at times swayed him, when a loud outcry inside the house startled us into sobriety, and reminded us of the business which brought us thither.

Wondering what it might mean, I was for rapping on the door with my hilt. But the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the latch. The door yielded to his hand, and gave us admittance.

We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the movements of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of the hall, that they did not heed our entrance. A glance showed me that the woman was Madame Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was doing or what was happening in the house.

I stood a moment, and then finding that in her excitement she took no notice of us, I beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his mistress that a gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the message; but she sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at him so violently that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it appeared that the object of her attention was a door at that side of the hall; for, stopping suddenly in her walk, she went up to it, and struck on it passionately and repeatedly with her hands.

"Come out!" she cried. "Come out, you villain! Your friends shall not save you!"

Restraining the King, I went forward myself, and, saluting her, begged a word with her apart, thinking that she would recognize me.

Her answer showed that she did not. "No!" she cried, waving me off, in the utmost excitement. "No; you will not get me away! You will not! I know your tricks. You are as bad one as the other, and shield one another come what will!" Then turning again to the door, she continued, "Come out! Do you hear! Come out! I will have no more of your intrigues and your Hallots!"

I pricked up my ears at the name. "But, Madame," I said, "one moment."

"Begone!" she retorted, turning on me so wrathfully that I fairly recoiled before her. "I shall stay here till I drop; but I will have him out and expose him. There shall be an end of his precious plots and his Hallots if I have to go to the King!"

Words so curiously a propos could not but recall to my mind the confusion into which the mention of Du Hallot had thrown the secretary earlier in the day. And since they seemed also to be consistent with the warning conveyed to me, they should have corroborated my suspicions. But a sense of something unreal and fantastic, with which I could not grapple, continued to puzzle me in the presence of this angry woman; and it was with no great assurance that I said, "Do I understand then, madame, that M. du Hallot is in that room?"

"Monsieur du Hallot?" she replied, in a tone that was almost a scream. "No: but Madame du Hallot is, and he would be if he had taken the hint I sent him! He would be! But I will have no more secrecy, and no more plots. I have suffered enough, and now Madame shall suffer if she has not forgotten how to blush. Are you coming out there?" she continued, once more applying herself to the door, her face inflamed with passion. "I shall stay! Oh, I shall stay, I assure you, until you do come. Until morning if necessary!"

"But, Madame," I said, beginning to see daylight, and finding words with difficulty—for already I heard in fancy the King's laughter, and conjured up the quips and cranks with which he would pursue me—"your warning did not perhaps reach M. du Hallot?"

"It reached his coach, at any rate," the scold retorted. "But another time I will have no half measures. As for that," she continued, turning on me suddenly with her arms akimbo, and the fiercest of airs, "I would like to know what business it is of yours, Monsieur, whether it reached him or not! I know you,—you are in league with my husband! You are here to shelter him, and this Madame du Hallot who is within here! And with whom he has been carrying on these three months! But——"

At that moment the door at last opened; and M. Nicholas, wearing an aspect so meek and crestfallen that I hardly knew him, came out. He was followed by a young woman plainly dressed, and looking almost as much frightened as himself; in whom I had no difficulty in recognizing Felix's wife.

"Why!" Madame Nicholas cried, her face falling. "This is not—who is this? Who—" with increased vehemence—"is this baggage, I would like to know? This shameless creature, that——"

"My dear," the secretary protested, spreading out his hands—fortunately he had eyes only for his wife and did not see us—"this is one of your ridiculous mistakes! It is, I assure you. This is the wife of a clerk whom I dismissed to-day, and she has been with me begging me to reinstate her husband. That is all. That is all, my dear, in truth it is. You have made this dreadful outcry for nothing. I assure you——"

I heard no more, for, taking advantage of the obscurity of the hall, and the preoccupation of the couple, I made for the door, and passing out into the darkness, found myself in the embrace of the King; who, seizing me about the neck, laughed on my shoulder until he cried, continually adjuring me to laugh also, and ejaculating between the paroxysms, "Poor du Hallot! Poor du Hallot!" With many things of the same nature, which any one acquainted with court life may supply for himself.

I confess I did not on my part find it so easy to laugh: partly because I am not of so gay a disposition as that great prince, and partly because I cannot see the ludicrous side of events in which I myself take part. But on the King assuring me that he would not betray the secret even to La Varenne, I took comfort, and gradually reconciled myself to an episode which, unlike the more serious events it now becomes my duty to relate, had only one result, and that unimportant. I mean the introduction to my service of the clerk Felix; who, proving worthy of confidence, remained with me after the lamentable death of the King my master, and is to-day one of those to whom I entrust the preparation of these Memoirs.



PART III

KING TERROR



A DAUGHTER OF THE GIRONDE

In a room on the second floor of a house in the Rue Favart in Paris—a large room scantily and untidily furnished—a man sat reading by the light of an oil lamp. The hour was late, the night a July night in the year 1794—year two of the Republic. The house already slumbered round him; the sounds of Paris rose to his ears softened by night and distance. Intent on his work, he looked up from time to time to make a note; or, drawing the lamp a little nearer he trimmed its wick and set it back. When this happened, the light falling strongly on his face, and bringing into relief its harsh lines and rugged features, showed him to be a man past middle life, grey-haired, severe, almost forbidding of aspect.

Peaceful as his occupation seemed, there was something in the air of the room which suggested change, even danger. The floor was littered with packing cases and with books piled together at random. On the low bedstead lay a travelling cloak; on the table, by the reader's hand, lay a pistol and beside it one of the huge sabres which were then in fashion. Nor were these signs without meaning. The man reading on, wrapt and unconscious, in his upper room, merely followed his bent. He read and reasoned, though in the great city round him the terror of the Revolution was at its height; though the rattle of the drum had scarcely ceased with nightfall, and the last tumbril was even now being wheeled back into its shed.

For men grow strangely callous. The danger which impends daily and every day ceases to be feared. Achille Mirande had seen the chiefs of his party fall round him. He had seen Petion and Barbaroux, Louvet and Vergniaud die—the Girondins who had dreamed with him of a republic of property, free and yet law-abiding. Nor had his experiences stopped there. He had seen his foes perish also, the Hebertists first and later the Dantonists. But for himself—death seemed to have passed him by. Danger had become second nature; the very rumbling of the tumbrils passing his house on the way to the guillotine had ceased to be anything but annoying; until to-day, to avoid the interruption, he had left his house in the Rue St. Honore and established himself in this empty flat in the little Rue Favart.

By-and-by he laid down the book he was reading and fell into deep meditation. As he sat thus, alone and silent in the silent room, a sound, which a keener ear would have noticed before, attracted his attention. Startled in a degree by it, he roused himself; he looked round. "A rat, I suppose," he muttered. Yet he continued to peer with suspicion into the corner whence the sound had come, and presently he heard it again. The next instant he sprang to his feet; phantom-like a door in the panelled wall at the back of the room—a door in the wall where there should have been no door—was swinging, nay, had swung open. While he glared at it, hardly believing his senses, a man appeared standing in the dark aperture.

The man was young and of middle height. Dazzled by the light, and suffering apparently from weakness, he paused, leaning for support against the doorway. His eyes were bright, his sunken cheeks told of fever or famine. His clothes stained and dusty, and his unkempt hair, added to the wildness of his appearance. For a moment he and the owner of the room glared at one another in speechless wonder. Then a name sprang to the lips of each.

"Monsieur Mirande!" the younger man muttered.

"De Bercy!" exclaimed the other.

The stranger said no more, but shaking with agitation walked to a chair and sat down. Mirande, his face rigid with passion, stood in silence and watched him do it. Then the Republican found his voice.

"You villain!" he cried, advancing a step, his manner menacing. "Was it not enough that you stole into my house and robbed me of my daughter? Was it not enough that you led her to forfeit her life in your plots and then left her to die? Was not this enough, that you now come and insult me by your presence?"

The young man raised his hand in deprecation, but seemed unable to reply. Mirande, gazing pitilessly at him, presently read his silence aright, and an expression of cruel joy altered his features.

"I understand," he said grimly. "I see all now. You have been in hiding here. To be sure, your name has been on the list of suspects these three months. And you all the time have been starving like a rat behind the panels! Well, you shall have food and wine. You shall eat, you shall drink. I would not for the world have you cheat the guillotine."

He went to a cupboard as he spoke, and, taking from it bread and wine, he placed them before the other. The young man made a slight gesture, as though he would have refused them; but his pale face flushed with desire negatived the action, the momentary resistance of his pride gave way, and he ate and drank, sparingly, yet with the craving of a man half-famished.

