"I had no sooner spoken than the door opened, and a young man, clad only in his night-shirt, threw himself into my arms, crying: 'Saint-Just; my dear Saint-Just!'
"I wept as I pressed him to my heart, for that heart was about to receive a terrible blow.
"The friend of my childhood, whom I now saw for the first time after five years—he whom I had sought out myself, so eager was I to meet him again—he had violated the law which I had promulgated only three days before. He had incurred the death penalty.
"Then my heart yielded before the power of my will, and, turning to those present, I said calmly: 'Heaven be doubly praised, since I have seen you again, and since I can give, in the person of one so dear to me, a memorable lesson of discipline and a grand example of justice by sacrificing you to the public safety.'
"Then, speaking to those who accompanied me, I said: 'Do your duty.'
"I then embraced Prosper for the last time, and at a sign from me they conducted him out of the room."
"What for?" asked Charles.
"To shoot him. Was he not forbidden, under penalty of death, to go to bed with his clothes off?"
"But you pardoned him?" asked Charles, moved to tears.