"Set free the victims of tyranny!" After the Bastille La Salpetriere, the famous female prison, is summoned. Already the inmates are on the qui vive of expectation. Mad and sane are flying about from cells to courtyard, and courtyard to barred windows, like birds in storm-flight. Impatient, restless little Henriette, between the bars of her cage, is looking out wonderingly on a re-made world. What does it mean? Release? the easy path to her lost Louise? Pray Heaven it does-- CHAPTER XVII PRISON DELIVERY--AND AN ENCOUNTER The jailers deliver the keys; the mob pours tumultuously into the female prison. What cries of joy, what sobs of relief from the saner inmates, as they try to _think_ their new, almost incredible jail delivery! What stony, uncomprehending glances or what wild shrieks from the maniacal! Amid this confused throng Picard, who has entered with the crowd to wait upon his mistress, presents a comic figure. He has arrayed himself in the red-and-white striped garb of the proletariat, is trying his best to look a Revolutionary, though all he gets for it are kicks and wallops! Sense and nonsense mix strangely in the proceedings of the mob. They set up a rude court headed by two horny-handed butchers, the object of which is to separate the innocent from the guilty. But the new red-and-white cockade--superseding the green cockades of the first battle--is the best passport to their favor. Inmates whose friends have provided them with these Revolutionary badges, are generally turned loose. Shouting and laughing in their glee, they dance out of the prison. Picard has provided Henriette with his badge, whilst Sister Genevieve and the Doctor vouch to her good character. Henriette kisses the cockade as a sign of fealty to the new order. The brawny judges let her pass. She runs merrily out past the harmless gauntlet of the friendly pikes and lances. Not so Picard--That luckless valet tries to sneak out past the big chopper of the brawny butcher-judge. Whir-r! The chopper descends in front of him, almost taking his head off! Picard executes a strategic retirement to the rear. There! Isn't there seemingly a good chance to crawl out between the other guardian's legs, and thus escape? Picard tries it. Alas! the first butcher catches sight of Picard's be-tufted head protruding in this strange manner from under the crotch of his fellow. The Man of Meat grasps Picard firmly by the collar and pulls him forth. With the other hand he raises the axe to chop the offender's head off, thinks better of it, twirls Picard swiftly around, and using the flat of the chopper spanks the rear of the Picard anatomy, sending him sprawling into the limbo. So that little Henriette's excursion into Freedom is unattended and alone. It is quite unlikely that she bothers about Picard at all. "Louise! Rue de Brissac!" is the sole thought of her whirling little brain, as she speeds on.