"I have not tasted food for three days," he murmured presently, looking up with a glance of apology. The wine had already done its work. He looked a different man. His hand was steady, his cheeks wore a more healthy colour. "M. Chareloi hid me here," he went on, "but a week ago I heard a disturbance in the house, and coming out when all was quiet I found it empty and locked. I fear he was arrested."

"He was guillotined five days ago," the Girondin replied with brutal frankness.

"Why? For what?" the young man exclaimed.

"As a suspect," Mirande answered, shrugging his shoulders.

Bercy had partly risen from his chair. He sat down again, stunned.

"Things move quickly nowadays," Mirande continued, with a ferocious smile. "To the Luxembourg, thence to the Conciergerie, thence to the Place de la Revolution is a journey of three days at most; and the path is well trodden. You will find yourself in good company, M. de Bercy."

"You will give me up?"

"Ay!" the Republican answered hoarsely. He had risen, and stood facing his antagonist, his hands on the table, his face flushed and swollen. "Ay, though you were my own son! What have you not done to me? You crept like a snake into my house, and robbed me of my daughter!"

"I made her my wife!" the Vicomte answered, with calm pride.

"Ay, and then? After that act of mighty condescension you led her to take part in your vile plot, and when she was discovered and arrested, you left her to pay the penalty. You left her to die alone rather than risk one hair of your miserable head!"

The young man sprang to his feet in sudden ungovernable excitement. "It is false!" he cried. "False!"

"It is true!" Mirande retorted, striking the table so violently that the room rang again and the flame of the lamp leapt up and for an instant dyed the two angry faces with a lurid gleam.

"I say it is false!" the Vicomte replied sternly. "On the contrary, being at Rheims when I heard that Corinne was arrested, I took horse on the instant. I rode for Paris as a man rides for life. I was anxious to give myself up in her place if I could save her in no other way. But at Meaux, M. Mirande, I met your agent——"

"And went back to Rheims again and into hiding," the other continued, with a bitter sneer, "after sending me, her father, the shameful message that your duty to your race forbade the last of the Bercys to die for a merchant's daughter."

"I sent that message, do you say? I? I?" the young man cried.

"Yes, you! Who else? You—sent it after hearing from me that if you would surrender, the Committee of Safety would suffer her to escape! So much my services had wrung from them—in vain. What? Do you deny that you met my agent at night in the yard of the Three Kings at Meaux, M. le Vicomte?"

"I met him," the young man answered firmly, though his frame was a-shake with excitement. "But I did not send that message by him! Nor did he give me such a message as you state. On the contrary, he told me that I was too late, that my wife had suffered two days before; and that you bade me save myself, if I could."

"Ay, she suffered," Mirande answered ironically. "But it was four days later. And for the rest you tell me nothing but lies, and clumsy ones."

"What I tell you," the Vicomte rejoined, with a solemnity which at last enforced the other's attention, "is as true as that I loved my wife and would have died to save her. I swear it!"

M. Mirande passed his hand over his brow, and stood for a moment gazing at his son-in-law. There was a new expression, an expression almost of fear, in his eyes.

"Should you know the messenger again?" he asked at last.

"I do not think I should," the Vicomte answered. "He inquired for me by the name upon which we had agreed. We were together for a few minutes only, and the night was dark, the only light a distant lanthorn."

"Would he know you, do you think?"

"I cannot say."

M. Mirande shrugged his shoulders, and strode half a dozen times up and down the room, his face dark with thought, with suspicion, with uncertainty. At length he stopped before his son-in-law.

"Listen to me," he said, meeting and striving to read the young man's eyes. "It is possible that what you say is true and that you are not the coward I have thought you. In that case you shall have justice at my hands. Before I give you up to the Committee of Safety, who will deal shortly with you, I will resolve the doubt. Until I find the means to solve it, you may stay here."

"Indeed?" cried the young man proudly. "But what if I am not willing to be beholden to you?"

"Then you have your alternative!" Mirande answered coolly. "Come with me to the nearest Guard House, and I will inform against you. After all, it will be the shortest way. It was only that being a citizen, and not a ci-devant, I wished to do justice—even to you."

The young man hesitated. He had spoken truly when he suggested that he was unwilling to be beholden to Mirande. But the alternative meant certain death.

"I will stop," he said, after a pause, shrugging his shoulders as he accepted the strange offer made him. "Why should I not? It is your agent who has lied, not I."

"We shall see," replied the other, without emotion. "There is one thing, however, I must name to you. I know that you are a gallant among the ladies, M, de Bercy. My daughter Claire, who was at the seminary when you visited me before, is now at home. You will kindly restrict your intercourse with her to the most formal limits. Unfortunately," he continued, with a strange bitterness in his tone, "she is like her sister, and the same arts that won the one, may win the other from the path of duty."

"For shame, sir!" the young noble answered, his eyes sparkling with indignation. "You insult, not me, but your dead daughter! Do you think that I loved her for her fortune alone? Or that her very image, untenanted by her soul, would satisfy me?"

"They were singularly alike," Mirande muttered with a grim shrug. "God knows! At any rate you are warned."

The young man shot at him an angry glance, but said no more; and Mirande, seeming to be satisfied that his condition was accepted, dropped the subject and proceeded to show his guest where he might sleep; for the latter felt a natural reluctance to return to his narrow prison behind the wainscot. In a few minutes the light was extinguished and the two men, thus strangely brought together again, lay a few feet from one another; the mind of each turning in the stillness of the night, to the link which had bound them, nay, which still bound them in a forced and uncongenial union.

The Vicomte was aware that his host ran a certain risk in sheltering him. The supremacy which Robespierre had won at this time, and the desperate lengths to which he had gone, exposed all who were not of his immediate following to a jealousy that had already hurried to the guillotine the chiefs of half a dozen sections of the Republican party. Mirande, as one of the few surviving Girondins and as a man still possessing friends and influence was peculiarly obnoxious to suspicion. The slightest accusation, the word of a servant, the hint of a rival, would suffice to despatch him also along the path which so many trod daily.

The Vicomte, therefore, on rising in the morning, proposed to withdraw to his hiding-place. M. Mirande, however, a little to his guest's surprise, would not hear of this; observing curtly that he could trust his household, and that a change of name was all that safety required. The younger man, whose anxiety was not on his own account only, would have argued the point; but his host cut short the matter by opening the door, and ushering the Vicomte, almost before the young man was aware, into another room—a room, large and scantily furnished, but in other respects in striking contrast to that which he had left. Here the tall, narrow windows, three in number, were open; the sunlight poured in through half-closed jalousies and fell in bars on the shining parquet, and on a little table daintily laid for the morning meal and gay with flowers. In the cooler and darker parts of the room stood high-backed chairs littered with a dozen articles which spoke of a woman's presence; here a fan and silk hood, there a half-mended glove. As the young man's eyes fell on these, and he drank in the airy brightness and even luxury of the room, he felt a strange pang of regret and misery. Such things were no longer for him. Such prettinesses no longer formed part of his life. And then he turned, and in an instant forgot his unhappiness and his loss in the sight of a young girl who, seated a little aside, had risen at his entrance and now stood facing him, her back to the light.

He had been warned; yet he stood thunderstruck, breathless, staring. His eyes grew large, his jaw fell, the room for a moment went round with him. The likeness of the woman before him to his dead wife was so strong, so complete, so astonishing, that involuntarily, not knowing what he did, he held out his hands.

"Corinne!" he muttered, his voice full of tears. "Corinne!"

The girl, who but for the ravages of ill-health would have been very beautiful, did not answer; nevertheless she seemed scarcely less affected by his sudden appearance and his strange address. She swayed on her feet, and had she not grasped a chair would have fallen. A burning flush for an instant lit up her wan cheek, to disappear at the first sound of her father's voice. He had followed Bercy into the room, and his tone was sharp with reproof and warning.

"Citizen Perrot," he said sternly, "this is my daughter Claire. Here is your place. Be seated, if you please."

The Vicomte mechanically did as he was told without looking where he sat. His hands shook, his brain was on fire. He had eyes only for the girl; who was so wondrously, so completely, like his wife. She had taken her seat with some timidity at the other side of the table, and if she no longer betrayed the same emotion, her eyes were downcast, the colour fluttered in her cheeks. It was in vain that Mirande shot angry glances at her—and at him. The young man stared as one enchanted, seeing only the white-robed figure seated between himself and the sunlight, that, shining through her dark hair, found golden threads in it, and crowned the face he knew so well with an aureole of brightness.

