Disgusted as I was by this shocking sight, I stood watching all that went forward within with a strange interest. It was a scene of incessant bustle and movement, for now, as one o'clock drew nigh, various dinners were getting ready for the prisoners, while parties of their friends were assembling inside. Of these latter, there seemed persons of every rank and condition: some, dressed in all the brilliancy of the _mode_; others, whose garments bespoke direst poverty. There were women, too, whose costume emulated the classic drapery of the ancients, and who displayed, in their looped togas, no niggard share of their forms; while others, in shabby mourning, sat in obscure corners, not noticing the scene before them, nor noticed themselves. A strange equipage, with two horses extravagantly bedizened with rosettes and bouquets, stood at the door; and as I looked, a pale, haggard-looking man, whose foppery in dress contrasted oddly with his care-worn expression, hurried from the shop, and sprung into the carriage. In doing so, a pocket-book fell from his pocket. I took it up, but as I did so, the carriage was already away, and far beyond my power to overtake it. Without stopping to examine my prize, or hesitating for a second, I entered the _restaurant_, and asked for M. Boivin. "Give your orders to me, boy," said a man busily at work behind the counter. "My business is with himself," said I, stoutly. "Then you'll have to wait with some patience," said he, sneeringly. "I can do so," was my answer, and I sat down in the shop. I might have been half-an-hour thus seated, when an enormously fat man, with a huge "_bonnet rouge_" on his head, entered from an inner room, and, passing close to where I was, caught sight of me. "Who are you, sirrah--what brings you here?" "I want to speak with M. Boivin." "Then speak," said he, placing his hand upon his immense chest. "It must be alone," said I. "How so, alone, sirrah?" said he, growing suddenly pale; "I have no secrets--I know of nothing that may not be told before all the world." Though he said this in a kind of appeal to all around, the dubious looks and glances interchanged seemed to make him far from comfortable. "So you refuse me, then," said I, taking up my cap, and preparing to depart. "Come hither," said he, leading the way into the room from which he had emerged. It was a very small chamber; the most conspicuous ornaments of which were busts and pictures of the various celebrities of the revolution. Some of these latter were framed ostentatiously, and one, occupying the post of honor above the chimney, at once attracted me, for in a glance I saw that it was a portrait of him who owned the pocket-book, and bore beneath it the name "Robespierre." "Now, sir, for your communication," said Boivin; "and take care that it is of sufficient importance to warrant the interview you have asked for."