"What was that?"
The woman was wary in her answer, the question appeared to her so ingenuous.
"It's Madame Robespierre!"
"I know it is the guillotine," replied Olivier, "but I wish to know what they are doing there."
"They are taking it away."
"Ah!" he exclaimed, much relieved.
"But it is to be put up elsewhere."
"Where?" he asked, again cast down.
"At the Place de la Bastille." And she added with a smile: "It seems there are still some aristocrats to settle."
Olivier gave her an anxious, searching glance, but reading mere ignorance in her eyes, he was reassured, and began to wonder at the indifference of this people, this simple, open-hearted race, which had allowed themselves to be duped so many long months. He looked around him at the vast square which, as the horrible scaffold was removed, wore quite a festive air, smiling under its gay decorations of flags and coloured devices and girandoles, which were characteristic of the jovial humour and the drollery of the French populace, always so light-hearted.