Gradually the spell fell from him. For as he looked, the girl's face changed and hardened and grew older; grew sharper and whiter; and he discerned the difference between Claire and Corinne. Corinne had never looked at him, or at any one, after that fashion. With a sigh, yet with eyes that often and involuntarily returned to the lode-star, he recovered himself; and he made, or pretended to make, a meal. His appetite, however, was gone, and he was thankful when his host rose and put an end to the constrained sitting.

"You will excuse me," the Republican said, drawing out his watch and looking at it. "I should be at M. Carnot's at this hour. These rooms, however, are at your disposal, my friend; and if you want books, my daughter will direct you where to find them. But—caution, remember!"

And with that, to the Vicomte's astonishment, M. Mirande departed, leaving the two together. For a moment the young man sat, troubled and perplexed, gazing at the floor. He had intercepted the glance of warning which his host on leaving had aimed at his daughter; and with the knowledge that he was suspected, with the brutally frank exhortation addressed to himself fresh in his mind, to be left alone with the girl surprised him beyond measure.

Presently he stole a look at her. She had passed to one of the windows, and, having seated herself, was employed upon some needle-work. Her attitude, the lines of her figure, the pose of her head, presented the same abnormal maddening resemblance to his wife; and slowly, as if fascinated, he moved nearer to her.

"Pardon me," he said at last, speaking almost in a whisper. "You are very like your sister, mademoiselle."

She glanced quickly at him, her face wearing the hard, sharp look that had slowly grown upon it. But she gave him no other answer.

He felt that he ought to leave her, but the spell was upon him and he lingered.

"You have been ill, I fear," he said, after a long silence.

"Monsieur is right," she answered briefly. "The times are such that few of us escape. Those are perhaps most happy," and as she paused on the word she looked up at him, "who die with their beliefs unshattered, before discovering the clay feet of their idols."

He started.

"Mademoiselle!" he cried almost fiercely, carried away by an intensely painful thought. "My wife! Your sister? Answer me, answer me quickly, I beg of you. They did not—they did not tell her that I—that I refused——"

"That monsieur declined to save her?" Mademoiselle Claire answered slowly, her great dark eyes looking into vacancy—into the depths of gloomy memories. "Yes, they did. A woman, perhaps, would not have done it; would not have borne to do it. But men are cruel—cruel! And after all it helped her to die, you understand. It made it more easy."

He walked to the other end of the room, his face hidden in his hands. And there his frame began to be racked by deep sobs. He tried to summon up his pride, his courage, his manliness; but in vain. The thought that the woman who had loved and trusted him, his young wife—his young wife of a few months only—had died believing him a coward and an ingrate was too bitter! Too bitter, the conviction that, mistaken as her belief was, it could never be altered! Never be altered! She would never know!

A light touch on his arm recalled him to himself. He turned and found Mademoiselle Claire at his elbow holding a glass of wine towards him. Her lips were compressed, but her face wore a delicate flush, and her eyes were changed and softened.

"Drink," she muttered hurriedly. "You are still weak; you have eaten nothing."

He controlled himself by an effort and took the wine; and the girl, moving away quickly, brought from the table a roll and, without again meeting his eyes, laid it on a chair beside him. She was in the act of regaining her place by the window, when the door opened somewhat abruptly, and the young Vicomte, scarcely master of himself, turned and discovered a man standing on the threshold.

The stranger stared at him and he at the stranger, while Mademoiselle Claire, with eyes which on a sudden became keen and intent, seemed to forget herself in gazing on both. The new-comer was taller than the Vicomte and of about the same age; a thin, lithe man, with restless eyes and dark, tumbled hair. He scanned the Vicomte with at least as much disfavour as the latter, taken by surprise, spent on him; and he was the first to speak.

"I thought that you were alone, mademoiselle," he said, frowning as he advanced into the room and looked about him suspiciously.

"This is a friend of my father's," she answered, "He is staying with us, M. Baudouin."

The explanation did not seem to improve matters in the young man's eyes. He frowned still more gloomily.

"Monsieur is from the country?" he asked.

"No," the Vicomte answered. "I have been in Paris some months."

The stranger looked darkly down, toying with a book which lay at the edge of the table. The girl waited awhile and then—

"Did you bring a message from my father?" she asked, a slight tinge of impatience and hauteur in her manner.

"No, mademoiselle, I have not seen him this morning," he answered. And his sullenness matched her impatience.

"Had you not better follow him then?" she said, with sharpness. "He is at M. Carnot's. He may need you."

For a moment it was plain that M. Baudouin hesitated, but in the end he made up his mind to obey, and bowing with exaggerated respect he left the room.

The Vicomte thought that he could not do better than follow the other's example, and he too withdrew. Crossing the lobby to the room which communicated with his hiding-place he threw himself into a chair and gave himself up to the most melancholy reflections. The singular resemblance which Mademoiselle Claire bore to his wife must alone have sufficed to fill him with vain longings and poignant regrets; but these were now rendered a thousand times more bitter by the knowledge, so cruelly conveyed to him, that his wife had died believing him a heartless and faithless coward.

The return of M. Mirande later in the day, if it did not dispel these gloomy thoughts, compelled him at any rate to conceal them. The evening meal passed much as the morning one had passed; the host uttering a few formal phrases, while the other two sat for the most part silent. The Vicomte could not avert his eyes from his sister-in-law; and though he no longer felt the violent emotions which her face had at first awakened in him, he sat sad and unhappy. Her pale features reminded him of the dead past: and at once tortured him with regret, and tantalized him with the simulacrum of that which had been his. He could have cursed the Heaven that had formed two beings so much alike.

In this way a week passed by, and little by little a vague discomfort and restlessness began to characterize the attitude of his mind towards her. He felt himself at once attracted by her beauty—as what man of his years would not?—and repelled by the likeness that made of the feeling a sacrilege. Meantime, whether he would or no, they were left together—much together. M. Mirande went abroad each day and seemed intent on public affairs. Each day, indeed, his look grew a trifle more austere, and the shade on his brow grew deeper; but though it was evident that the situation out-of-doors was growing more strained, the storms which were agitating Paris and desolating so many homes affected the little household in no other way. The Vicomte kept necessarily within, spending most of his time in reading. Mademoiselle Claire also went seldom abroad; and it followed that during the long July days when the sunshine flooded the second floor, in the early mornings when the sparrows perched on the open jalousies and twittered gaily, or in the grey evenings, when the night fell slowly, they met from time to time—met not infrequently. On such occasions the Vicomte noticed that Baudouin was never far distant. The secretary, as a rule, put in an appearance before the conversation had lasted ten minutes.

Bercy began to suspect the cause of this, and one day he happened upon a discovery. He was sitting in M. Mirande's room, when the sound of a raised voice made him lay down his book and listen. The voice seemed to come from the parlour. Once he was assured of this, and that the speaker, whose anger was apparent, was not Mirande, he took his steps. He stole out upon the lobby, and found the parlour door as he had suspected slightly ajar. Any scruples he might have entertained were dispelled by the certainty that the speaker was Baudouin and that the person whom he was addressing in harsh and vehement tones, was Mademoiselle Claire. The Vicomte drew himself up behind the door and listened.

"What would I have?" were the first words he caught. "Little enough, heaven knows! Little enough! What have I ever asked except to be allowed to serve? To gratify your least caprice. To be at your beck and call. To fetch and carry while another basked in your smiles. That is all I asked in the old days and I ask no more now. I am content to serve and wait and hope. But I will have—no stranger come between us. Not again! Not again!"

"You do not understand, M. Baudouin," the girl answered hurriedly.

"Do I not?" he cried. "Perhaps I did not understand last time. But this time I do. I do! It had been well for you had I known more then!"

"Spare me," she said faintly, overcome apparently by some hidden meaning in his words.

"That you may amuse yourself with this stranger?" he retorted. "No, I have given way enough. It had been better, as I say, if I had not, mademoiselle."

The stress he laid on the last word was unintelligible to the hidden listener, who knew only that it veiled an insult and drew nearer to the door. The girl remained silent and Baudouin presuming on this continued in a tone still more aggressive, "Times are changed, mademoiselle, changed in the last month. You, living out of the world, are ignorant of what is passing, and your father is being left as completely behind. Unless I make a mistake, in a little time you will need other and stronger protection than his."

"Not while he lives," the girl answered, in a low tone.

