"ce cher Robespierre!--he does not look
very long-lived either!"

"The greater the miracle," said the old woman. "I am just eighty-one,
and I don't feel a day older since Catherine Theot promised me I should
be one of the elect!"

Here the women were jostled aside by some newcomers, who talked loud and
eagerly.

"Yes," cried a brawny man, whose garb denoted him to be a butcher,
with bare arms, and a cap of liberty on his head; "I am come to warn
Robespierre. They lay a snare for him; they offer him the Palais
National. 'On ne peut etre ami du peuple et habiter un palais.'" ("No
one can be a friend of the people, and dwell in a palace."--"Papiers
inedits trouves chez Robespierre," etc., volume ii. page 132.)

"No, indeed," answered a cordonnier; "I like him best in his little
lodging with the menuisier: it looks like one of US."

Another rush of the crowd, and a new group were thrown forward in the
vicinity of Nicot. And these men gabbled and chattered faster and louder
than the rest.

"But my plan is--"

"Au diable with YOUR plan! I tell you MY scheme is--"

"Nonsense!" cried a third. "When Robespierre understands MY new method
of making gunpowder, the enemies of France shall--"

"Bah! who fears foreign enemies?" interrupted a fourth; "the enemies
to be feared are at home. MY new guillotine takes off fifty heads at a
time!"

"But MY new Constitution!" exclaimed a fifth.

"MY new Religion, citizen!" murmured, complacently, a sixth.

"Sacre mille tonnerres, silence!" roared forth one of the Jacobin guard.

And the crowd suddenly parted as a fierce-looking man, buttoned up to
the chin, his sword rattling by his side, his spurs clinking at
his heel, descended the stairs,--his cheeks swollen and purple with
intemperance, his eyes dead and savage as a vulture's. There was a still
pause, as all, with pale cheeks, made way for the relentless Henriot.
(Or H_a_nriot. It is singular how undetermined are not only the
characters of the French Revolution, but even the spelling of their
names. With the historians it is Vergniau_d_,--with the journalists of
the time it is Vorgniau_x_. With one authority it is Robespierre,--with
another Robe_r_spierre.) Scarce had this gruff and iron minion of the
tyrant stalked through the throng, than a new movement of respect and
agitation and fear swayed the increasing crowd, as there glided in, with
the noiselessness of a shadow, a smiling, sober citizen, plainly but
neatly clad, w