Maurice rushed forward.
"It is exactly correct," said Lorin; "let us follow logic. Do you hear me, Maurice?"
"Yes."
"She loved you, and they have murdered her first; you are not condemned, and therefore die the second; and I, who have done nothing, being the greatest criminal of the three, die the last.
And thus you see how passing clear
Logic makes everything appear.
Good faith! Citizen Sanson, I promised you a quatrain; but you must be content with a distich."
"I did love thee!" murmured Maurice, lying on the fatal plank, and smiling at the head of his beloved,—"I did lo—" The knife cut short the last word.
"Now for my turn!" cried Lorin, bounding on the scaffold, "and be quick, or I shall lose my head! Citizen Sanson, I owe you two verses, instead of which I offer you a pun."
Sanson placed him in his turn.
"Let us see," said Lorin,—"it is the fashion to cry long live something, when dying. Once it was, 'Vive le Roi,' but now there is no king; next the cry was, 'Vive la Liberté,' but there is no more liberty. Faith, Long live Simon! say I, who unites us all three."