Baudouin laughed. "The pitcher goes often to the well, but it is broken at last," he said drily. "I would have you understand that, since you may stand in need of my help, you would do well not to try me too far."

"M. Baudouin," the girl said abruptly—and her tone was changed, and the listener, though he could not see her, could picture the challenge of her startled eyes—"you have never spoken to me in this way before. You have changed."

"So are the times. Those who were servants are now masters!"

"You will never be mine," the girl said firmly.

"We shall see!" he answered.

"We shall see!" cried an unexpected voice—that of the Vicomte, who could bear it no longer. His eyes stern, his colour high, he flung the door wide and entered. The secretary, startled, stepped back a pace. The girl, who had been standing close to the door, turned, and seeing who it was, uttered a low cry of thankfulness; in her relief she even stretched out her hands as if she would grasp the new-comer's arm. The next instant she drew back, a strange expression in her eyes.

"Now, sir," the young Vicomte continued, harshly, "you have to deal with a man, and not with a woman whom you can terrify. I have overheard all, and I warn you that on his return I shall repeat it word for word to M. Mirande, who will know how to deal with you."

He expected that the threat would produce its effect, and that the secretary taken in the act would resume his normal demeanour. But Baudouin, his first surprise over, merely smiled. "Who are you, I wonder," he replied grimly. "One in the Tallien-Barrere-Carnot conspiracy, that's afoot, I suppose. If so, I need not——"

"You need suppose nothing!" the Vicomte retorted fiercely. "But leave the room without words, you dog!"

"Thank you," said the secretary, smiling contemptuously. "But I would have you remember that a living dog is better than a dead lion."

With that—and with little show of embarrassment or dismay—he went out. As the door closed behind him a singular constraint fell upon the two who were left. The Vicomte, with a grave face, paused by the table, and stood listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps. The girl, who had withdrawn to the farther end of the room, kept her face averted. The Vicomte looked at her doubtfully—looked at her more than once. "Mademoiselle," he ventured at last, his voice low and agitated, "I am afraid he—I am afraid he means mischief."

"I fear so," she whispered without turning.

"Will you—shall I speak to your father?"

"It may be better," she answered—to the same tone.

He looked at her long at that, but she did not move; and with a gesture as of farewell he turned and went softly away. Safe in his own room, with the door shut, he stood in the middle of the floor thinking; thinking not of the secretary nor of the danger with which Baudouin's enmity threatened the house, but of the strange look which the girl's face had worn on his first appearance at her side, the look of relief and thankfulness which he had surprised in her eyes, the impulse of confidence which had made her move towards him! He recalled them all, and his brow grew hot, his hand trembled. He felt at once terror and shame. When he heard M. Mirande's step on the stairs, he gave himself no time for thought, but went hurriedly out on the lobby and called him into the room. "M. Mirande," he said, "I have something to tell you. I have two things to tell you."

The Republican looked at him, his inscrutable eyes betraying no surprise. "What are they?" he asked, his tone almost phlegmatic.

"The man Baudouin has been here, addressing himself so rudely to your daughter that I felt myself obliged to—to interfere."

"That is unlucky."

"It may be that he has your confidence," the young Vicomte continued, "but, from the way in which he spoke of you, I doubt if you have his. He seemed to me—a dangerous man, M. Baudouin."

"Did he use threats?" the Republican asked, a slight shade of anxiety in his tone.

The Vicomte nodded.

"Did he mention any names?" M. Mirande continued, looking sharply at his watch.

"Yes. Those of Carnot, Barrere—and I think, Tallien."

"Ah!" For a moment M. Mirande's impulse seemed to be to leave the room; to leave it hurriedly, to go back perhaps whence he had come. But he thought better of it, and after a pause he continued, "Had you not something else to tell me?"

"I had," the young man answered, betraying, by his agitation, that he had now come to the real purpose for which he had sought the interview. "I wish to leave, M. Mirande. I wish to leave your house at once. I do not know," he continued hurriedly, before the elder man could utter the dry retort which was on his lips, "whether you had it in your mind to try me by leaving me with your daughter, or whether I have only my own weakness to thank. But I must go. I am ashamed of myself, I hate myself for it; but I cannot be with her and not feel what I ought not to feel. Understand me," the young man continued, his cheeks pale; "it is not by reason of any charm of hers, but because she is so like—so like my wife—because she seems a dozen times a day to be my wife, that my memory is unfaithful to Corinne—that I dare not remain here another day!"

He stopped abruptly. M. Mirande coughed.

"This is a strange confession," he said, after a long pause. "You have said nothing to Claire?"

"Heaven forbid!"

"Then say nothing!" the Republican replied with curt decision. "As for leaving this place to-day, it is impossible. A crisis is at hand; this house is watched. You would be recognized and arrested before you passed ten yards from the door. Moreover," he went on, seeming to ponder deeply as he spoke, "if you are right about Baudouin—and I doubt now whether I have been Wise to trust him—I see great and immediate danger before me. Therefore, if you would not desert the sinking ship, you must remain."

"I dare not," the young man muttered, shaking his head.

"What?" the old Girondin answered, his voice swelling, his eyes growing bright. "You a noble, and you dare not? You a noble, and you cannot govern yourself? Consider, M. le Vicomte! A few days may see me traverse the road so many traverse every day; the road of the guillotine. Then my daughter will be alone, defenceless, unprotected. I ask you—for I have no one else to whom I can turn—to be her brother and her guardian. Do you refuse?"

"You no longer distrust me?" the Vicomte muttered, his cheek hot.

"When you came to me a week ago," Mirande answered, "I did not foresee this crisis, nor the present danger. If I had, I might have received you differently. But, see you, what if this be the way in which I would try you?" he continued with energy. "What if this be the atonement heaven has assigned to you? In that case, do you accept, or do you refuse?"

"I accept," the Vicomte answered solemnly, carried away by the other's burst of feeling. "I accept the charge."

M. Mirande smiled, but only for a moment. Quickly the light died out of his face, leaving it stern and austere. His brow grew dark, and turning with a sigh to his table, he signed to his companion to leave him, and was presently immersed in figures and calculations.

The young man retired; on his side full of doubt and amazement, yet lifted by the other's appeal to a higher level of will and purpose. Confidence begets honour. Frankly as he had gone to the Girondin with his confession, so frankly had the other received it. Now he felt that it behoved him to deserve confidence. Henceforth Claire must be his sister. But he knew that merely to call her sister was not all. He knew enough of his own weakness to recognize the necessity of shunning temptation, and during the next three days he was careful to avoid conversation with the girl; who on her part seemed to observe nothing, but went to and fro about her household duties.

And yet she did not go about them as usual, a keen observer would have said. A subtle change had come over her. Alone in her room she sang to herself low crooning songs of happiness. Her eyes, so carefully lowered in the parlour, shone with a tender brightness, when no one saw them. Her cheek had grown fuller, her colour stronger, her whole being radiant. If she still went delicately when other's eyes were upon her, it was rather in sympathy with the heavy air of fear and expectation which pervaded the house, which pervaded the city, than in obedience to her natural impulses.

On the third evening, M. Mirande, who had been abroad all day, came home rather later than usual. The Vicomte and Claire were sitting in separate rooms, but something ominous in the sound of his footstep as he mounted the stairs, drew them both to the lobby to receive him. The evening light, shining through the window behind them, fell full upon his face and exaggerated its cold and grey severity. They waited for him in silence, and he did not see them until he set his foot on the last step. Then he pointed to his room, and, "Go in there, my children," he said gravely.

The young man started. The girl blushed and trembled. They both obeyed. M. Mirande's next act was equally surprising. Following them into the room he proceeded to lock and bolt the door behind him; and then passing quickly to the window he looked out. For a moment they stood behind him in silence. After a pause the Vicomte spoke.

"What is it?" he said.

"The order for my arrest was signed an hour ago," the Girondin answered, his eyes still glued to the window. "You are both included in it. Ah! here they are!"

"Who?" the Vicomte asked with energy.

"Baudouin and three officers. However, the door is shut. It is strong, and will gain us a few minutes."

"To what end?" The Vicomte spoke coldly. Mirande's conduct took him by surprise, for resistance to arrest was rare during the Revolution. Such men as Mirande, courageous, bigoted, devoted to an ideal, made a point—unless they resorted to suicide—of submitting calmly to destiny and the law.

