"Here is Billaud at last."
Billaud was looking anxious, and wiping his brow, worn out with the heat, he asked for a glass of beer. They eagerly questioned him.
"Was it true, then? They would have to fight?"
"Yes! fight to the death. They ought to have listened to him. Robespierre had told him plainly enough that there would be war. And now that they could not prove the plot...."
"What plot?" asked Fouché.
"Ah, yes! It's true; you don't know...."
Billaud made a sign to shut the doors, as Robespierre had spies in all the corridors. The doors securely closed, Billaud-Varennes again told the story of the Englishman. Fouché listened with curiosity. Other members, Vadier, Amar, Voullaud, who had just entered, also followed Billaud's story with keen interest, while those who already knew of the plot, came and went, deep in discussion, waiting for Billaud to finish, to give their opinion.
Billaud-Varennes now produced the order of release for the two women, signed by Robespierre, and brought from the prison of La Bourbe by Coulongeon.
"There can be no doubt. We have in this quite enough to ruin him," said Fouché; "but what about that young man from La Force?"
"I questioned him again closely just now in the next room. He persists in his first statement, which appears to me quite genuine—as genuine as is his rage against Robespierre, whom he regrets, he says, not to have stabbed at the Fête of the Supreme Being."