The police-agent replied in the affirmative, and was ordered to introduce the prisoner. Héron turned and signed to two men, who appeared escorting Olivier, pale and dejected, his hands tied behind his back. The young man, no longer resisting, seemed already to offer himself as a victim.
"He is a nice-looking fellow," observed Madame Lebas, in a low voice.
Héron pushed Olivier forward, who, perfectly indifferent to his impending cross-examination, stood sullenly aside. Robespierre, always mistrustful, made a rapid survey of the young man from head to foot, keeping, however, at a safe distance from the fettered prisoner.
"What have you learnt about him?" he asked Héron.
The agent did not know much. The day before, while under arrest, the prisoner had let fall some words by which Héron understood that his mother, arrested with a young girl he loved, was threatened with the scaffold. But since his imprisonment he had been completely mute. No one had been able to draw a word from him, and things would have very likely remained thus had not Madame Beaugrand, a lodging-house keeper of the Rue du Rocher, come to the police-station for the purpose of obtaining some particulars of the arrest, the news of which had reached her. From the description of the young man she fancied he might be one of her lodgers, who had arrived the day before, and inscribed himself under the name of Germain, blacksmith's apprentice. Brought face to face with the prisoner, she exclaimed immediately, "Oh yes! it is he! most certainly!"
"And his papers!" asked Robespierre.
"He had none! Not even a passport! They had only found in his possession a set of keys, some paper-money in assignats, a pocket-book, and some small change in a purse." As he spoke, Héron placed these articles on the table.
"And no arms?" interposed Robespierre again.
The police-agent replied in the negative.
"Untie his hands. We shall see if they are a workman's."