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Eight centuries of absolute power had moulded the magisterial conscience, and it was by the principles of Divine Right that the Court even now tried and sentenced the enemies of Liberty. The same day Évariste Gamelin sought an interview with the Public Prosecutor, the citoyen Fouquier, who received him in the Cabinet where he used to work with his clerk of the court.
"He gave me none that I could make use of, and yet I turned him inside out, like a glove. This banker is a remarkable man; you don't often meet with one of his sort nowadays. Evariste says he has not a single vice, not even a little defect by which his valet could gain ten sous. He neither smokes, drinks, nor plays; in fact, he is a saint.
"Why, how late you are, my little man!" she exclaimed, as she dropped her knife and fork, and rushed forward to embrace him. He received her caresses with an air of abstraction. "My back is broken," he said. "I have been the whole day playing billiards with Evariste, M. Fauvel's valet, and allowed him to win as often as he wished, a man who does not know what 'the pool' is!
The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchanged the same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were full of tears. "I once knew a man," continued the little priest, glancing to a side aisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other, "who was carefully taught, from infancy to manhood, this single only principle of life: defiance.
Mademoiselle Marguerite was doing her best to aid the maid, who was greatly surprised to find this handsome, queenly young lady so obliging, when Evariste, the same who had received warning an hour before, made his appearance, and announced in an insolent tone that "Madame la Comtesse was served." For Madame de Fondege exacted this title.
But Évariste drew himself up in indignant protest: "What! not hear another word of the Revolution!... But, why surely, the restoration of liberty, the victories of our armies, the chastisement of tyrants are events that will startle the most remote posterity.
The following week Évariste and his section mowed down sixty-three heads forty-five men and eighteen women. The judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal drew no distinction between men and women, in this following a principle as old as justice itself.
She drained the last drop in her cup and continued her reminiscences of other days: "I brought you into the world, Évariste, sooner than I had expected, by reason of a fright I had when I was big. It was on the Pont-Neuf, where I came near being knocked down by a crowd of sightseers hurrying to Monsieur de Lally's execution. You were so little at your birth the surgeon thought you would not live.
But, directly the citoyen Combalot had taken his leave and the citoyenne Gamelin had gone back to her stove, Évariste repeated the same name in the girl's ear: "Jacques Maubel," he reiterated. She looked up at him in some surprise, and very quietly, still going on cutting a quince in quarters: "Well!... Jacques Maubel...?" "He is the man." "The man! what man?" "You once gave him a red carnation."
She broke off her meditations, and the needle stopped at the same moment. "Citoyen Évariste," she said, "I shall not care for the scarf, unless you like it too. Draw me a pattern, please. Meanwhile, I will copy Penelope and unravel what I have done in your absence." He answered in a tone of sombre enthusiasm: "I promise you I will, citoyenne.
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