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Updated: May 17, 2025
Only there was no doubt that he was gagged and tied to a chair with cords: and here his wife found him, an hour later, when she woke from her first sleep, anxious because he had not yet come to bed. Bibot was very sure of himself. There never was, never had been, there never would be again another such patriotic citizen of the Republic as was citizen Bibot of the Town Guard.
He had seen her earlier in the day, with her knitting and the whip of her cart close beside her. Now she had fastened a row of curly locks to the whip handle, all colours, from gold to silver, fair to dark, and she stroked them with her huge, bony fingers as she laughed at Bibot.
Every day Bibot had had the satisfaction of unmasking some fugitive royalists and sending them back to be tried by the Committee of Public Safety, presided over by that good patriot, Citoyen Foucquier-Tinville. Robespierre and Danton both had commended Bibot for his zeal and Bibot was proud of the fact that he on his own initiative had sent at least fifty aristos to the guillotine.
"Ah! how is that, la mere?" asked Bibot, who, hardened soldier that he was, could not help shuddering at the awful loathsomeness of this semblance of a woman, with her ghastly trophy on the handle of her whip. "My grandson has got the small-pox," she said with a jerk of her thumb towards the inside of her cart, "some say it's the plague!
"Citizen Captain," gasped Bibot, his breath coming and going like that of a man fighting for his life. "Here! ...at this gate!...not half an hour ago...six men...carriers...market gardeners...I seemed to know their faces...." "Yes! yes! market gardener's carriers," exclaimed the officer gleefully, "aristocrats all of them...and that d d Scarlet Pimpernel. You've got them?
"Let no one slip through your fingers, citizen Bibot," Marat admonished with grim earnestness. "That accursed Englishman is cunning and resourceful, and his impudence surpasses that of the devil himself." "He'd better try some of his impudence on me!" commented Bibot with a sneer, "he'll soon find out that he no longer has a Ferney to deal with.
You've detained them? ... Where are they? ... Speak, man, in the name of hell! ..." "Gone!" gasped Bibot. His legs would no longer bear him. He fell backwards on to a heap of street debris and refuse, from which lowly vantage ground he contrived to give away the whole miserable tale. "Gone! half an hour ago. Their passports were in order!...I seemed to know their faces!
Accompanied by two of his men he crossed the wide gates in order to see what was happening. One of the men held a lanthorn, which he was swinging high above his head. Bibot saw standing there before him, arguing with the guard by the gate, the bibulous spokesman of the band of carriers.
The crowd this time said nothing: the story certainly savoured of the supernatural, and though the Republic had abolished God, it had not quite succeeded in killing the fear of the supernatural in the hearts of the people. Truly that Englishman must be the devil himself. The sun was sinking low down in the west. Bibot prepared himself to close the gates. "EN AVANT the carts," he said.
Have a care, citizen Bibot, do not let the Montreux crowd escape!" "Have no fear, citizen Marat! But surely there is no danger! They have been tried and condemned! They are, as you say, even now on their way well guarded, I presume to the Conciergerie prison! to-morrow at daybreak, the guillotine! What is there to fear?"
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