The people round the door began laughing; Condorcet gave them a bitter look, and in that instant when his eyes were directed his opponent seized him and thrust him backwards against the wall, while he plunged a hand into his torn pocket. Condorcet shuddered and the blood surged up into his hollow face while the official pulled out a small old book with a discoloured calf cover. “A foreign language!” he cried, fluttering over the leaves. “I smell treason!” “Is it treason to read Horace?” asked the Marquis fiercely. “Do you–a servant–_read_ this?” was the triumphant counter question. “Eh, do you _read_ this, then?” The people at the door began to crowd into the room; the Marquis took a step forward; there was no possible supposing that he would escape the malice and fury fronting him; he did not for an instant hope it; instinctively, his right hand went round to his left hip where his sword should have been. The unmistakable gesture was instantly noticed and excited murmurs went up from the gathered peasants. “By God, you are an aristocrat!” cried the man from Bourg-la-Reine, seizing him roughly. “By God I am!” answered Condorcet, and struck him across the face.… They fell on him with quick and hideous noises; he felt himself seized, struck, shaken, pushed, dragged, insulted; he kept his head high and was silent. They found a rope and tied his arms behind him, and with the ends of this rope struck him across the shoulders. The important official, nursing a smarting face, was incoherent in the coarse violence of his abuse. The woman trembled at the edge of the group, stupidly afraid. “Who is he?” she asked again and again. They took the question up. “Who are you? _Scélérat!_” “One who has served the Republic,” he replied, white with the pain of his close-bound arms. They pushed him into the centre of the room while they paused to consider what they should do with their prize, and as he stood there, swaying a little, but upright, the light was full on his face, which had once been so famous in Paris. The stern outlines, the dark colouring, the fiery expression were the same; unwashed, unshaven, starved as he was, the little timid man, who had lived in Paris, recognised him. “Deauville! Deauville!” he shrieked to his master, dancing in his excitement, “it is Condorcet! Condorcet!” The Marquis made no denial; his silence was confirmation and he meant it to be; he knew that he was face to face with the end and he was for no further subterfuge; he had tasted already of the depths of humiliation, he was enduring the extreme of bitterness; there was nothing further to lose or gain in this world for Marie Jean Nicolas de Caritat. Presently, while some were arguing about his identity, he said in his rough broken voice, with the clear accent that they hated– “I am Condorcet. Make an end of it.”