"You see, it has come at last even to me," said Danton quietly.
"Ah, why did you not crush the snake before it entwined you with its coils?" asked Tournay sadly.
"I did not think he would dare do it," replied Danton. "Robespierre is rushing to his ruin. What will they do without me? They are all mad."
"You should have distrusted their madness, even if you did not fear it," was the rejoinder.
"The end is near," answered Danton. "It is fate. Yet if I could leave my brains to Robespierre and my legs to Couthon, the Revolution might still limp along for a short time," and he laughed roughly. "Good-by, Tournay," he said in a tone of kindliness. "You are a brave man and a true Republican; such men as you might have saved the Republic, but it was not to be." He entered his cell, and Tournay never saw him again.
The next day Danton was taken to the conciergerie and to his trial, and the day following to the guillotine. The lion head was parted from the giant trunk, and the Revolution swept on.
The weeks dragged on monotonously to Colonel Tournay and St. Hilaire in the Luxembourg. The trees in the gardens beyond their prison walls had put forth their leaves, and the song of birds was borne sometimes even into the recesses of their cell.
"Why are we left to rot here in this stifling place?" exclaimed Colonel Tournay for the thousandth time. "Why are we not even called for trial? Has Robespierre forgotten our existence?"
"Let us hope that he has," rejoined St. Hilaire. "As long as we are overlooked we shall get into no worse trouble. We are not so very uncomfortable here," and St. Hilaire sprang upon the table to put his nose out between the window bars, like a fox in a cage, to get what air there was stirring and to look at the little patch of blue sky.
Tournay smiled sadly. He envied St. Hilaire his cheerfulness and adaptability, while he felt his own spirit breaking under the long confinement.