ou will owe it to the
infamous Gamelin. I am ferocious, that you may be happy. I am cruel,
that you may be kind; I am pitiless, that to-morrow all Frenchmen may
embrace with tears of joy."

He pressed the child to his breast.

"Little one, when you are a man, you will owe your happiness, your
innocence to me; and, if ever you hear my name uttered, you will
execrate it."

Then he put down the child, which ran away in terror to cling to its
mother's skirts, who had hurried up to the rescue. The young mother, who
was pretty and charming in her aristocratic grace, with her gown of
white lawn, carried off the boy with a haughty look.

Gamelin turned his eyes on Elodie:

"I have held the child in my arms; perhaps I shall send the mother to
the guillotine,"--and he walked away with long strides under the ordered
trees.

Elodie stood a moment motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. Then,
suddenly, she darted after her lover, and frenzied, dishevelled, like a
Maenad, she gripped him as if to tear him in pieces and cried in a voice
choked with blood and tears:

"Well, then! me too, my beloved, send me to the guillotine; me too, lay
me under the knife!"

And, at the thought of the knife at her neck, all her flesh melted in an
ecstasy of horror and voluptuous transport.

XXVI

The sun of Thermidor was setting in a blood-red sky, while Evariste
wandered, gloomy and careworn, in the Marbeuf gardens, now a National
park frequented by the Parisian idlers. There were stalls for the sale
of lemonade and ices; wooden horses and shooting-galleries were provided
for the younger patriots. Under a tree, a little Savoyard in rags, with
a black cap on his head, was making a marmot dance to the shrill notes
of his hurdy-gurdy. A man, still young, slim-waisted, wearing a blue
coat and his hair powdered, with a big dog at his heels, stopped to
listen to the rustic music. Evariste recognized Robespierre. He found
him paler, thinner, his face harder and drawn in folds of suffering. He
thought to himself:

"What fatigues, how many griefs have left their imprint on his brow! How
grievous a thing it is to work for the happiness of mankind! What are
his thoughts at this moment? Does the sound of this mountain music
perhaps distract him from the cares of government? Is he thinking that
he has made a pact with Death and that the hour of reckoning is coming
close? Is he dreaming of a triumphant return to the Committee of Public
Sa