ng with
him. He leaned back in his chair, and beat his nails impatiently on the
table. Suddenly there was a faint little tap at the room door, and eight
or ten men--evidently familiars of the new French Inquisition--quietly
entered, and ranged themselves against the wall.

Lomaque nodded to two of them. "Picard and Magloire, go and sit down
at that desk. I shall want you after the rest are gone." Saying this,
Lomaque handed certain sealed and docketed papers to the other men
waiting in the room, who received them in silence, bowed, and went
out. Innocent spectators might have thought them clerks taking bills
of lading from a merchant. Who could have imagined that the giving
and receiving of Denunciations, Arrest-orders, and Death-warrants--the
providing of its doomed human meal for the all-devouring
guillotine--could have been managed so coolly and quietly, with such
unruffled calmness of official routine?

"Now," said Lomaque, turning to the two men at the desk, as the door
closed, "have you got those notes about you?" (They answered in the
affirmative.) "Picard, you have the first particulars of this affair of
Trudaine; so you must begin reading. I have sent in the reports; but we
may as well go over the evidence again from the commencement, to make
sure that nothing has been left out. If any corrections are to be made,
now is the time to make them. Read, Picard, and lose as little time as
you possibly can."

Thus admonished, Picard drew some long slips of paper from his pocket,
and began reading from them as follows:

"Minutes of evidence collected concerning Louis Trudaine, suspected, on
the denunciation of Citizen Superintendent Danville, of hostility to the
sacred cause of liberty, and of disaffection to the sovereignty of the
people. (1.) The suspected person is placed under secret observation,
and these facts are elicited: He is twice seen passing at night from his
own house to a house in the Rue de Clery. On the first night he carries
with him money--on the second, papers. He returns without either.
These particulars have been obtained through a citizen engaged to help
Trudaine in housekeeping (one of the sort called Servants in the days
of the Tyrants). This man is a good patriot, who can be trusted to watch
Trudaine's actions. (2.) The inmates of the house in the Rue de Clery
are numerous, and in some cases not so well known to the Government as
could be wished. It is found difficult to gain certain i