"Oh, Jean," she whispered, "nothing must happen to you! We love you so! How could we live without you!"
"Perhaps nothing more serious than a few days' detention will happen, little one," he answered, "but we must always be prepared. Now let me tell you what you must do. Here is the packet. You cannot get it out of your hands too soon! Do they ever search you when you go to the little fellow?"
"No," replied Yvonne. "Citizen Barelle always tells them it is not necessary."
"Then you can probably get it to him safely. It is small thank heaven!—and easily concealed. Few about the place connect me with you and your mother, so if I am taken, make no inquiries for me except of Barelle or Meunier,—he is also a friend,—for your own heads would not then be safe! Trust in God, Yvonne, to save me! I cannot think He will suffer me to come to harm. Take good care of Moufflet, and give my love to Mère Clouet. Good-night, Yvonne!" It is scarcely necessary to add that two people in number 670 Rue de Lille slept but little that night!
Next morning Jean hurried off to work as though nothing of importance was to happen that day. The hours of the morning drifted heavily by, and his heart was in his mouth at every unusual sound. He saw Mère Clouet and Yvonne arrive with the laundry and leave after their usual stay. Yvonne looked frightened and was plainly trembling, but by the imperceptible nod she gave him, he guessed that her mission was accomplished. Noon came, and still nothing had happened. But about one o'clock, three gendarmes came into the tavern and ordered some wine. Scarcely were they finished with their refreshment, when one of them laid a heavy hand on Jean's shoulder.
"I arrest you in the name of the Republic!" was all he said, but Jean knew that the blow had fallen at last. A wondering and regretful group gathered about to see this favourite led away to some unknown but only too well-imagined fate. Even Père Lefèvre parted from his little waiter with quite a show of sympathy. It seemed a long journey from the Temple to the Palais de Justice, and the gendarmes said not a word all the way. The procession aroused little interest in the passers-by, for arrests were too common in those days to cause any excitement. Arriving at the Palais de Justice, they entered through the great Cour du Mai, and led the boy to a large office where were seated many clerks at work. His name was entered and a gendarme assured the clerks that the charge had already been noted so that it only remained to thrust him within the walls of the prison. Without further ado, he was led down a gloomy staircase, a gate was opened and shut, and Jean was fast in La Conciergerie!
He found himself in a spacious courtyard filled to overflowing with a throng of helpless humanity of every degree from the lowest to the highest. Among them were nobles, authors, priests, bankers, merchants, bakers, farmers, mechanics, sans-culottes even, and vagabonds, all rubbing elbows, existing in daily fear and trembling, and almost starved on the inadequate rations they received. That afternoon a crier came to the gate and read aloud the list of that day's victims to the Guillotine. Amid sobs and cries, that batch of prisoners passed out of the dungeon forever, only to be replaced by a fresh installment before evening.
Recognising none of his fellow-prisoners, Jean established himself in a convenient corner, and amused himself by noting the vast difference in the way that different classes of victims behaved themselves in their terrible incarceration. Strangely enough, the class that seemed most unconcerned was the nobility. A little party of them were grouped together in a corner, and from their actions they might have been safely at home enjoying each others' society without a thought of fear. Four of them were engaged in playing a stately game of cards. When the crier of the afternoon read, among others, the name of one of these players, Jean was astonished to see the man rise, apologise politely to the others for his enforced absence, and request another friend to take his place while he was away. Then he bowed and departed, as though death were not awaiting him outside that fatal gate! Others were not less collected. These aristocrats seemed to pride themselves on ignoring the hideous peril of their position.
People in other walks of life were not always so self-contained. Here and there women, and even men sobbed and shivered for hours at a stretch, and a shriek of anguish from some doomed victim was no unusual occurrence. Others seemed frozen dumb with apprehension, while yet others laughed and sang and played at boisterous games, striving recklessly to forget their precarious nearness to trouble.
When evening came, and the prisoners were to be locked into their crowded cells for the night, four noisy, stupid, half-tipsy jailers entered, accompanied by several savage dogs, and there was a great to-do while the roll of the victims was being called. A badly spelled, incorrect list was passed from hand to hand among the jailers, a wrong name was called, to which, of course, no one responded. The turnkeys all swore in chorus, and tried another with no better success!