"I've thought out a joke for to-day," said Toulan. "I will teach the widow to smoke. You know, brother Simon, that she always pretends not to be able to bear the smell of tobacco, she shall learn to bear it. I will hand her a paper cigarette to-day, and tell her that if she does not want us to smoke, she must smoke with us."
"Splendid joke!" said Simon, with a loud laugh. "But there's one thing to be thought of about that," said Lepitre, reflectively. "the widow Capet might perhaps promise to smoke, if we would tell her that we would never smoke afterward. But then we should not keep our word, of course."
"What! you say we should not keep our word!" said Toulan, in amazement. "We are republicans; more than that, we are sans- culottes! and shall we not keep our word? ought we not to be better than the cursed aristocrats, that never kept their word to the people? How can you disgrace us and yourself so much? Ask our noble friend and brother Simon, whether he is of the opinion that a free man ought not to keep his word, even if he has only given it to a woman in prison."
"I am of that opinion," said Simon, with dignity. "I swore to myself that the king should lose his head, and I kept my word. I promised the she-wolf that she should be hanged, and I hope to keep this promise too. If I keep my word to her in what is bad, I must do so also in what is good. If a republican promises any thing, he must hold to it."
"Right, Simon, you are a noble and wise man. It remains fixed, then, that the queen shall smoke, but if we have our joke out, we shall not smoke any more."
"I will put up a placard on the door: 'Smoking forbidden in the anteroom of the she-wolf.'"
"Good," cried Toulan, "that is worthy of you."
"Let us go up now," said Simon, "the two other sentries are up- stairs already, they will wonder that you come so late, but I do like to chat with you. Come on, let's go up. I'll stay there to see the joke. But wait a moment, there is something new. It has been proposed that not so many guards are needed to watch the Capets, and that it has the appearance as if the government was afraid of these howling women and this little monkey, whom the crazy royalists call King Louis XVII. It is very likely that they will reduce the guard to two."
"Very good," said Toulan, approvingly.—"What's the use of wearying out so many other men and condemning them to such idleness? We cannot be making jokes all the time; and then again it is not pleasant always looking on these people's long faces."
"So only two guards," said Lepitre; "but that seems to me rather too few, for what if the widow should succeed in winning them over and getting them to help her escape?"