"What is it?" he asked of Madame Ragon.
"Oh, nothing!" she answered. "It is the cart and the executioner going to the Place Louis XV. Ah, we saw enough of that last year! but now, four days after the anniversary of the 21st of January, we can look at the horrid procession without distress."
"Why so?" asked the abbé. "What you say is not Christian."
"But this is the execution of the accomplices of Robespierre. They have fought it off as long as they could, but now they are going in their turn where they have sent so many innocent people."
The crowd which filled the Rue Saint-Honoré passed on like a wave. Above the sea of heads the Abbé de Marolles, yielding to an impulse, saw, standing erect in the cart, the stranger who three days before had assisted for the second time in the Mass of commemoration.
"Who is that?" he asked; "the one standing--"
"That is the executioner," answered Monsieur Ragon, calling the man by his monarchical name.
"Help! help!" cried Madame Ragon. "Monsieur l'Abbé is fainting!"
She caught up a flask of vinegar and brought him quickly back to consciousness.
"He must have given me," said the old priest, "the handkerchief with which the king wiped his brow as he went to his martyrdom. Poor man! that steel knife had a heart when all France had none!"