aring an enormous tri-colored cockade in his three-cornered hat,
with a sash of the same color girt around his waist. His bloodshot
eyes expressed a mixture of cowardice with ferocity. He was flanked by
a couple of pikemen as hideous as the Afrites of Eastern romance.

"Citizen Beauvallon," said he, in a voice whose tremor betrayed his
native timidity, "I arrest you in the name of the revolutionary
committee of Toulouse. Citizen Beauvallon, it is useless to resist the
authority of the representatives of the people; if you have any
concealed weapons about you, I advise you to surrender them. You see I
stand here protected by the arms of the people."

"I have no weapons," replied Beauvallon. "I have no sinister designs.
I know not why I am arrested. Acquaint me with the charge, and
confront me with my accusers."

"Seize upon the prisoner!" cried Dumart to his satellites. And he
breathed freer when he saw the merchant in the gripe of two muscular
ruffians, whose iron hands compressed his wrists as if they were
manacles.

"Away with him!" screamed the hag who had spoken before. "Away with
him to the revolutionary committee! Down with the aristocrats!"

Followed by the imprecations of the crowd, Beauvallon was conducted to
the town house, and in a very few moments was placed at the bar of the
revolutionary committee--a body invested with the power of life and
death. On his way thither he had found means to speak a word to an
acquaintance in the crowd, and to beg him to inform Eulalie of what
had happened.

So soon as he had heard the accusation read, and knew that he was
charged with the crime of aiding the Marquis de Montmorenci, a
fugitive from justice, he felt that his situation was indeed critical;
but mingled with his astonishment and dread was a curiosity to learn
whence his denunciation could have proceeded--who could have lodged
the information against him. He was not long kept in suspense, for the
witness brought on the stand to confront him was no other than
Mannette, the supposed deaf servant of Eulalie Lasalle, who had
overheard his confession of the morning, and hastened to denounce him.
Though his sentence was not immediately pronounced, and the decision
of his case was deferred till the next day, Beauvallon felt that his
doom was sealed.

He was conveyed to a house in the vicinity of the town hall for
confinement, as the prisons were all overstocked. His jailer was a man
whom the merchant had formerly