Robespierre still remained quiet and watchful—still lived in hiding in the house of good Duplay, the joiner. On that night, Robespierre went to the apartments of St. Just, in the Rue St. Anne, and found him calmly going to bed. “Why not?” asked St. Just. “Murder will be done to-night, but I cannot prevent it. And again, those who will die are our enemies. Good night.” He fell asleep. Awaking, hours after, he marked Robespierre, pale, haggard. “Have you returned?” “_Returned!_” “What! have you not slept?” “Slept!” cried Robespierre; “when the blood of thousands is being shed by hundreds of assassins—when pure or impure blood runs down the streets like water! Oh, no,” he continued, with a sardonic smile; “I have not slept—I have watched, like remorse or crime; I have had the weakness not to close my eyes. But _Danton—he has slept_!” On Sunday (of all days in the week), it being the 2nd of September, at three in the afternoon, the signal for the massacre was given, by one of those strange accidents with which we are all acquainted. Five coaches, filled with prisoners, were passing. These prisoners happened, by chance, to be all priests. “See the friends of the Prussians!” cried one in the crowd. It was enough. The rage of knowing that the Prussians had conquered Verdun made them mad in a moment. From that hour until four days were passed, murder was unceasing all over Paris. It was enough to look like a Royalist, and death followed. Half the priests were killed in the carriages, before they reached the prison gates. Inside those gates, as inside the gates of all the other ordinary or improvised prisons, sat the revolutionary tribunes, twelve fierce men, who decided rapidly the fate of the prisoner, while they drank and smoked. They were chiefly in shirt-sleeves. However, here and there might be seen white-handed men, who evidently were the master spirits of those terrible juries, which, in their way, were merciful, for they did not condemn a prisoner to death. If acquitted, the decree was “Set this gentleman at liberty;” if guilty, “To the Force,”—a decree which was a pun, for there was a prison called La Force, while the word “force” may be said to be “death;” therefore, “à la force” conveyed to the prisoner the idea that he was to be conveyed to the prison of La Force. In this belief, when approaching the prison gate, he had no idea death was at hand. The gate opened, and he was delivered to the force of an organised band, who quickly despatched him. Each band of executioners was controlled by a hidden chief. They moved from prison to prison as the revolutionary juries sat, and they did their work with the steadiness of actual business.