Entering the inner court of the Tuileries, at first he seemed undecided, and then, as if under a sudden impulse, went straight towards the Pavilion of Liberty. The Committee of Public Safety held its meetings there, in the very apartment once occupied by Louis XVI. This committee usually worked far into the night, and Robespierre was sure of finding some one. As he expected, he met Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois, who were crossing the vestibule of the ground floor at that moment. He accosted them angrily, for the two men, who had been hissed and hooted at the Jacobin Club, now seemed to exult, as though they held some secret threat over his head. The ironical smiles he fancied he saw playing round their lips aggravated his fury. "So you have released the prisoner I sent to La Force?" he cried. "Quite true!" replied Billaud-Varennes, relishing Robespierre's discomfiture as a set-off against the Jacobins' hooting. "For what reason?" "To cross-examine him." "Where is he?" "That is for you to find out." "I command you to send him back immediately to La Force!" "We receive no orders from you!" "Then it is to be war between us? You shall have it, scoundrels! war to the knife! And to-morrow too!" and turning away abruptly, he went towards the steps, and pushed the door open in a violent rage. Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois retraced their steps to apprise their colleagues at the Convention of their stormy interview with Robespierre. But on the threshold of the Assembly-room Billaud stopped his companion. "Wait a moment," he said, "let me cross-examine the young man first." So saying, he went upstairs to the attics, where Olivier had been locked up ever since five o'clock under the charge of a gendarme, to whom Coulongeon, the Committee's agent, had confided him, with strict orders that the prisoner was to be kept entirely out of sight until the Committee had decided on his fate. Coulongeon was one of the sharpest detectives of the Committee. It was he who, disguised as a beggar, had been the object of Blount's sudden barks in the forest of Montmorency, where he had witnessed the interview between Robespierre and Vaughan. Driven away by Robespierre's agents, he had gone immediately to the entrance of the forest, expecting vainly the Englishman's reappearance. On his return to Paris the same evening he had reported his discovery at once to the Committee of Public Safety. Billaud-Varennes rubbed his hands gleefully. He was on the scent of a plot. An Englishman? That could be no other than Vaughan, Fox's agent, who was known to have been already two days in Paris. Ah! Robespierre had secret interviews with him, had he? A plot, of course! It was splendid! Nothing could be more opportune! "Run quickly, and ascertain if the Englishman is still at the American Consulate, while we draw up the warrant of arrest!" was his immediate order.