man has long deceived you. The story
that he is a plebeian is true. I can prove it."

"I asked you nothing of that sort; take me--only take me to him. Keep
your promise."

"Very well, citizeness, there is but one condition. He is in the
Conciergerie--in going to him you must, like him, be committed to be
condemned."

"Gladly! gladly! Take me to him--take me to him--for the love of
heaven."

"I love not heaven very much, citizeness, but, curse you, you seem fool
enough to be granted what you ask. Look out of this door."

Obeying, she saw that a crowd of _Sans-culottes_ had filled the shop.

Carmagnoled and sabred, they lounged in slothful consultation and
obscured the air with bad tobacco-smoke. On the Admiral opening the
door, they rose in a disorderly way and made him a sort of salute.

"Arrest her," he ordered, beckoning the two foremost and waving his
skinny hand back to Cyrene. They came forward and grasped her arms.

"To the Conciergerie!" he said, "and each of you answers for her with
your head."

As terrified as she, the two guards tied her hands and marched her off
through the Street of the Hanged Man.

In times of great misery strange things bring us happiness; the thought
of her condemnation to death lifted her like an aerial tide, because
being with Germain went with it.

CHAPTER LII

THE SUPREME EXACTITUDE

Whoever passed within the walls of the Conciergerie was counted lost. Of
the prisons of the Revolution, it was that to which the accused were
transferred from the others on the eve of sentence; and underneath it
was the hall of the pretended court infamous to all time as "the
Tribunal of Blood." The _fiacre_ containing Germain and the National
Guards in whose charge Hache placed him, was followed by the mob to the
doors, and at times it appeared as if he would certainly be torn away
and hanged to a lantern rope. In front of the Conciergerie, whose portal
was lit luridly by two torches, a delighted audience of _Sans-culottes_
received his approach with clapping.

"Another!" they shouted.

And, as an arrest was brought in from the opposite direction just
afterwards, they clapped again and repeated their shout of "Another!"

His guards dragged him into the presence of the concierge, who eyed him
from his arm-chair with a drunken glance.

"Dungeon," he muttered.

With a banging of bolts and a creaking of doors, two turnkeys led Lecour
down into a region of darkness. The turnke