ion to
qualify an elector for office. But the Section du Pont-Neuf, enamoured
of equality and jealous of its independence, regarded as qualified both
for the vote and for office every citizen who had paid out of his own
pocket for his National Guard's uniform. This was Gamelin's case, who
was an _active_ citizen of his Section and member of the Military
Committee.

Fortune Trubert laid down his pen:

"_Citoyen_ Evariste," he said, "I beg you to go to the Convention and
ask them to send us orders to dig up the floor of cellars, to wash the
soil and flag-stones and collect the saltpetre. It is not everything to
have guns, we must have gunpowder too."

A little hunchback, a pen behind his ear and a bundle of papers in his
hand, entered the erstwhile sacristy. It was the _citoyen_ Beauvisage,
of the Committee of Surveillance.

"_Citoyens_," he announced, "we have bad news: Custine has evacuated
Landau."

"Custine is a traitor!" cried Gamelin.

"He shall be guillotined," said Beauvisage.

Trubert, in his rather breathless voice, expressed himself with his
habitual calmness:

"The Convention has not instituted a Committee of Public Safety for fun.
It will enquire into Custine's conduct. Incompetent or traitor, he will
be superseded by a General resolved to win the victory,--and _ca ira!_"

He turned over a heap of papers, scrutinizing them with his tired eyes:

"That our soldiers may do their duty with a quiet mind and stout heart,
they must be assured that the lot of those they leave behind at home is
safeguarded. If you are of the same opinion, _citoyen_ Gamelin, you will
join me in demanding, at the next assembly, that the Committee of
Benevolence concert measures with the Military Committee to succour the
families that are in indigence and have a relative at the front."

He smiled and hummed to himself: "_Ca ira! ca ira!..._"

Working twelve and fourteen hours a day at his table of unpainted deal
for the defence of the fatherland in peril, this humble Secretary of the
Sectional Committee could see no disproportion between the immensity of
the task and the meagreness of his means for performing it, so filled
was he with a sense of the unity in a common effort between himself and
all other patriots, so intimately did he feel himself one with the
Nation at large, so merged was his individual life in the life of a
great People. He was of the sort who combine enthusiasm with
long-suffering, who, after each check