‘That he had; it was a sabre-cut in a duel,’ cried one, who added in a whisper, ‘he’s not the mad fool you take him for.’
‘You used to be Gabriel Riquetti in times past?’ asked another gravely.
‘No—that is—not I; but—I forget how it was—we were—I’ll remember it by and by.’
‘Why, you told me a few days back that you were Mirabeau.’
‘No, no,’ said another, ‘he said he was Alfieri; I was present.’
‘Mirabeau’s hair was long and wiry. It was not soft like mine,’ said Gerald. ‘When he shook it back, he used to say, “I’ll show them the boar’s head.”’
‘Yes. He’s right, that was a favourite saying of Mirabeau’s,’ whispered another.
‘And they are all gone now,’ said Gerald with a deep sigh.
‘Ay, Maître, every man of them. All the Girondins; all the friends of liberty; all the kind spirits who loved men as their brothers; and the guillotine better than the men.’
‘And Vergniaud and Fonfréde, you surely knew them?’