But my reveries were suddenly broken up by the return of the little captain, more angry than ever.  He had missed the opportunity of seeing the “great man,” who had gone to the Salpetriere.  And some of the small men who performed as his jackals, having discovered that the captain was looking for a share in their plunder, had thought proper to treat him, his commission, and even his civism, with extreme contempt.  In short, as he avowed to me, the very first use which he was determined to make of that supreme power to which his ascent was inevitable, would be to clear the bureaux of France, beginning with Paris, of all those insolent and idle hangers-on, who lived only to purloin the profits, and libel the services, of “good citizens.”

“A la Salpetriere.”  There again disappointment met us.  The great man had been there “but a few minutes before,” and we dragged our slow way through mire and ruts that would have been formidable to an artillery waggon with all its team.  My heart, buoyant as it had been, sank within me as I looked up at the frowning battlements, the huge towers, more resembling those of a fortress than of even a prison, the gloomy gates, and the general grim aspect of the whole vast circumference, giving so emphatic a resemblance of the dreariness and the despair within.

“Aux Carmes!” was now the direction; for my conductor’s resolve to earn his reward before daybreak, was rendered more pungent by this interview with the gens de bureau at the Abbaye.  He was sure that they would be instantly on the scent; and if they once took me out of his hands, adieu to dreams, of which Alnaschar, the glassman’s, were only a type.  He grew nervous with the thought, and poured out his whole vision of hopes and fears with a volubility which I should have set down for frenzy, if in any man but a wretch in the fever of a time when gold and blood were the universal and combined idolatries of the land.

“You may think yourself fortunate,” he exclaimed, “in having been in my charge!  That brute of a country gendarme could have shown you nothing.  Now, I know every jail in Paris.  I have studied them.  They form the true knowledge of a citizen.  To crush tyrants, to extinguish nobles, to avenge the cause of reason on priests, and to raise the people to a knowledge of their rights—­these are the triumphs of a patriot.  Yet, what teacher is equal to the jail for them all? Mais voila les Carmes!”

I saw a low range of blank wall, beyond which rose an ancient tower.

“Here,” said he, “liberty had a splendid triumph.  A hundred and fifty tonsured apostles of incivism here fell in one day beneath the two-handed sword of freedom.  A cardinal, two archbishops, dignitaries, monks, hoary with prejudices, antiquated with abuses, extinguishers of the new light of liberty, here were offered on the national shrine! Chantons la Carmagnole.”

But he was destined to be disappointed once more.  Danton had been there, but was suddenly called away by a messenger from the Jacobins.  Our direction was now changed again.  “Now we shall be disappointed no longer.  Once engaged in debate, he will be fixed for the night. Allons, you shall see the ‘grand patriote,’ ‘the regenerator,’ ’the first man in the world.’ Aux Jacobins!”