"But are we not going to see the fireworks?" asked the boy Maurice anxiously. "We are not," declared mother Duplay. "How could we enjoy ourselves without him?" And they went early to bed. The house, which had awakened to joy, now slumbered silently whilst Paris was being lit up to prepare for the populace, again in holiday mood, the promised display of fireworks. Robespierre rejoined the Duplays next day at supper. He had spent the morning and afternoon locked in his room, under pretext of working. And work he did. Alone, in sullen silence, he prepared that atrocious Prairial law, which he intended to lay before Convention forthwith--a law which aimed at nothing less than the entire suppression of the right of defence before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Moral evidence was to suffice; cross-examinations, depositions, and the testimony of witnesses were to be done away with. To be a "suspect" would itself be a proof of guilt. Ah! he had been insulted! Well, this was his reply to the insult. He had wished to establish his dictatorship under conditions of peace, but the great pacific demonstration had not availed him. Were these cowards only to be subjugated by terror? They should have it then, with renewed vigour, in a whirlwind of tempestuous violence carrying everything before it. It should be a fearful and memorable lesson! Every trace of those stubborn, headstrong rebels should be swept away by the stroke of its formidable wing! This law, drafted entirely by him, with its every villainy cunningly concealed, or placed in the light of a sacred duty, and as the only means of assuring public safety, Robespierre would himself lay before the Convention. The deputies, who had been insulted in the person of their President by that brawling meddler arrested on the Place de la Révolution, could not but pass the law, after such a scandalous scene. That public insult of the riotous rebel was an excellent pretext. It would help him to take them by surprise, to wring from them the vote which would place entirely at his mercy not only his rivals who had expressed their opinions so freely, but also that rude scoffer, already doomed to die. His trial would not last long! But before his death he should be brought before Robespierre. He should lay bare the most secret recesses of his soul, denounce his accomplices, and disclose his connections and parentage. Such an insult, the cruellest Robespierre had as yet sustained, demanded an exemplary penalty. The death of the man himself would not suffice; he should pay with the heads of every one connected with him in any way--accomplices, friends, and relations. Ah! the wretch, he had sacrificed not only his own life, but the lives of all near and dear to him!