dmonished Auguste Moleux solemnly, "that in
this order which Robespierre has sent from Paris, it also says that from
to-day onwards le bon Dieu has ceased to be!"

Many faces were turned towards the East just then, for the rising
sun, tearing with one gigantic sweep the banks of cloud asunder, now
displayed his magnificence in a gorgeous immensity of flaming crimson.
The sea, in response, turned to liquid fire beneath the glow, whilst the
whole sky was irradiated with the first blush of morning.

Le bon Dieu has ceased to be!

"There is only one religion in France now," explained Auguste Moleux,
"the religion of Reason! We are all citizens! We are all free and all
able to think for ourselves. Citizen Robespierre has decreed that there
is no good God. Le bon Dieu was a tyrant and an aristocrat, and, like
all tyrants and aristocrats, He has been deposed. There is no good God,
there is no Holy Virgin and no Saints, only Reason, who is a goddess and
whom we all honour."

And the townsfolk of Boulogne, with eyes still fixed on the gorgeous
East, shouted with sullen obedience:

"Hurrah! for the Goddess of Reason!"

"Hurrah for Robespierre!"

Only the women, trying to escape the town-crier's prying eyes, or the
soldiers' stern gaze, hastily crossed themselves behind their husbands'
backs, terrified lest le bon Dieu had, after all, not altogether ceased
to exist at the bidding of Citizen Robespierre.

Thus the worthy natives of Boulogne, forgetting their anxieties and
fears, were ready enough to enjoy the national fete ordained for them by
the Committee of Public Safety, in honour of the capture of the Scarlet
Pimpernel. They were even willing to accept this new religion which
Robespierre had invented: a religion which was only a mockery, with an
actress to represent its supreme deity.

Mais, que voulez-vous? Boulogne had long ago ceased to have faith in
God: the terrors of the Revolution, which culminated in that agonizing
watch of last night, had smothered all thoughts of worship and of
prayer.

The Scarlet Pimpernel must indeed be a dangerous spy that his arrest
should cause so much joy in Paris!

Even Boulogne had learned by experience that the Committee of Public
Safety did not readily give up a prey, once its vulture-like claws had
closed upon it. The proportion of condemnations as against acquittals
was as a hundred to one.

But because this one man was taken, scores to-day were to be set free!

In the e