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“Let it enlighten itself with what I’ve just said. As for this poor woman, I repeat, all she did was obey violence.… Open your eyes! Look at her! Does she look like a conspirator? She was forced to do what she did, that’s all there is to it.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“In the name of the law,” said Fouquier, “I request that the witness Lorin be charged before the Tribunal as a prisoner in complicity with this woman.”

Maurice gave out a groan. Geneviève hid her face in both hands.

Simon cried out in a transport of joy: “Citizen prosecutor, you’ve just saved the nation!”

As for Lorin, without saying a word in reply, he jumped over the balustrade to take a seat by Geneviève’s side, took her hand, and respectfully kissed it:

“Hello, citizeness,” he said with a composure that electrified the assembly. “How are you doing?”

Then he sat back in the dock.

52

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

This entire scene had passed like a nightmare vision before Maurice, who stayed the course, leaning on his sword for support, watching his friends fall, one after the other, into that bottomless pit that never releases its victims. The mortal image was for him so overwhelming that he wondered why he, as the companion of his unfortunate friends, still clung to the edge of the precipice instead of just letting go, giving in to the vertigo that was dragging him down in their wake.

Jumping over the balustrade, Lorin had seen the dark smirking figure of Dixmer. When he sat down next to Geneviève, she leaned and whispered in his ear.

“God help us!” she said. “Did you know Maurice is here?”

“Where?”

“Don’t look now; you might give him away.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Behind us, near the door. He’ll be in agony if we are condemned!”

Lorin looked at the young woman with tender compassion.

“We will be,” he said. “Please don’t have any doubts. Your disappointment would be too cruel if you were reckless enough to hope.”

“Oh, my God!” said Geneviève. “Think of our poor friend, who will be all alone here below!”

Lorin turned round then to Maurice; Geneviève was not able to resist throwing him a quick look, either. Maurice had his eyes fixed on them and he pressed a hand to his heart.

“There is a way for you to save yourself,” said Lorin.

“Is there?” asked Geneviève and her eyes sparkled with joy.

“Oh! I can answer for that!”

“If you manage to save me, Lorin, how I would bless you!”

“But the way …” Lorin trailed off.

Geneviève read the hesitation in his eyes.

“So you saw him too?” she said.

“Yes, I saw him. Do you want to be saved? Let him have his turn in the iron chair and you will be.”

Dixmer doubtless divined what was afoot from the expression in Lorin’s eyes as he spoke to Geneviève, for he at first blanched before returning to his sinister calm and his infernal smile.

“It’s not possible,” said Geneviève. “I couldn’t go on hating him then.”

“Admit that he knows how generous you are and is exploiting you, throwing down the gauntlet, taunting you.”

“No doubt, for he is sure of himself, of me, of us all.”

“Geneviève, Geneviève, I’m not as perfect as you; let me drag him down and let him perish.”

“No, Lorin, I beg you, I want nothing in common with that man, not even death. I’d feel I was being unfaithful to Maurice if I died with Dixmer.”

“But you won’t die.”

“How will I live when he is dead?”

“Ah!” cried Lorin. “No wonder Maurice loves you! You are an angel and the nation of angels is in heaven. Poor dear Maurice!”

Simon was dying to hear what the two accused were saying to each other, but he couldn’t make out their words and had to scrutinize their faces instead.

“Citizen gendarme!” he cried. “How about stopping the conspirators from carrying on with their plots against the Republic—right here in the Revolutionary Tribunal!”

“Right!” said the gendarme. “You know very well, citizen Simon, that plots stop here, or that if people continue to conspire it won’t be for long. The citizens are merely talking, and since the law doesn’t prohibit talking in the tumbrel, why would anyone be prohibited