• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“This child is very ill,” said the lieutenant with an assurance that made Fouquier-Tinville sit up, ready and raring as he was to begin the interrogation.

Little Capet looked up and scanned the company for the man who had uttered these words in the semidarkness. He recognized the young man who had already once, in the Temple garden, prevented Simon from hitting him. A soft, intelligent light flashed in his dark blue eyes and then was gone.

“Well! If it isn’t citizen Lorin!” cried Simon, thereby calling the attention of Fouquier-Tinville to Maurice Lindey’s friend.

“In person, citizen Simon,” replied Lorin with his imperturbable aplomb.

Furthermore, for although he was always ready to face danger Lorin was not the kind of man to seek it for no reason, he took advantage of the opportunity to greet Fouquier-Tinville, who politely returned his greeting.

“You have observed, I think, citizen,” said the public prosecutor, “that the child is ill; are you a doctor?”

“I have at least studied medicine, even if I’m not a doctor.”

“Well then, what do you think he has?”

“As symptoms of illness, you mean?” asked Lorin.

“Yes.”

“I find he has puffy eyes and cheeks, pale, emaciated hands, swollen knees, and, if I felt his pulse, I’d say, I’m sure, that he had a high pulse rate—something like eighty-five to ninety.”

The child seemed impervious to the listing of his ailments.

“And to what can science attribute the state of the prisoner?” asked the public prosecutor.

Lorin scratched the end of his nose, muttering:

“Philis would like me now to discourse;

But I have nothing to say, of course.”

Out loud, he said: “Good grief, citizen, I’m not familiar enough with little Capet’s daily routine to answer … but …”

Simon lent an attentive ear and cackled behind his hand to see his enemy so close to stepping in it and compromising himself.

“But,” continued Lorin, “I believe he isn’t getting enough exercise.”

“Indeed he isn’t, the little bastard!” said Simon. “He won’t walk anymore.”

The child remained insensible to the cobbler’s outburst. Fouquier-Tinville stood up, went over to Lorin, and spoke to him in a low voice. No one could hear what the prosecutor was saying, but it was clear his words were in the form of questions.

“Oh! Really! Do you think so, citizen? That is a most serious matter … for a mother.…”

“In any case, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” said Fouquier. “Simon claims the boy told him himself, and Simon has taken measures to get him to confess.”

“It would be hideous,” said Lorin. “But I suppose it’s possible: the Austrian woman is not exempt from sin, and, right or wrong, it doesn’t concern me.… They’ve already made a Messalina out of her, but not to be happy with that, to want now to turn her into an Agrippina.…1 It seems to me that’s going a bit too far, I have to admit.”

“That’s what Simon has reported,” said Fouquier, impassive.

“I don’t doubt Simon said so.… There are those who balk at nothing, for whom no accusation is too vicious, none too improbable.… But don’t you find,” Lorin went on, staring hard at Fouquier, “you who are an intelligent and perceptive man, you who are a powerful man, let’s not forget, don’t you find that to ask a child for such details about the woman whom the most normal and sacred laws of nature command him to respect, is almost to insult humanity as a whole in the person of this child?”

The prosecutor didn’t bat an eye; he took a note from his pocket and showed it to Lorin.

“The Convention orders me to inform; the rest is not my concern. I just inform.”

“Fair enough,” said Lorin, “and I have to admit that if the child really did confess …” The young man shook his head in disgust.

“In any case,” Fouquier continued, “we are not going on Simon’s denunciation alone; the accusation is in the public domain, you see.” Fouquier pulled a second piece of printed matter from his pocket. This was an issue of the tabloid known as Le Père Duchesne, which, as we know, was edited by