‘What trade, then, has the good fortune to possess your shining abilities.’ ‘A trade that thrives well just now, friend--pass me the flask.’ ‘Indeed, and what may it be?’ ‘Can you not guess, citizen,’ said I, ‘if I tell you that it was never more in vogue; and, if there be some who will not follow it, they’ll wear their heads just as safely by holding their peace?’ ‘_Parbleu!_ thou hast puzzled me,’ said the chief cook; ‘and if thou be’st not a coffin-maker----’ A roar of merriment cut short his speech, in which I myself could not but join heartily. ‘That is, I know,’ said I, ‘a thriving business; but mine is even better; and, not to mystify you longer, I ‘ll just tell you what I am; which is, simply, a friend of the Citizen Robespierre.’ The blow told with full force; and I saw, in the terrified looks that were interchanged around the table, that my sojourn amongst them, whether destined to be of short or long duration, would not be disturbed by further liberties. It was truly a reign of terror that same period! The great agent of everything was the vague and shadowy dread of some terrible vengeance, against which precautions were all in vain. Men met each other with secret misgivings, and parted with the same dreadful distrust. The ties of kindred were all broken; brotherly affection died out. Existence was become like the struggle for life upon some shipwrecked raft, where each sought safety by his neighbour’s doom! At such a time--with such terrible teachings--children became men in all the sterner features of character; cruelty is a lesson so easily learned. As for myself, energetic and ambitious by nature, the ascendency my first assumption of power suggested was too grateful a passion to be relinquished. The name--whose spell was like a talisman, because now the secret engine by which I determined to work out my fortune--Robespierre had become to my imagination like the slave of Aladdin’s lamp; and to conjure him up was to be all-powerful Even to Boivin himself this influence extended; and it was easy to perceive that he regarded the whole narrative of the pocket-book as a mere fable, invented to obtain a position as a spy over his household. I was not unwilling to encourage the belief--it added to my importance, by increasing the fear I inspired; and thus I walked indolently about, giving myself those airs of _mouchard_ that I deemed most fitting, and taking a mischievous delight in the terror I was inspiring.