LA SALLE DES PAS-PERDUS.
Toward the decline of the day on which we have seen the municipals so carefully inspecting the queen's prison, a man attired in a gray jacket, his head covered with a mass of black hair, and on his head one of those hairy bonnets, which then among the people was a distinguishing mark of the most exaggerated patriotism, was walking about in the large hall so philosophically termed "La Salle des Pas-Perdus," and seemed most attentively observing all the goers and comers forming the general population of this hall,—a population considerably augmented at this period, when trials had acquired greater importance, and when the only pleading was to dispute their heads with the hangman and with Fouquier Tinville their indefatigable purveyor.
The attitude assumed by this man whose portrait we have just sketched was in very good taste. Society at this epoch was divided into two classes,—the lambs and the wolves. The one naturally inspired the other with fear, since one half of society devoured the other. Our fierce promenader was rather short, and wielded in his dirty black hand one of those knotted cudgels then called "constitutions." It is true the hand that flourished this horrible weapon might have appeared rather small to any one who might take into his head to act the inquisitorial part toward this singular personage which he had arrogated to himself with respect to others; but no one felt the least inclined to risk it, for this man's aspect was far too terrible.
Indeed, this man with the cudgel caused much disquietude to several groups of petty scribes engaged in the discussion of public affairs, which at this time daily progressed from bad to worse, or from better to better, according as they were considered from a conservative or revolutionary point of view. These valorous folks looked askance at his long black beard, his green eyes surmounted by overhanging, shaggy eyebrows, and trembled whenever the promenade of the mighty patriot (a promenade which extended the whole length of the great hall) brought them in near contact with one another.
This terror was augmented from the fact that whenever they ventured to approach him too nearly, or even looked at him too attentively, the man with the cudgel struck his powerful weapon with its full weight upon the pavement, smashing the flag-stones upon which it fell, sometimes with a dull and heavy, sometimes with a sonorous and clashing sound.
But it was not only these brave men among the scribes, designated generally as the "rats of the Palace," who experienced this formidable impression; it was also the various individuals who entered the Salle des Pas-Perdus by the great door, or through some of its narrow vomitories, who also quickened their pace on perceiving the man with the cudgel, who obstinately continued his journey from one end of the hall to the other, finding each moment some pretext for making his weapon ring on the pavement.
If these writers had been less timorous, and the promenaders more clear-sighted, they would have discovered that our patriot, capricious like all eccentric or pronounced characters, appeared to evince a preference for certain flag-stones, those for instance situated a little distance from the wall on the right, near the centre of the hall, which emitted a clear and ringing sound. He even finished by concentrating his anger upon some particular stones in the centre of the hall. At the same time he so far forgot himself as to stop, and with his eye seemed to be estimating the distance.
True, it was a momentary absence of mind only, and he immediately resumed his former expression, which a gleam of pleasure had replaced for an instant.
Almost at the same moment another patriot,—for at this epoch every one wore his opinions on his forehead, or rather in his dress,—almost at the same moment, say we, another patriot entered by the door of the gallery, and without appearing the least in the world to partake of the fear generated by the former occupant, began to cross the hall at a pace equal to his own, so that in the centre of the promenade they encountered each other.
The new arrival had, like the former, a hairy bonnet, a gray jerkin, dirty hands, and in one of them a cudgel; indeed, in addition he carried a sword, which struck against his legs at every step; and on the whole he appeared a greater subject for terror than his predecessor. The first had an air of ferocity, the last seemed replete with sinister cunning.