The Girondin, however, had decided otherwise. Nor did he seem to be aware of his companion's disapproval. He did not answer, but continued to look out long after the tramp of heavy footsteps on the stairs had drawn his daughter to his side. There was a loud summons without, "In the name of the law!" but the three remained silent, standing close together, the girl's white, scared face glimmering in the increasing darkness of the room. The Vicomte a foot from her, could almost hear the dull beating of her heart.

"Can nothing be done?" he muttered.

"We can do nothing but wait and be silent," the Republican answered calmly. "They know we are here, but if we do not answer, they may pause awhile before they attack the door. And every moment—is a moment gained."

The Vicomte shrugged his shoulders, but acquiesced; and some minutes elapsed—minutes which seemed hours to more than one of the three—before the locksmith for whom the Commissary had sent, assailed the door, and the almost empty house rang with the harsh sounds of his hammer.

Crash! The door was open at last, letting into the room a flood of light, and with the light three men who entered with levelled arms. The foremost, an officer girt with a huge tricolour scarf, stopped abruptly, his jaw dropping ludicrously as his eyes fell on the placid group before him. "Citizen Achille Mirande?" he said interrogatively. "Yes? I am empowered to arrest you in the name of the Committee of Safety; you, your daughter also present I think—and a guest. This I presume is the person?"

"It is," Mirande answered quietly. "Perhaps you will permit me to show you where my papers are. They may be needed?"

"They will be needed," the Commissary replied, re-arranging his scarf, which had been pulled awry. "You may certainly collect them under surveillance."

"I can save M. Mirande the trouble," remarked a mocking voice in the background. "I think I can lay my hand on any paper that may be required."

"I do not doubt it, Baudouin," the Girondin answered placidly. "I take it that I have to thank you for this?"

There was shame as well as triumph in the secretary's eyes as he came forward. "You cannot say I did not warn you," he said, avoiding the look of scorn which Claire—who stood by her father's side, her hand in his—shot at him. "But you would go your way."

"And you, yours!" Mirande retorted. "An old way—Judas's. But hark you, my friend! You seem to be prospering now. You have kicked down the ladder by which you have risen. Yet it is in my power to wound you. See you, do you know who this is?" and he pointed to the Vicomte who, with his arms folded, was gazing haughtily at the Commissary and his followers.

"A conspirator against the safety of the Republic—that is all I know," Baudouin answered sullenly.

"Possibly," said Mirande. "But not the less for that my son-in-law!"

"The Vicomte de Bercy!" Baudouin almost shouted. "It is false. I heard of him but yesterday—at Nantes."

"You heard wrongly then!" Mirande answered with a cold sneer. "This is the man whom you met at Meaux, and of whom you lied to me, saying—that you might divide him effectually from my daughter—that he refused to surrender himself to save her."

"It was true—what I told you," the secretary muttered, gazing at Bercy with hatred.

"It was false!" cried the Girondin sternly. "Do I need evidence? I have it. Whom shall I believe, you, who have betrayed me to-day, or he who remained by my side in danger?"

"He could not escape," Baudouin said abruptly. His face was pale, the perspiration stood on his brow. His jealous eyes glared askance at the girl's face. Mirande had said rightly. He had yet the power to wound this traitor.

"He did not attempt it," the Girondin answered. "And besides, I have tried him as gold in the fire! Look you at this. Bercy!" As the name rang through the room the speaker turned to the Vicomte and took his hand, "My friend, I have deceived you. My daughter did not die. I procured her pardon by the use of such influence as I possessed at that time. But having done that, deluded by this villain's tale, I forced her to renounce you and to take her maiden name."

For an instant there was silence in the room.

"She did not die?" the young man muttered, his eyes dilating. Then, before an answer could be given, he plucked his hand from Mirande's grasp and seizing him by the shoulder shook him to and fro.

"Where is she?" he cried hoarsely. "Speak, man, what have you done with her? Where is she?"

"She is behind you."

Bercy turned. Claire was behind him. "Claire?" he cried. "Claire?"

The girl stood, her eyes slightly downcast, her arms hanging by her sides. And then at the sound of the name uttered a second time, she looked up, her eyes swimming with love and tears. "No, Corinne!" she said simply. And then, in a voice which pierced the traitor's bosom as with a sword, she continued, "Honore, my husband! Forgive me! Forgive me that I distrusted you! That I disowned you!"

He did not answer, but he opened his arms and took her into them and held her there; while the father went to the window—perhaps to hide his emotion, and the Commissary lifted up his hands in admiration genuine and French of this moving scene. As for Baudouin, he bit his nails, his face white with rage.

He cursed the delay. He would have cursed the police, had he dared, and had not the tricolour scarf awed him. "Bah!" he exclaimed at last in venomous tones, "a fine piece of play-acting, M. Mirande! And our friends here have indulgently given you time for it. But it is over, and the sequel will be less pleasant, I fear. He laughs best who laughs last."

"That is true," Mirande answered soberly; and for an instant from his place at the window, he looked into the room.

"In three days you will sneeze into the sack, my friends," Baudouin continued with savage mockery. "Your married bliss, M. le Vicomte, will last but a short time, I fear. As for mademoiselle, Sanson will prove but a rough coiffeur, I doubt."

"Silence!" the Girondin cried; and his tone was strangely altered, his voice vibrated strangely through the room. "Silence, you hound!" he continued, turning from the window and walking into the middle of the chamber, his figure drawn to its full height, his hand outstretched. "Be still, and tremble for your own head. The warrant you bring is signed by Maximilien Robespierre?"

"The Incorruptible," murmured the Commissary. And saluted.

"Corruptible or Incorruptible," Mirande rejoined, with a sneer, "he is fallen! He is fallen! Within the last ten minutes he has been arrested and lodged in the Tuileries!"

"You rave!" cried the officer. While Bercy and Corinne cast dazed glances about them, and the other men stared in stupid wonder.

"I do not rave!" the Girondin answered, standing in the middle of the room, the master of the situation. "I tell but the fact. Mark the three lighted candles in yonder upper window. They are a signal that Robespierre is arrested. Go, if you doubt me, and ask. Or—you need not. Listen, listen!" With a gesture of command, he raised his hand, and all stood silent. For an instant there seemed equal silence in the streets below; but gradually as they listened there grew out of this silence a distant hollow murmur, as of a great sea swelling higher and louder with each moment. The face of more than one in the room lost its colour.

"The Faubourgs are rising," muttered the Commissary uneasily. "There is something amiss."

"On the contrary," answered the Girondin quietly, "there is nothing amiss, but things are in a fair way to be set straight. If you will take my advice you will tear up that warrant, my friend. To-morrow it will be more dangerous to you than to me. The Terror of these days is over," he continued solemnly. "For those who have profited by it the reckoning remains!"

M. Mirande was right. Abruptly as this narration ends, the Terror, so famous in history, came to its end; and many a life held worthless a few minutes before was saved. For twenty-four hours indeed the fate of Robespierre and indirectly of our friends hung in the balance, all men trembling and watching what would happen and who would prevail. Then he fell, and the cruelty of his rule recoiled on his associates. What became of Baudouin is not known for certain, though one tale alleges that he was met and murdered by a company of Royalists near Nantes, and another, that he was guillotined under another name with Fouquier Tinville and his gang. Enough that he disappeared unmarked and unregretted, along with many others of the baser and more obscure adventurers of the time.

Of Bercy and Corinne, re-wedded under circumstances so strange and so abnormal, we know only that their descendants, well versed in this tradition of the family, still flourish on the Loire, and often and often tell this tale under the walnut-trees on summer evenings. Nor are there wanting to-day both a Corinne and a Claire.



IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!

On the moorland above the old grey village of Carhaix, in Finistere—Finistere, the most westerly province of Brittany—stands a cottage, built, as all the cottages in that country are, of rough-hewn stones. It is a poor, rude place to-day, but it wore an aspect still more rude and primitive a hundred years ago—on an August day in the year 1793, when a man issued from the low doorway, and, shading his eyes from the noonday sun, gazed long and fixedly in the direction of a narrow rift which a few score paces away breaks the monotony of the upland level. The man was tall and thin and unkempt, and his features, which expressed a mixture of cunning and simplicity, matched his figure. He gazed a while in silence, but at length he uttered a grunt of satisfaction as the figure of a woman rose gradually into sight. She came slowly towards him in a stooping posture, dragging behind her a great load of straw, which completely hid the little sledge on which it rested, and which was attached to her waist by a rope of twisted hay.

