Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 9, 2025
Grospierre was a bit drunk, but he thought himself very clever; he looked into the casks most of them, at least and saw they were empty, and let the cart go through." A murmur of wrath and contempt went round the group of ill-clad wretches, who crowded round Citoyen Bibot. "Half an hour later," continued the sergeant, "up comes a captain of the guard with a squad of some dozen soldiers with him.
"'After them, my men, shouts the captain," he said after a while, "'remember the reward; after them, they cannot have gone far! And with that he rushes through the gate followed by his dozen soldiers." "But it was too late!" shouted the crowd, excitedly. "They never got them!" "Curse that Grospierre for his folly!" "He deserved his fate!" "Fancy not examining those casks properly!"
Had it been me now, at that North Gate last week . . ." Citoyen Bibot spat on the ground to express his contempt for his comrade's stupidity. "How did it happen, citoyen?" asked the corporal. "Grospierre was at the gate, keeping good watch," began Bibot, pompously, as the crowd closed in round him, listening eagerly to his narrative.
Sergeant Grospierre had been sent to the guillotine for allowing a whole family of aristos to slip out of the North Gate under his very nose.
"You never know," he would say, "and I'm not going to be caught like that fool Grospierre." The women who drove the carts usually spent their day on the Place de la Greve, beneath the platform of the guillotine, knitting and gossiping, whilst they watched the rows of tumbrils arriving with the victims the Reign of Terror claimed every day.
They chose two certificates of safety that were made out in the names of Jean Lepetit and Achille Grospierre, labourers. "Though you don't look at all like an Achille, Tony," was Blakeney's parting shot to his friend.
'Aye! and the driver was none other than that cursed Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel." A howl of execration greeted this tale. Citoyen Grospierre had paid for his blunder on the guillotine, but what a fool! oh! what a fool! Bibot was laughing so much at his own tale that it was some time before he could continue.
They hung about the barricades, silent and sullen for a while, eyeing one another suspiciously, avoiding each other as if by instinct, lest the plague lurked already in their midst. Presently, as in the case of Grospierre, a captain of the guard appeared suddenly. But he was known to Bibot, and there was no fear of his turning out to be a sly Englishman in disguise.
Everyone felt that Bibot would be that man, and Bibot allowed that belief to take firm root in everybody's mind; and so, day after day, people came to watch him at the West Gate, so as to be present when he laid hands on any fugitive aristo who perhaps might be accompanied by that mysterious Englishman. "Bah!" he said to his trusted corporal, "Citoyen Grospierre was a fool!
"We've all heard of this meddlesome Englishman, this accursed Scarlet Pimpernel. He won't get through MY gate, MORBLEU! unless he be the devil himself. But Grospierre was a fool. The market carts were going through the gates; there was one laden with casks, and driven by an old man, with a boy beside him.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking