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“It’s been written, it’s even in print, but so what? Until I hear such an accusation from the mouth of the child himself—and I mean voluntarily, freely, without threats or under duress—well then …”

“Well then?”

“Well then, whatever Simon and Hébert say, I’d doubt it as much as you do yourself.”

Simon awaited the outcome of this conversation impatiently. The miserable wretch had no inkling of the power exercised over the intelligent man by the gaze he makes out in the crowd when he is suddenly drawn to a complete stranger out of a feeling of sympathy, or repelled by instant hatred. But whether it is a force of repulsion or attraction, the man’s thoughts and even his being suddenly flow to that stranger of equal or greater force that he recognizes in the crowd.

But Fouquier had felt the weight of Lorin’s gaze on him and wanted to be understood by this particular observer.

“The interrogation will begin,” said the public prosecutor. “Clerk of the court, take up your quill.”

The clerk had just been jotting down preliminary notes toward a statement of offense and was waiting, like Simon, like Hanriot, like everyone else, for the confabulation between Fouquier-Tinville and Lorin to end.

Only the child seemed completely oblivious of the scene in which he was the star player; he had readopted the blank mask that had lit up for a moment with the fierce light of a supreme intelligence.

“Silence!” said Hanriot. “Citizen Fouquier-Tinville will now interrogate the infant.”

“Capet,” said the prosecutor, “do you know what has happened to your mother?”

Little Louis swiftly changed color, going from the pallor of marble to a burning red. But he did not reply.

“Did you hear me, Capet?” the prosecutor went on.

Same silence.

“Oh, he hears all right!” said Simon. “But he’s a little monkey; he doesn’t want to answer for fear he’ll be taken for a man and made to work.”

“Answer, Capet,” said Hanriot. “It’s the Committee of the Convention that is interrogating you, and you owe obedience to the law.”

The child went pale again but did not reply.

Simon made a movement of rage; in such brutal and stupid natures, fury is a form of intoxication, accompanied by the same hideous symptoms as intoxication from wine.

“You answer, you little devil!” he shouted, showing his fist.

“Shut up, Simon,” said Fouquier-Tinville, “you do not have the floor.”

These words were out before he could stop himself, for he had formed the habit of so speaking at the Revolutionary Tribunal.

“You hear that, Simon,” said Lorin. “You don’t have the floor. That’s the second time you’ve been told to shut up in my hearing; the first time was when you accused Mother Tison’s daughter, whose head rolled, thanks to you.”

Simon shut up.

“Did your mother love you, Capet?” asked Fouquier.

Same silence.

“They say she did not,” the prosecutor went on.

Something like a faint smile passed over the child’s lips.

“But I told you he told me she loved him a bit too much!” screamed Simon.

“Poor Simon! Isn’t it annoying how little Capet is so chatty in his tête-à-têtes with you but clams up the moment anyone else is around?” said Lorin.

“Oh! If I had him alone!” said Simon.

“Yes, if you had him alone; but you don’t, unfortunately. Oh! If you had him alone, brave Simon, excellent patriot, you’d beat the poor child to a pulp, eh? But you don’t have him alone and you don’t dare touch him in front of the rest of us, you loathsome thug! We are honest people who know that the ancients, on whom we’re trying to model ourselves, respected all that was weak; you don’t dare for you are not alone, and you are not so valiant, my worthy man, when you have children over five foot ten to deal with.”

“You!” hissed Simon, grinding his teeth.

“Capet,” Fouquier resumed, “did you confide in Simon?”

The child did not flinch but gazed directly at the prosecutor with an expression of irony impossible to describe.

“About your mother?” continued the prosecutor.

A flash of scorn fired the boy’s gaze.

“Answer yes or no!