The figure of a woman—rather of a girl. As she drew nearer it could be seen that her cheeks, though brown and sunburned, were as smooth as a child's. She seemed to be still in her teens. Her head was bare, and her short petticoats, of some coarse stuff, left visible bare feet thrust into wooden shoes. She advanced with her head bent, and her shoulders strained forward, her face dull and patient. Once, and once only, when the man's eyes left her for a moment, she shot at him a look of scared apprehension; and later, when she came abreast of him, her breath coming and going with her exertions, he might have seen, had he looked closely, that her strong brown limbs were trembling under her.

But the man noticed nothing in his impatience, and only chid her for her slowness. "Where have you been dawdling, lazy-bones?" he cried.

She murmured, without halting, that the sun was hot.

"Sun hot!" he retorted. "Jeanne is lazy, that is it! Mon Dieu, that I should have married a wife who is tired by noon! I had better have left you to that never-do-well Pierre Bounat. But I have news for you, my girl."

He lounged after her as he spoke, his low cunning face—the face of the worst kind of French peasant—flickering with cruel pleasure, as he saw how she winced at the name he had mentioned. She made him no answer, however. Instead, she drew her load with increased vehemence towards one of the two doors which led into the building. "Well, well, I will tell you presently," he called after her. "Be quick and come to dinner."

He entered himself by the other door. The house was divided into two chambers by a breast-high partition of wood. The one room served for kitchen; the other, now half full of straw, was barn and granary, fowl-house and dove-cote, all in one. "Be quick!" he called to her. Standing in the house-room, he could see her head as she proceeded to unload the straw.

After a few minutes she came in, her shoes clattering on the floor. The perspiration stood in great beads on her forehead, and showed how little she had deserved his reproach. She took her seat silently, avoiding his eyes with some care; but he thought nothing of this. It was no new thing. It pleased him, if anything.

He liked to be feared. "Well, my Jeanne," he said, in his gibing tone, "are you longing for my news?"

The hand she extended towards the pitcher of cider, that, with black bread and onions, made up their meal, shook a little; but she answered simply, "If you please, Michel."

"Well, the Girondins have got the worst of it, my girl, and are flying all over the country. That is the news. Your Pierre is among them, I don't doubt, if he has not been killed already. I wish he would come this way."

"Why?" she asked; and as she spoke looked up at last, a flash of light in her grey eyes.

"Why?" he repeated, grinning across the table at her, "because he would be worth five crowns to me. There is five crowns, I am told, on the head of every Girondin who has been in arms, my girl. Five crowns! It is not every day we can earn five crowns!"

The French Revolution, it will be understood, was at its height. The more moderate and constitutional Republicans—the Girondins, as they were called—worsted in Paris by the Jacobins and the mob, had lately tried to raise the provinces against the capital, and to this end had drawn together at Caen, near the border of Brittany. They had been defeated, however, and the Jacobins, in this month of August, were preparing to take a fearful vengeance at once on them and on the Royalists. The Reign of Terror had begun. Even to such a boor as this, sitting over his black bread, in his remote hovel, the Revolution had come home, and, in common with many a thousand others, he wondered what he could make of it.

The girl did not answer, even by the look of contempt to which he had become accustomed, and for which he hated her, and for which he beat her; and he repeated, "Five crowns! Ah, it is money, that is! Mon Dieu!" Then, with a sudden exclamation, he sprang up. "What is that?" he cried.

He had been sitting with his back to the barn, but he turned, as he spoke, so as to face it. Something had startled him—a movement, a rustling in the straw behind him. "What is that?" he asked again, his hand on the table, his face lowering and watchful.

The girl had risen also; and, as the last word passed his lips, sprang by him with a low cry, and aimed a frantic blow with her stool at something he could not see, something low, on the floor.

"What is it?" he asked, recoiling.

"A rat!" she answered, breathless. And she aimed another blow at it.

"Where?" he asked sharply. "Where is it?" He snatched up his stool, too, and at that moment a rat darted out of the straw, ran nimbly between his legs, and plunged into a hole by the door. He flung the wooden stool after it; but in vain. "It was a rat!" he said, as if until then he had doubted it.

"Thank God!" she muttered. She was shaking all over.

He stared at her in stupid wonder. What did she mean? What had come to her? "Have you had a sunstroke my girl?" he said suspiciously.

Her nut-brown face was a shade less brown than usual, but she met his eyes boldly. "No," she said, "I am all right." And she added an explanation that for the moment satisfied him. But he did not sit down again, and when she went out he went out also. And though, as she retired slowly to the rye fields and her work, she repeatedly looked back at him, it was always to find his eyes fixed upon her. When this had happened half a dozen times, a thought struck him. "How now?" he muttered. "The rat ran out of the straw! Why?"

Nevertheless he continued to gaze after her, with a cunning look upon his features, until she disappeared over the edge of the rift. Then he crept back to the door of the barn, and stole in, exchanging the sunlight for the cool darkness of the raftered building, across which a dozen rays of light were shooting, laden with dancing motes. A pace or two from the door he stood stock still until he had regained the use of his eyes; then he began to peer round him. In a moment, far sooner than he expected, he found what he sought. Half upon, and half hidden by, the straw in the furthest corner, lay a young man, in the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. His face, which bore traces of more than common beauty, was white and pinched; his hair hung dank about his forehead. His clothes were in rags; and his feet, bound up with pieces torn at random from his blouse, were raw and bleeding. For a short time Michel Tellier bent over him, noting these things with glistening eyes. Then the peasant stole out again. "It is five crowns!" he muttered, blinking in the sunlight. "Ha, ha! Five crowns!"

He looked round him cautiously, but could see no sign of his wife; and after hesitating and pondering a minute or two, he took the path for Carhaix, his native astuteness leading him to saunter at a slow pace after his ordinary fashion. When he was gone the moorland about the cottage lay still and deserted. Thrice, at intervals, the girl dragged home her load of straw, but on each occasion she seemed to linger in the barn no longer than was necessary. Michel's absence, though it was unlooked-for, raised no suspicion in her breast, for he would frequently go down to the village to spend the afternoon. The sun sank lower, and the shadow of the great monolith, which, on the crest of the highest point of the moor, at a distance of a mile, rose gaunt and black against a roseate sky, grew longer and longer; and then, as twilight fell, the two coming home met a few paces from the cottage. He asked some questions about the work she had been doing, and she answered briefly. Then, silent and uncommunicative, they went in together. The girl set the bread and cider on the table, and going to the great black pot which had been simmering all day upon the fire, poured some broth into two pitchers. It did not escape Michel's frugal eye that she was careful to leave a little broth in the bottom of the pot; and the fact induced a new feeling in him—anger. When his wife invited him by a sign to the meal, he went instead to the door, and fastened it. Then he moved to the corner and picked up the wood-chopper, and armed with this he came back to his seat.

The girl watched his movements first with surprise, then with secret terror. The twilight was come, the cottage was almost dark, and she was alone with him; or, if not alone, yet with no one near who could help her. Nevertheless she met his grin of triumph bravely. "What is this?" she said. "Why do you want that?"

"For the rat," he answered grimly, his eyes on hers.

Her heart sank. "The rat?" she echoed.

"Ay!"

"Why not—your stool?" she strove to murmur.

"Not for this rat," he answered cunningly. "It might not do, my girl. Oh, I know what is to do," he continued, fingering the edge of the axe. "I have been down to the village, and seen the mayor, and he is coming up to fetch him." He nodded towards the partition, and she knew that her secret was known.

"It is Pierre," she said, trembling violently, and turning first crimson and then a dull sallow hue.

"I know it, Jeanne. It was excellent of you! Excellent! It is long since you have done such a day's work."

"You will not give him up?" she gasped.

"My faith, I shall!" he answered, affecting, and perhaps really feeling, wonder at her simplicity. "He is five crowns, my girl! You do not understand. He is worth five crowns and the risk nothing at all."

If he had been angry, if he had shown anything of the fury of the suspicious husband, if he had been about to do this out of jealousy or revenge or passion she would have quailed before him, though she had done him no wrong, save the wrong of mercy and pity. But his spirit was too mean for the great passions; he felt only the mean and sordid impulses, which to a woman are the most hateful. And instead of quailing, she looked at him with flashing eyes. "I shall warn him," she said.

"It will not help him," he answered, sitting still, and feeling anew the edge of the hatchet with his fingers.

"It will help him," she retorted. "He shall go. He shall escape before they come." She rose impetuously from her seat.

"I have locked the door!"

"Give me the key!" she panted. "Give me the key, I say!" She stood before him, her trembling hands outstretched, her figure drawn to its full height. Her look was such that he rose and retreated behind the table, still retaining the hatchet in his grasp.

