The pretext was found sufficient and elastic, and the hecatombs began. The spies, called _moutons_, prepared the lists each night that sent troops of twenty-five or more each day into the fatal chariots,--paralytics, men of seventy, feeble women and maidens,--the crimes of all comprised under the heading of intention to assassinate the Convention. As fast as the prisons were emptied the influx arrived, forcing more transfers. On the 7th of Thermidor, for the fifth time, Nicole and Barabant were placed in the chariots, to be conveyed to another prison. Then Barabant, utterly tired, rebelled and said: "At last it is too much. I want to end it. I can endure it no longer. Nicole, let me die now and be through with the suspense. We cannot escape. They are guillotining fifty a day. Next month it will be a hundred. Let us be firm and not await another month of torture." "Then, Barabant, after all I have done," she said reproachfully, "you would send me to the guillotine?" "You?" "I follow where you go." But their companions cried in alarm: "What are you doing?" "You'll betray us all!" "For mercy's sake, be silent!" Barabant, without energy to pursue long any determination, resigned himself wearily to their protests and the appeal of Nicole. The chariot rolled out into the streets, where the passers-by, weighted down with the prevailing depression, regarded them without hatred and without curiosity. Their journey led them by the gardens of the Luxembourg, resplendent with green and the glisten of cool fountains. In the chariot some one said: "Pleasant weather!" "What good does that do us?" grumbled another. "I played there as a youngster; but what of that?" "It does not seem different. How curious!" "Where are we going?" "To the Porte-Libre." "I was there in Prairial." "What's it like?" "The same as the rest." The whispered comments ceased as the prison loomed over them. The carts ground on the cobblestones, passing the gate. From somewhere among them a sigh was heard. A voice said, with a low laugh: "Here's the inn. All down!" They passed to the office for identification and enrolment, and on through a square into the strange corridor to the hall, where a score of inmates straggled in curiously to see if they recognized any of the new arrivals. There, to her despair, Nicole beheld, in the shadow of a pillar, screened a little from the crowd, the face she had dreaded for months to encounter--the malignant face of Cramoisin, the Tapedure. XII THE FATHER OF LOUISON