“’Tis the very best thing to be done, my dear young lady,” he said.  “We must get the passport for d’Azay and force him to quit Paris.  I think I am not entirely without influence with some of these scoundrels in authority just now.  Danton, for instance.  He is, without doubt, the most powerful man in Paris for the moment.  Suppose we apply to him and his worthy assistant, Bertrand, and see what can be done.  As Danton himself said to me the other evening at the Cordelliers Club, ’in times of revolution authority falls into the hands of rascals!’ Bertrand was a good valet, but he knows no more of statescraft than my coachman does.  However, what we want is not a statesman but a friend, and I think Bertrand may prove to be that.  My carriage is waiting below; shall we go at once?”

“Oh, we cannot go too soon!  I will not lose a moment.”  She ran out of the room and returned almost instantly with her wraps, for the March day was chill and gloomy.  The two set out immediately, Mr. Morris giving orders to his coachman to drive to the Palais de Justice, where he hoped to find Danton, the deputy attorney-general of the commune of Paris, and Bertrand, his assistant.  As he expected, they were there and, on being announced, he and Madame de St. Andre were almost instantly admitted to their presence.

There could be no better proof of the unique and powerful position held by the representative of the infant United States than the reception accorded him by this dictator of Paris.  Though Mr. Morris was known to disapprove openly of the excesses to which the Assembly and the revolution had already gone, yet this agitator, this leader of the most violent district of Paris, welcomed him with marked deference and consideration.  And it was with the deepest regret that he professed himself unable to undertake to obtain, at Mr. Morris’s request, a passport for Monsieur d’Azay, brother of Madame de St. Andre, to whom he showed a coldness and brusqueness in marked contrast to his manner toward Mr. Morris.

“The applications are so numerous, and the emigrant army is becoming so large,” and here he darted a keen, mocking look at Madame de St. Andre out of his small, ardent eyes, “that even were I as influential as Monsieur Morris is pleased to think me, I would scarcely dare to ask for a passport for Monsieur d’Azay.  Moreover,” and he bent his great, hideous head for an instant over a pile of papers upon the desk before him, “moreover, Monsieur d’Azay is particularly wanted in Paris just now.”

“It is not his wish to leave—­indeed, he knows nothing of this application for a passport.  It is by my wish and on my affairs that he goes to England,” says Adrienne, steadily, facing with courage the malignant look of that terrible countenance.  Monsieur Danton ignored these remarks and turned to Mr. Morris.

“Receive my regrets, Monsieur, that I can do nothing in this matter.  It would give me pleasure to render any favor to an American.”