overheard by the passers-by:

"Take me with you, _citoyen_, and hide me, for the love of pity!... They
are in my room in the Rue Fromenteau. While they were coming upstairs, I
ran for refuge into Flora's room,--she is my next-door neighbour,--and
leapt out of the window into the street, that is how I sprained my
ankle.... They are coming; they want to put me in prison and kill me....
Last week they killed Virginie."

Brotteaux understood, of course, that the child was speaking of the
delegates of the Revolutionary Committee of the Section or else the
Commissaries of the Committee of General Security. At that time the
Commune had as _procureur_ a man of virtue, the _citoyen_ Chaumette who
regarded the ladies of pleasure as the direct foes of the Republic and
harassed them unmercifully in his efforts to regenerate the Nation's
morals. To tell the truth, the young ladies of the Palais-Egalite were
no great patriots. They regretted the old state of things and did not
always conceal the fact. Several had been guillotined already as
conspirators, and their tragic fate had excited no little emulation
among their fellows.

The _citoyen_ Brotteaux asked the suppliant what offence she had been
guilty of to bring down on herself a warrant of arrest.

She swore she had no notion, that she had done nothing anyone could
blame her for.

"Well then, my girl," Brotteaux told her, "you are not suspect; you have
nothing to fear. Be off with you to bed and leave me alone."

At this she confessed everything:

"I tore out my cockade and shouted: 'Vive le roi!'"

He walked down to the river-side and she kept by his side along the
deserted _quais_. Clinging to his arm she went on:

"It is not that I care for him particularly, the King, you know; I never
knew him, and I daresay he wasn't very much different from other men.
But they are bad people. They are cruel to poor girls. They torment and
vex and abuse me in every kind of way; they want to stop me following my
trade. I have no other trade. You may be sure, if I had, I should not be
doing what I do.... What is it they want? They are so hard on poor
humble folks, the milkman, the charcoalman, the water carrier, the
laundress. They won't rest content till they've set all poor people
against them."

He looked at her; she seemed a mere child. She was no longer afraid; she
was almost smiling, as she limped along lightly at his side. He asked
her her name. She said she was called Ath