And so the struggle between father and son went on; the former impatient to learn the woman's hiding-place, the latter firm and unshaken in his refusal to betray it to one whom he regarded as a tiger seeking his prey.
Robespierre, though wounded by every syllable, continued his soft persuasions. What! was it possible Olivier could not understand his wish to protect his mother, and to place her out of harm's reach, in memory of the time he had passed so happily at her side?
Olivier smiled in bitter irony. Robespierre need not waste his words. He well knew he had too much pride to allow any such remembrance to incline him to leniency. Ah, there were memories in that sweet past, as he called it, for which his mother would pay with her head! Friendship? Robespierre's friendship! Why, it paved the road to the scaffold! All his friends had trodden that deadly path.
A cry of indignation escaped Lebas, but Robespierre quieted him in a husky voice, himself a prey to the most feverish agitation. The lad's head had been turned by the chouans! He was not responsible for what he said! Then turning to Olivier he tried, with a ring of sadness in his voice, to persuade him that had he been a tyrant he would have punished his insolence, he would not have attempted to reason with him. But Olivier remained unmoved. This kindness was assumed, he told himself, to hide some dastardly plot! Robespierre only wanted to find his mother that he might avenge her son's insult on herself. In vain the Incorruptible protested, deeply grieved and wounded. Olivier stoutly maintained his position, declaring that Robespierre was not a man to pardon any one who had publicly insulted him with such outspoken contempt and hatred.
"Wretch!" cried out Lebas.
But Robespierre signed to him to stop. Hatred? That word in the young man's mouth sounded like blasphemy. And trying to master himself, that his voice should not tremble, he asked him—
"Then you do hate me very much?"
Olivier again furiously asserted his abhorrence, and was met by the question—
"When have I ever wronged you?"
At this Olivier, losing self-control, nearly betrayed his secret.