vinced. "I was too hasty; and now I think we
have nothing further to do, since we have arranged to make short work
with our fournee of to-morrow. I see in the list a knave I have long
marked out, though his crime once procured me a legacy,--Nicot, the
Hebertist."

"And young Andre Chenier, the poet? Ah, I forgot; we be headed HIM
to-day! Revolutionary virtue is at its acme. His own brother abandoned
him." (His brother is said, indeed, to have contributed to the
condemnation of this virtuous and illustrious person. He was heard to
cry aloud, "Si mon frere est coupable, qu'il perisse" (If my brother be
culpable, let him die). This brother, Marie-Joseph, also a poet, and
the author of "Charles IX.," so celebrated in the earlier days of the
Revolution, enjoyed, of course, according to the wonted justice of the
world, a triumphant career, and was proclaimed in the Champ de Mars "le
premier de poetes Francais," a title due to his murdered brother.)

"There is a foreigner,--an Italian woman in the list; but I can find no
charge made out against her."

"All the same we must execute her for the sake of the round number;
eighty sounds better than seventy-nine!"

Here a huissier brought a paper on which was written the request of
Henriot.

"Ah! this is fortunate," said Tinville, to whom Dumas chucked the
scroll,--"grant the prayer by all means; so at least that it does not
lessen our bead-roll. But I will do Henriot the justice to say that
he never asks to let off, but to put on. Good-night! I am worn out--my
escort waits below. Only on such an occasion would I venture forth in
the streets at night." (During the latter part of the Reign of Terror,
Fouquier rarely stirred out at night, and never without an escort. In
the Reign of Terror those most terrified were its kings.) And Fouquier,
with a long yawn, quitted the room.

"Admit the bearer!" said Dumas, who, withered and dried, as lawyers
in practice mostly are, seemed to require as little sleep as his
parchments.

The stranger entered.

"Rene-Francois Dumas," said he, seating himself opposite to the
president, and markedly adopting the plural, as if in contempt of the
revolutionary jargon, "amidst the excitement and occupations of your
later life, I know not if you can remember that we have met before?"

The judge scanned the features of his visitor, and a pale blush settled
on his sallow cheeks, "Yes, citizen, I remember!"

"And you recall the words I then uttered!