“All the same we must execute her for the sake of the round number; eighty sounds better than seventy-nine!”

Here a huissier brought a paper on which was written the request of Henriot.

“Ah! this is fortunate,” said Tinville, to whom Dumas chucked the scroll,—­“grant the prayer by all means; so at least that it does not lessen our bead-roll.  But I will do Henriot the justice to say that he never asks to let off, but to put on.  Good-night!  I am worn out—­my escort waits below.  Only on such an occasion would I venture forth in the streets at night.” (During the latter part of the Reign of Terror, Fouquier rarely stirred out at night, and never without an escort.  In the Reign of Terror those most terrified were its kings.) And Fouquier, with a long yawn, quitted the room.

“Admit the bearer!” said Dumas, who, withered and dried, as lawyers in practice mostly are, seemed to require as little sleep as his parchments.

The stranger entered.

“Rene-Francois Dumas,” said he, seating himself opposite to the president, and markedly adopting the plural, as if in contempt of the revolutionary jargon, “amidst the excitement and occupations of your later life, I know not if you can remember that we have met before?”

The judge scanned the features of his visitor, and a pale blush settled on his sallow cheeks, “Yes, citizen, I remember!”

“And you recall the words I then uttered!  You spoke tenderly and philanthropically of your horror of capital executions; you exulted in the approaching Revolution as the termination of all sanguinary punishments; you quoted reverently the saying of Maximilien Robespierre, the rising statesman, ‘The executioner is the invention of the tyrant:’  and I replied, that while you spoke, a foreboding seized me that we should meet again when your ideas of death and the philosophy of revolutions might be changed!  Was I right, Citizen Rene-Francois Dumas, President of the Revolutionary Tribunal?”

“Pooh!” said Dumas, with some confusion on his brazen brow, “I spoke then as men speak who have not acted.  Revolutions are not made with rose-water!  But truce to the gossip of the long-ago.  I remember, also, that thou didst then save the life of my relation, and it will please thee to learn that his intended murderer will be guillotined to-morrow.”

“That concerns yourself,—­your justice or your revenge.  Permit me the egotism to remind you that you then promised that if ever a day should come when you could serve me, your life—­yes, the phrase was, ’your heart’s blood’—­was at my bidding.  Think not, austere judge, that I come to ask a boon that can affect yourself,—­I come but to ask a day’s respite for another!”

“Citizen, it is impossible!  I have the order of Robespierre that not one less than the total on my list must undergo their trial for to-morrow.  As for the verdict, that rests with the jury!”