"Stand back!" he said sullenly. "You may awaken him, if you please, my girl. It will not avail him. Do you not understand, fool, that he is worth five crowns? Five crowns? And listen! It is too late now. They are here!"

A blow fell on the door as he spoke, and he stepped towards it. But at that, seeing the last chance leaving her, despair moved her, she threw herself upon him; for a moment she wrestled with him like a wild-cat, but in the end he prevailed; he flung her off, and, brandishing his weapon in her face, kept her at bay. "You vixen!" he cried, retreating to the door, with a pale cheek and his eyes still on her, for he was an arrant coward. "You deserve to go to prison with him, you jade! I will have you in the stocks for this! I'll have you jailed!"

She leaned against the wall where he had flung her, her white despairing face seeming to shine in the darkness of the wretched room. Meanwhile the continuous murmur of men's voices outside the door could be heard mingled with the clatter of weapons; the summons for admission was repeated, and again repeated, as if those without had no mind to be kept waiting long.

"Patience! patience! I am opening!" he cried. Still keeping his face to her, he unlocked the door and called on the men to enter. "He is in the straw, M. le Maire!" he said, in a tone of triumph, his eyes still on his wife. "Cursed Girondin! He will give you no trouble, I will answer it! But first give me my five crowns, M. le Maire. My five crowns!"

He felt, craven as he was, so much fear of his wife that he did not turn to see the men enter, and he was taken by surprise when a voice at his elbow—a voice he did not know—answered, "Five crowns, my friend? For what, may I ask?"

In his eagerness and greed he suspected nothing, but that on some pretext or other they were trying to filch from him his dues. "For what? For the Girondin!" he answered rapidly. Then at last he did turn and found that half a dozen men had entered, that more were entering. But to his astonishment, they were all strangers—men with stern, gloomy faces, and armed to the teeth. There was something so formidable, indeed, in their appearance that he stepped back, and his voice faltered as he added: "But where is the mayor, gentlemen? I do not see him."

No one answered, but in silence the last of the men—they were eleven in all—entered and bolted the door behind him. Michel Tellier peered at them in the gloom with growing alarm, nay, with growing terror. In return the tallest of the strangers, he who had entered first and seemed to command the others, looked round him keenly. And it was he who at length broke the silence. "So you have a Girondin here, have you?" he said, his voice curiously sweet and sonorous.

"I was to have five crowns for him," Michel muttered dubiously.

"Oh!" and then, "Petion," the spokesman continued to one of his companions, "can you kindle a light? It strikes me that we have hit upon a dark place."

The man addressed took something from his pouch. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the sharp sound of the flint striking the steel. Then a slow-growing glare lit up the dark interior, and disclosed the group of cloaked strangers standing about the door, the light gleaming back from their trailing sabres and great horse-pistols. Michel trembled. He had never seen such men as these. True, they were wet and travel-stained, and had the air of those who spend their nights in ditches and under haystacks. But their pale, stern faces were set in indomitable resolve. Their eyes glowed with a steady fire, and they trod the mud floor as kings tread. Their leader was a man of majestic height and stern beauty, and in his eyes alone there seemed to lurk a spark of lighter fire, as if his spirit still rose above the task which had sobered his companions. Michel noted all this in fear and bewilderment; noted the white head yet the vigorous bearing of the man who had struck the light; noted even the manner in which the light died away in the dim recesses of the barn.

"And this Girondin—is he in hiding here?" the tall man asked.

"That is so," Michel answered. "But I had nothing to do with hiding him, citizen. It was my wife hid him in the straw there."

"And you gave notice of his presence to the authorities?" the stranger continued, raising his hand to repress some movement among his followers.

"Certainly, or you would not be here," replied Michel, better satisfied with himself.

The answer struck him, prostrated him, with an awful terror. "That does not follow," the tall man rejoined coolly, "for we, we, also, are Girondins!"

"You are? You?"

"Without doubt," the other answered, with majestic simplicity; "or there are no such persons. This is Petion of Paris, and this citizen Buzot. Have you heard of Louvet? There he stands. For me, I am Barbaroux."

Michel's tongue remained glued to the roof of his mouth. He could not utter a word. But another could. On the far side of the barrier a rustling was heard, and while all turned to look—but with what different feelings—the pale face of the youth over whom Michel had bent in the afternoon appeared above the partition. A smile of joyful recognition effaced for the time the lines of exhaustion. The young man, clinging for support to the planks, uttered a cry of thankfulness. "It is you! It is really you! You are safe!" he exclaimed. Love beamed in his eyes.

"We are safe, all of us, Pierre," Barbaroux answered. "And now"—he turned to Michel Tellier with thunder in his voice—"know that this man whom you would have betrayed is our guide, whom we lost last night. Speak, then, in your defence, if you can. Say what you have to say why justice should not be done upon you, miserable caitiff, who would have sold a man's life, as you would sell a sheep's, for a few pieces of silver!"

The wretched peasant's knees trembled under him; the perspiration stood upon his brow. He heard the voice as the voice of a judge or an executioner. He looked in the stern eyes of the Girondins, and read only anger, doom, vengeance. Then he caught in the silence the sound of his wife weeping, for at Pierre's appearance she had broken into wild sobbing; and on that he spoke out of the base instincts of his heart. "He was her lover," he muttered. "I swear it, citizens."

"He lies!" the man at the barrier cried, his face transfigured with rage. "I loved her once, it is true, but it was before her old father sold her to this Judas. For what he would have you believe now, my friends, it is false. I, too, swear it."

A murmur of execration broke from the group of Girondins. Barbaroux repressed it by a gesture. "What do you say of this man?" he asked, turning to them, his tone deep and solemn.

"He is not fit to live!" they answered with one voice.

The poor coward screamed as he heard the words, and, flinging himself on the ground, he embraced Barbaroux's knees in a paroxysm of terror. But the judge did not look at him. Barbaroux turned, instead, to Pierre Bounat. "What do you say of him?" he asked.

"He is not fit to live," the young man answered solemnly, his breath coming quick and fast.

"And you?" Barbaroux continued, turning and looking with eyes of fire at the wife. And his voice was still more solemn.

A moment before she had ceased to weep, and had stood up listening and gazing, awe and wonder in her face. Barbaroux had to repeat his question before she answered. Then she said, "He is not fit to die."

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the entreaties, the prayers, of the wretch on the floor. At last Barbaroux spoke. "She has said rightly," he pronounced. "He shall live. They have put us out of the law and set a price on our heads; but we will keep the law. He shall live. Yet, hark you," the great orator continued, in tones which Michel never forgot, "if a whisper escape you as to our presence here, or as to our names, or if you wrong your wife from this time forth by word or deed, the life she has saved shall pay for it.

"Remember!" he added, shaking Michel to and fro with a finger, "the arm of Barbaroux of Marseilles is long, and though I be a hundred leagues away, I shall know and I shall punish. So, beware! Now rise, and live!"

The miserable man cowered back to the wall, frightened to the core of his heart. The Girondins conferred a while in whispers, two of their number assisting Pierre to cross the barrier. Suddenly on their talk there broke—and Michel trembled anew as he heard it—a loud knocking at the door. All started and stood listening and waiting. A voice cried: "Open! open! in the name of the law!"

"We have lingered too long," Barbaroux muttered. "I should have thought of this. It is the Mayor of Carhaix come to apprehend our friend."

Again the Girondins conferred together. At last, seeming to arrive at a conclusion, they ranged themselves on either side of the door, and one of their number opened it. A short, stout man, girt with a tricolour sash, and wearing a huge sword, entered with an air of authority. Blinded by the gush of light he saw, at his first entrance, nothing out of the common; he was followed by four men armed with muskets.

Their appearance produced an extraordinary effect on Michel Tellier. As they crossed the threshold one by one, the peasant leaned forward, his face flushed, his eyes gleaming; and he counted them. They were only five. And the others were twelve. He fell back, and from that moment his belief in the Girondins' power was clinched.

"In the name of the law!" the mayor panted. He was a little out of breath. "Why did you not——" Then he stopped abruptly, his mouth remaining open. He found himself surrounded by a group of grim, silent mutes, with arms in their hands; and in a twinkling it flashed into his mind that these were the eleven chiefs of the Girondins, whom he had been warned to keep watch for, and to take. He had come to catch a pigeon and had caught a crow. He turned pale and his eyes dropped. "Who are—who are these gentlemen?" he stammered, in a tone suddenly and ludicrously fallen.

