They fell on him with quick and hideous noises; he felt himself seized, struck, shaken, pushed, dragged, insulted; he kept his head high and was silent.
They found a rope and tied his arms behind him, and with the ends of this rope struck him across the shoulders. The important official, nursing a smarting face, was incoherent in the coarse violence of his abuse.
The woman trembled at the edge of the group, stupidly afraid.
“Who is he?” she asked again and again.
They took the question up.
“Who are you? Scélérat!”
“One who has served the Republic,” he replied, white with the pain of his close-bound arms.
They pushed him into the centre of the room while they paused to consider what they should do with their prize, and as he stood there, swaying a little, but upright, the light was full on his face, which had once been so famous in Paris.
The stern outlines, the dark colouring, the fiery expression were the same; unwashed, unshaven, starved as he was, the little timid man, who had lived in Paris, recognised him.
“Deauville! Deauville!” he shrieked to his master, dancing in his excitement, “it is Condorcet! Condorcet!”