“There is a prisoner in the Luxembourg in whom I am interested. I seek his enlargement.”
“But is that all?” cried the little man, and, without more ado, he turned to his writing-table and drew a printed form from among the chaos of documents. “His name?” he asked indifferently, as he dipped his quill in the ink-horn and scratched his signature at the foot of it.
“An aristocrat,” said Caron, with some slight hesitancy.
“Eh?” And the arched brows drew together for an instant. “But no matter. There are enough and to spare even for Fouquier-Tinvillle's voracious appetite. His name?”
“The ci-devant Vicomte Antole d'Ombreval.”
“Qui-ca?” The question rang sharp as a pistol-shot, sounding the more fearful by virtue of the contrast with the gentle tones in which Robespierre had spoken hitherto. The little man's face grew evil. “d'Ombreval?” he cried. “But what is this man to you? It is by your favour alone that I have let him live so long, but now—” He stopped short. “What is your interest in this man?” he demanded, and the question was so fiercely put as to suggest that it would be well for La Boulaye that he should prove that interest slight indeed.
But whatever feelings may have been swaying Caron at the moment, fear was not one of them.
“My interest in him is sufficiently great to cause me to seek his freedom at your hands,” he answered, with composure.
Robespierre eyed him narrowly for a moment, peering at him over his spectacles which he had drawn down on to his tip-tilted nose. Then the fierceness died out of his mien and manner as suddenly as it had sprung up. He became once more the weak-looking, ineffectual man that had first greeted La Boulaye: urbane and quiet, but cold-cold as ice.
“I am desolated, my dear Caron, but you have asked me for the one man in the prisons of France whose life I cannot yield you. He is from Artois, and there is an old score 'twixt him and me, 'twixt his family and mine. They were the grands seigneurs of the land on which we were born, these Ombrevals, and I could tell you of wrongs committed by them which would make you shudder in horror. This one shall atone in the small measure we can enforce from him. It was to this end that I ordered you to effect his capture. Have patience, dear Caron, and forgive me that I cannot grant your request. As I have said, I am desolated that it should be so. Ask me, if you will, the life of any other—or any dozen others—and they are yours. But Ombreval must die.”