We have passed quickly over the interval between the first meeting of Monsieur de Lamotte and Derues, and the moment when the victims fell into the trap:  we might easily have invented long conversations, and episodes which would have brought Derues’ profound hypocrisy into greater relief; but the reader now knows all that we care to show him.  We have purposely lingered in our narration in the endeavour to explain the perversities of this mysterious organisation; we have over-loaded it with all the facts which seem to throw any light upon this sombre character.  But now, after these long preparations, the drama opens, the scenes become rapid and lifelike; events, long impeded, accumulate and pass quickly before us, the action is connected and hastens to an end.  We shall see Derues like an unwearied Proteus, changing names, costumes, language, multiplying himself in many forms, scattering deceptions and lies from one end of France to the other; and finally, after so many efforts, such prodigies of calculation and activity, end by wrecking himself against a corpse.

The letter written at Buisson-Souef arrived at Paris the morning of the 14th of December.  In the course of the day an unknown man presented himself at the hotel where Madame de Lamotte and her son had stayed before, and inquired what rooms were vacant.  There were four, and he engaged them for a certain Dumoulin, who had arrived that morning from Bordeaux, and who had passed through Paris in order to meet, at some little distance, relations who would return with him.  A part of the rent was paid in advance, and it was expressly stipulated that until his return the rooms should not be let to anyone, as the aforesaid Dumoulin might return with his family and require them at any moment.  The same person went to other hotels in the neighbourhood and engaged vacant rooms, sometimes for a stranger he expected, sometimes for friends whom he could not accommodate himself.

At about three o’clock, the Place de Greve was full of people, thousands of heads crowded the windows of the surrounding houses.  A parricide was to pay the penalty of his crime—­a crime committed under atrocious circumstances, with an unheard-of refinement of barbarity.  The punishment corresponded to the crime:  the wretched man was broken on the wheel.  The most complete and terrible silence prevailed in the multitude eager for ghastly emotions.  Three times already had been heard the heavy thud of the instrument which broke the victim’s limbs, and a loud cry escaped the sufferer which made all who heard it shudder with horror, One man only, who, in spite of all his efforts, could not get through the crowd and cross the square, remained unmoved, and looking contemptuously towards the criminal, muttered, “Idiot! he was unable to deceive anyone!”

A few moments later the flames began to rise from the funeral pile, the crowd began to move, and the than was able to make his way through and reach one of the streets leading out of the square.