“Ah!” she said, in a faint reeling voice. “Radegonde was there; I saw her!” “Mademoiselle--the noble creature--she hath won us a respite.” Her breath caught in the darkness. “Yes,” she said. “There is a peruke that must wait.” Suddenly she backed from me, and put the hair from her eyes. “If you dare, monsieur, it necessitates that we make our adieux.” “Au revoir, citoyenne. It must be that, indeed.” She held out her hand, that was like a rose petal. I put my lips to it and lingered. “Monsieur, monsieur!” she entreated. The next moment I was in the street. * * * * * * * Who was my little citoyenne? Ah! I shall never know. The terror gripped us, and these things passed. Incidents that would make the passion of sober times, the spirit of revolution dismisses with a shrug. To die in those days was such a vulgar complaint. But I saw her once more, and then when my heart nestled to her image and my veins throbbed to her remembered touch. I was strolling, on the morning following my strange experience, in the neighbourhood of the Champs Elysées, when I was aware of a great press of people all making in the direction of that open ground. “What arrives, then, citizen?” I cried to one who paused for breath near me. He gasped, the little morose. To ask any question that showed one ignorant of the latest caprice of the Executive was almost to be “suspect.” “Has not the citizen heard? The Committee of Safety has decreed the destruction of the dogs.” “The dogs?” “Sacred Blood!” he cried. “Is it not time, when they take, as it is said they did last night, a good friend of the Republic to supper?” He ran on, and I followed. All about the Champs Elysées was a tumultuous crowd, and posted within were two battalions of the National Guard, their blue uniforms resplendent, their flint-locks shining in their hands. They, the soldiers, surrounded the area, save towards the Rue Royale, where a gap occurred; and on this gap all eyes were fixed. Scarcely was I come on the scene when on every side a laughing hubbub arose. The dogs were being driven in, at first by twos and threes, but presently in great numbers at a time. For hours, I was told, had half the _gamins_ of Paris been beating the coverts and hallooing their quarry to the toils. At length, when many hundreds were accumulated in the free space, the soldiers closed in and drove the skulking brutes through the gap towards the Place Royale. And there they made a battue of it, shooting them down by the score. With difficulty I made my way round to the _Place_, the better to view the sport. The poor trapped _fripons_ ran hither and thither, crying, yelping--some fawning on their executioners, some begging to the bullets, as if these were crusts thrown to them. And my heart woke to pity; for was I not witnessing the destruction of my good friends? The noise--the volleying, the howling, the shrieking of the _canaille_--was indescribable.