"Some volunteers of Quimper, returning home," replied Barbaroux, with ironical smoothness.

"You have your papers, citizens?" the mayor asked, mechanically; and he took a step backwards towards the door, and looked over his shoulder.

"Here they are!" said Petion rudely, thrusting a packet into his hands. "They are in order."

The mayor took them, and longing only to see the outside of the door, pretended to look through them, his little heart going pit-a-pat within him. "They seem to be in order," he assented, feebly. "I need not trouble you further, citizens. I came here under a misapprehension, I find, and I wish you a good journey."

He knew, as he backed out, that he was cutting a poor figure. And he would fain have made a more dignified retreat. But before these men, fugitives and outlaws as they were, he felt, though he was Mayor of Carhaix, almost as small a man as did Michel Tellier. These were the men of the Revolution, nay, they were the Revolution. They had bearded Capet, they had shattered the regime of centuries, they had pulled down kings. There was Barbaroux, who had grappled with Marat; and Petion, the Mayor of the Bastille. The little Mayor of Carhaix knew greatness when he saw it. He turned tail, and hurried back to his fireside, his body-guard not a whit behind him in their desire to be gone.

Five minutes later the men he feared and envied came out also, and went their way, passing in single file into the darkness which brooded over the great monolith; beginning, brave hearts, another of the few stages which still lay between them and the guillotine. Then in the cottage there remained only Michel and Jeanne. She sat by the dying embers, silent, and lost in thought. He leaned against the wall, his eyes roving ceaselessly, but always when his gaze met hers it fell. Barbaroux had conquered him. It was not until Jeanne had risen to close the door, and he was alone, that he wrung his hands, and muttered: "Five crowns! Five crowns gone and wasted!"

THE END

* * * * *

UNDER THE RED ROBE.

A ROMANCE.

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN,

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF," ETC.

With 12 Full-page Illustrations by R. Caton Woodville. 12mo, Linen Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

"Mr. Weyman is a brave writer, who imagines fine things and describes them splendidly. There is something to interest a healthy mind on every page of his new Story. Its interest never flags, for his resource is rich, and it is, moreover, the kind of a story that one cannot plainly see the end of from Chapter I.... the story reveals a knowledge of French character and French landscape that was surely never acquired at second hand. The beginning is wonderfully interesting."—NEW YORK TIMES.

"As perfect a novel of the new school of fiction as 'Ivanhoe' or 'Henry Esmond' was of theirs. Each later story has shown a marked advance in strength and treatment, and in the last Mr. Weyman ... demonstrates that he has no superior among living novelists.... There are but two characters in the story—his art makes all other but unnoticed shadows cast by them—and the attention is so keenly fixed upon one or both, from the first word to the last, that we live in their thoughts and see the drama unfolded through their eyes."—N. Y. WORLD.

"It was bold to take Richelieu and his time as a subject and thus to challenge comparison with Dumas's immortal musketeers; but the result justifies the boldness.... The plot is admirably clear and strong, the diction singularly concise and telling, and the stirring events are so managed as not to degenerate into sensationalism. Few better novels of adventure than this have ever been written."—OUTLOOK, NEW YORK.

"A wonderfully brilliant and thrilling romance.... Mr. Weyman has a positive talent for concise dramatic narration. Every phrase tells, and the characters stand out with life-like distinctness. Some of the most fascinating epochs in French history have been splendidly illuminated by his novels, which are to be reckoned among the notable successes of later nineteenth-century fiction. This story of 'Under the Red Robe' is in its way one of the very best things he has done. It is illustrated with rigor and appropriateness from twelve full-page designs by R. Caton Woodville."—BOSTON BEACON.

"It is a skillfully drawn picture of the times, drawn in simple and transparent English, and quivering with tense human feeling from the first word to the last. It is not a book that can be laid down at the middle of it. The reader once caught in its whirl can no more escape from it than a ship from the maelstrom."—PICAYUNE, NEW ORLEANS.

"The 'red robe' refers to Cardinal Richelieu, in whose day the story is laid. The descriptions of his court, his judicial machinations and ministrations, his partial defeat, stand out from the book as vivid as flame against a background of snow. For the rest, the book is clever and interesting, and overflowing with heroic incident. Stanley Weyman is an author who has apparently come to stay."—CHICAGO POST.

"In this story Mr. Weyman returns to the scene of his 'Gentleman of France,' although his new heroes are of different mould. The book is full of adventure and characterized by a deeper study of character than its predecessor."—WASHINGTON POST.

"Mr. Weyman has quite topped his first success.... The author artfully pursues the line on which his happy initial venture was laid. We have in Berault, the hero, a more impressive Marsac; an accomplished duelist, telling the tale of his own adventures, he first repels and finally attracts us. He is at once the tool of Richelieu, and a man of honor. Here is a noteworthy romance, full of thrilling incident set down by a master-hand."—PHILADELPHIA PRESS.

* * * * *

THE RED COCKADE.

A NOVEL OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN,

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE RED ROBE," "THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF," "MY LADY ROTHA," ETC.

With 48 Illustrations by R. Caton Woodville. Crown 8vo, Cloth, ornamental, $1.50.

"Deserves a place among the best historical fiction of the latter part of this century. The gradual maddening of the people by agitators, the rising of those who have revenges to feed, the burnings and the outrages are described in a masterly way. The attack on the castle of St. Alais, the hideous death of the steward, the looting of the great building, and the escape of the young lovers—these incidents are told in that breathless way which Weyman has made familiar in other stories. It is only when one has finished the book and has gone back to reread certain passages that the dramatic power and the sustained passion of these scenes are clearly felt."—SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE.

"'The Red Cockade,' a story of the French Revolution, shows, in the first place, careful study and deliberate, well-directed effort. Mr. Weyman ... has caught the spirit of the times.... The book is brimful of romantic incidents. It absorbs one's interest from the first page to the last; it depicts human character with truth, and it causes the good and brave to triumph. In a word, it is real romance."—SYRACUSE POST.

"We have in this novel a powerful but not an exaggerated study of the spirit of the high born and the low born which centuries of aristocratic tyranny and democratic suffering engendered in France. It is history which we read here, and not romance, but history which is so perfectly written, so veritable, that it blends with the romantic associations in which it is set as naturally as the history in Shakespeare's plays blends with the poetry which vitalizes and glorifies it."—MAIL AND EXPRESS, NEW YORK.

"It will be scarcely more than its due to say that this will always rank among Weyman's best work. In the troublous times of 1789 in France its action is laid, and with marvellous skill the author has delineated the most striking types of men and women who made the Revolution so terrible."—NEW YORK WORLD.

"'The Red Cockade' is a novel of events, instinct with the spirit of the eighteenth century and full of stirring romance. The tragic period of the French Revolution forms a frame in which to set the adventures of Adrien du Pont, Vicomte de Saux, and the part he plays in those days of peril has a full measure of dramatic interest.... Mr. Weyman has evidently studied the history of the revolution with a profound realization of its intense tragedy."—DETROIT FREE PRESS.

"The action of the story is rapid and powerful. The Vicomte's struggle with his own prejudices, his unhappy position in regard to his friends, the perils he encounters, and the great bravery he shows in his devotion to Denise are strikingly set forth, while the historical background is made vivid and convincing—the frenzy caused by the fall of the Bastile, the attacks of the mob, the defence and strategy of the nobility, all being described with dramatic skill and verisimilitude. It is a fascinating and absorbing tale, which carries the reader with it, and impresses itself upon the mind as only a novel of unusual merit and power can do."—BOSTON BEACON.

"The story gives a view of the times which is apart from the usual, and marked with a fine study of history and of human conditions and impulse on Mr. Weyman's part. Regarding his varied and well-chosen characters one cares only to say that they are full of interest and admirably portrayed.... It is one of the most spirited stories of the hour, and one of the most delightfully freighted with suggestion."—CHICAGO INTERIOR.

"With so striking a character for his hero, it is not wonderful that Mr. Weyman has evolved a story that for ingenuity of plot and felicity of treatment is equal to some of his best efforts.... 'The Red Cockade' is one of the unmistakably strong historical romances of the season."—BOSTON HERALD.

"We are greatly mistaken if the 'Red Cockade' does not take rank with the very best book that Mr. Weyman has written."—SCOTSMAN.

* * * * *

SOPHIA

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE RED ROBE," ETC.

With 12 Illustrations by C. Hammond. Crown 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.50.