From the Hotel de Ville!... I am there; the terrible journey has been made. The place is there, below my window. And the vile populace are there, hooting and laughing as they wait for me.
I had need to endeavour to pluck up courage, to strengthen my nerves, for my heart failed me when I saw those two red posts, with the black triangle at their summit, erect themselves between the two lamp-posts on the quay. I demanded to be permitted to make a last declaration, and they brought me here, and have gone to find the Public Prosecutor. I am waiting for him; at any rate it is so much time gained.
Here it comes. They warn me that the time has arrived. I trembled, as though I had thought of nothing else for the last six hours, for the last six weeks, for the last six months. It came upon me as if it were something totally unexpected.
They have led me through their passages, and made me ascend and descend their staircases. They have pushed me through a folding-door into a room on the ground floor, dark and narrow, with a vaulted roof; the foggy, rainy day hardly allows any light to penetrate into it. A chair was standing in the centre; they told me to sit down, and I did so.
There were several people standing about besides the priest and the gendarmes; there were also three men.
The first was tall, old, and fat, with a red face, and he wore a great-coat and a broken three-cornered hat. It was he!
It was the headsman, the man of the guillotine; the others were his assistants.
Scarcely was I seated, than these two approached me from behind, stealthily as cats; then in a moment I felt cold steel in my hair, and heard the snipping noise of the scissors close to my ears.
Carelessly severed, my hair fell in masses on my shoulders, whilst the man in the three-cornered hat brushed them gently away with his large hand.
Every one round me whispered.