Var said, "Freron naked and
covered with the leprosy of crime," was accepted, caressed and petted by
the Thermidorians. From them he passed into the camp of the royalists,
and without any reason whatever for obtaining that fatal honor, found
himself suddenly at the head of a powerful party of youth, energy and
vengeance, standing between the passions of the day, which led to all,
and the impotence of the law, which permitted all.

It was to the midst of this _jeunesse_ Freron, mouthing its words,
slurring its r's, giving its "word of honor" about everything, that
Morgan now made his way.

It must be admitted that this _jeunesse_, in spite of the clothes it
wore, in spite of the memories these clothes evoked, was wildly gay.
This seems incomprehensible, but it is true. Explain if you can that
Dance of Death at the beginning of the fifteenth century, which, with
all the fury of a modern galop, led by Musard, whirled its chain through
the very Cemetery of the Innocents, and left amid its tombs fifty
thousand of its votaries.

Morgan was evidently seeking some one.

A young dandy, who was dipping into the silver-gilt comfit-box of
a charming victim, with an ensanguined finger, the only part of his
delicate hand that had escaped the almond paste, tried to stop him, to
relate the particulars of the expedition from which he had brought back
this bloody trophy. But Morgan smiled, pressed his other hand which
was gloved, and contented himself with replying: "I am looking for some
one."

"Important?"

"Company of Jehu."

The young man with the bloody finger let him pass. An adorable Fury, as
Corneille would have called her, whose hair was held up by a dagger with
a blade as sharp as a needle, barred his way, saying: "Morgan, you are
the handsomest, the bravest, the most deserving of love of all the men
present. What have you to say to the woman who tells you that?"

"I answer that I love," replied Morgan, "and that my heart is too narrow
to hold one hatred and two loves." And he continued on his search.

Two young men who were arguing, one saying, "He was English," the other,
"He was German," stopped him.

"The deuce," cried one; "here is the man who can settle it for us."

"No," replied Morgan, trying to push past them; "I'm in a hurry."

"There's only a word to say," said the other. "We have made a bet,
Saint-Amand and I, that the man who was tried and executed at the
Chartreuse du Seillon, was, according to him,