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As fast as the thought that had just found expression in these searing words, Geneviève held out her hand to offer her bouquet to the

Queen. At that point Marie Antoinette looked up and stared at her and an almost imperceptible blush appeared on her colorless brow.

With a sort of automatic movement, out of habit of passive obedience to the rules, Maurice put his hand out to stop Geneviève. The Queen stood hesistant; she looked at Maurice and recognized the young municipal officer who was in the habit of speaking to her firmly but, at the same time, with respect.

“Are flowers out of bounds, monsieur?” she asked.

“No, no, madame,” said Maurice. “Geneviève, you may offer your bouquet.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, monsieur!” cried the Queen with real gratitude.

And acknowledging Geneviève with gracious affability, Marie Antoinette put out an emaciated hand and selected a carnation at random from among the mass of flowers.

“But take all of them, madame, take them,” Geneviève said timidly.

“No,” said the Queen with a charming smile. “This bouquet perhaps comes from someone you love and I wouldn’t want to deprive you of it.”

Geneviève blushed deeply and her high color made the Queen smile once more.

“Come on, citizeness Capet,” said Agricola. “You must keep moving.”

The Queen nodded and continued on her way. But before disappearing, she looked back and murmured:

“How good this carnation smells and how lovely that woman is!”

“She didn’t see me,” groaned Morand. Practically on his knees in the darkness of the hallway, he had, in fact, failed to come to the Queen’s notice.

“But you saw her, didn’t you, Morand? Geneviève?” asked Maurice, doubly delighted, first because of the show he had been able to put on for his friends, and then because of the pleasure he had just given at so little cost to the unhappy prisoner.

“Oh, yes, yes!” said Geneviève, “I saw her all right, and now, if I live to be a hundred, I’ll go on seeing her.”

“And how did you find her?”

“Very beautiful.”

“What about you, Morand?”

Morand joined his hands together without answering.

“Tell me, then,” Maurice said to Geneviève in a low voice, laughing all the while, “it wouldn’t be the Queen Morand’s in love with, would it?”

Geneviève gave a start but swiftly recovered.

“Heavens,” she said, also laughing, “it certainly looks like it.”

“Well then, you didn’t tell me how you found her, Morand,” Maurice insisted.

“I found her very pale,” Morand replied.

Maurice took Geneviève’s arm again and led her back down toward the courtyard. In the dark stairwell, it felt to him as though Geneviève kissed his hand.

“So,” said Maurice, “what does that mean, Geneviève?”

“That means, Maurice, that I will never forget that, for a whim of mine, you risked your head.”

“Oh!” said Maurice. “Let’s not exaggerate, Geneviève. You know very well it’s not gratitude I want from you.”

Geneviève gently squeezed his arm.

Morand staggered after them.

When they reached the courtyard Lorin came to greet the two visitors and lead them out of the Temple. But before leaving him, Geneviève made Maurice promise to come and dine at the old rue Saint-Jacques the following day.

22

SIMON THE CENSOR

Maurice returned to his post, his heart full of an almost celestial joy, but he found Mother Tison there sobbing.

“Now what’s the matter, Mother Tison?” he said.

“I’m furious, that’s what’s the matter!” the jailer shot back.

“Why’s that?”

“Because everything is unjust for the poor of this world.”

“Yes, but …?”

“You’re rich, you are; you’re bourgeois; you come here for one day only and you’re allowed to be visited by pretty women who give the Austrian woman flowers. And me, I practically nest in the dovecote all year round and I’m not allowed to see my poor daughter Héloïse.”

Maurice took her hand and slipped her an assignat of ten livres.

“Here you go, good Mother Tison,” he said. “Take that and have courage, eh? Heaven knows the Austrian woman won’t last forever.