ed
as themselves; no hope of payment, only fear of punishment, for that was
ever present.

The people of France in arms against tyranny were not allowed to forget
that grim taskmaster with the two great hands stretched upwards, holding
the knife which descended mercilessly, indiscriminately on necks that
did not bend willingly to the task.

A grim look of gratified desire had spread over de Batz' face as he
skirted the open-air camp. Let them toil, let them groan, let them
starve! The more these clouts suffer, the more brutal the heel that
grinds them down, the sooner will the Emperor's money accomplish its
work, the sooner will these wretches be clamoring for the monarchy,
which would mean a rich reward in de Batz' pockets.

To him everything now was for the best: the tyranny, the brutality, the
massacres. He gloated in the holocausts with as much satisfaction as did
the most bloodthirsty Jacobin in the Convention. He would with his own
hands have wielded the guillotine that worked too slowly for his ends.
Let that end justify the means, was his motto. What matter if the future
King of France walked up to his throne over steps made of headless
corpses and rendered slippery with the blood of martyrs?

The ground beneath de Batz' feet was hard and white with the frost.
Overhead the pale, wintry moon looked down serene and placid on this
giant city wallowing in an ocean of misery.

There, had been but little snow as yet this year, and the cold was
intense. On his right now the Cimetiere des SS. Innocents lay peaceful
and still beneath the wan light of the moon. A thin covering of snow lay
evenly alike on grass mounds and smooth stones. Here and there a broken
cross with chipped arms still held pathetically outstretched, as if in
a final appeal for human love, bore mute testimony to senseless excesses
and spiteful desire for destruction.

But here within the precincts of the dwelling of the eternal Master a
solemn silence reigned; only the cold north wind shook the branches of
the yew, causing them to send forth a melancholy sigh into the night,
and to shed a shower of tiny crystals of snow like the frozen tears of
the dead.

And round the precincts of the lonely graveyard, and down narrow streets
or open places, the night watchmen went their rounds, lanthorn in hand,
and every five minutes their monotonous call rang clearly out in the
night:

"Sleep, citizens! everything is quiet and at peace!"

We may tak