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Four years have gone by since the night on which the lacerated Caron la Boulaye was smuggled out of Bellecour in Robespierre's berline and in that four years much of the things that were prophesied have come to pass aye, and much more besides that was undreamt of at the outset by the revolutionaries.
But you also forget that the Republic has abolished gentlemen, and with them, their disgraceful privileges." "Canaille!" growled the Vicomte, his eyes ablaze with wrath. "Citizen-aristocrat, consider your words!" La Boulaye had stepped close up to him, and his voice throbbed with a sudden anger no whit less compelling than Ombreval's.
"There; now let us see how your favour runs. Cry 'Long Live the King!" Holding the brandy-glass, which the man had forced upon him, La Boulaye eyed him whimsically for a second. "There is no toast I would more gladly drink," said he at last, "if I considered it availing. But alas you propose it over-late." "Diable! What may you mean?"
Probably they would have gone straight through without drawing rein, but that, as they passed the Auberge de l'Aigle, La Boulaye espied upon the green fronting the wayside hostelry a company of a half-dozen soldiers playing at bowls with cannon-balls.
He drank gratefully, and the invigorating effects were almost instantaneous. "Now let us see to your hurts," said the schoolmaster, who had taken some linen and a pot of unguents from a cupboard. La Boulaye sat up, and what time Duhamel was busy dressing his lacerated back, the young man talked with Robespierre. "You are going to Paris, you say, Monsieur?"
He stood a moment in the doorway as if enjoying the amazement which had been sown by his coming. There was no mistaking him. It was the same La Boulaye of four years ago, and yet it was not quite the same. The face had lost its boyishness, and the strenuous life he had lived had scored it with lines that gave him the semblance of a greater age than was his.
Now you, sir," he pursued, turning to the younger man, "you have the air of a sans-culotte, yet from your speech you seem an honest enough gentleman." The fellow laughed with unction. "The air of a sans-culotte?" he cried. "My faith, yes. So much so, that this morning I imposed myself as a courier from Paris upon no less an astute sleuth-hound of the Convention than the Citizen-deputy La Boulaye."
So absorbed were they, the one in pleading, the other in resisting, that neither noticed the opening of the door, nor yet the girl who stood observing them from the threshold. "If this man dies," cried La Boulaye at last, "I am dishonoured. "It is regrettable," returned Robespierre, "that you should have pledged your word in the matter. You will confess, Caron, that it was a little precipitate.
She went to open it, and from his seat by the hearth La Boulaye heard a gentle, mincing voice that was oddly familiar to him. "Madame," it said, "we are two poor, lost wayfarers, and we crave shelter for the night. We will pay you handsomely." "I am desolated that I have no room, Messieur," she answered, with courteous firmness. "Pardi!" interpolated another voice. "We need no room.
Perhaps my action is not a good one, after all, and that is why I suffer." And, burying his head in his arms, he remained thus with his sorrow until his official entered to inquire if he desired lights. It was towards noon of the following day when Caron La Boulaye presented himself at the house of Duplay, the cabinet-maker in the Rue St.
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