cans whose cry was ever "No King," growing stronger day by day.
Nations in arms were gathering on the frontiers of France, and the
savagery of the populace was let loose. The Tuileries had been stormed,
the Swiss Guard butchered, the royal family imprisoned in the Temple.
Quickly the Legislative Assembly had given way to a National Convention,
and the country was ripe for any and every atrocity the mind of man
could conceive.

The patriot, sitting opposite to Barrington and drinking wine at
intervals, told his tale with enthusiasm and with many comments of his
own. He was full of the tenets of the Jacobin and Cordelian Clubs. For
him the world, set spinning on a mad career when the Bastille fell, was
moving too slowly again. There had been a good beginning, truly
something had been done since, but why not make a good end of it?
Mirabeau, yes, he had done something, but the work had grown too large
for him. He had died in good time before the people had become tired of
him. France was for the people, and there must be death for all who
stood in the people's way, and a quick death, too.

"Blood must run more freely, there will be no good end without that," he
said; "the blood of all aristocrats, no matter what they promise, what
they pretend. From the beginning they were liars. France has no use for
them save to make carrion of."

"And whose power is sufficient for all this?" Barrington asked.

"To-day, no one's. To-morrow;--who shall say? Things go forward quickly
at times. A sudden wave might even raise me to power."

"Then the good ending," said Barrington.

The man caught no irony, he only heard the flattery.

"Then the blood flowing," he laughed; "so, as full in color and as
freely spilt," and he jerked the remains of the wine in his glass across
the room, staining the opposite wall.

"And if not at your word, perhaps at that of Monsieur de Lafayette,
Sieur Motier," Barrington suggested. He wanted the man to talk about the
Marquis.

"He is an aristocrat with sympathies which make no appeal to me. The
people have grown tired of him, too. I am honest, and fear no man, and I
say that Motier has long been at the crossroads. He is, or was, an
honest man, I hardly know which he is now, and even honest men must
suffer for the cause. You say you are his friend, whisper that warning
in his ear, if you see him; say you had it from Jacques Sabatier, he
will have heard of me."

"Certainly, I will tell him," said Barr