The curiosity of the women had now reached its height. Héron had drawn out a gold medallion, encircled with small pearls. "Those are real pearls," observed mother Duplay. The medallion was opened, and found to contain a lock of fair hair, with the initials M.T. The jewel was handed round, admired, and examined carefully, giving rise to all sorts of reflections, in Olivier's presence, who looked on apparently unconcerned. Robespierre was exasperated at this indifference. He knew, however, how to restrain himself, and said mockingly-- "You will not tell me, I suppose, that there is nothing extraordinary for a sum of money like that and such jewels to be found in the possession of an apprentice?" Héron insinuated that perhaps he had stolen them, at which Olivier simply shrugged his shoulders. Duplay endorsed Héron's opinion. In fact, he had not the slightest doubt about it. The young man had stolen them. Olivier could bear it no longer. "Everything there belongs to me!" he said. And as they seemed still to doubt, he repeated in a loud voice-- "Everything belongs to me! And, since you seem so anxious about it, know that I am an aristocrat, a royalist, and a _chouan_!" The men cried out almost with one voice-- "At last! He owns it!" Olivier took up the word at once. "Very well! Since I have owned it, why don't you get quit of me, and send me forthwith to the scaffold? I am weary of it all!" But Robespierre calmly told him not to be in such a hurry, for he wished to know his name. As the young man defied him, saying he would have to ask elsewhere, for he should never learn it from him, Robespierre grew furious. He must have his name, and the names of his accomplices as well, for he was not single-handed; that was certain! "And if I have no accomplice, you will find some, I'll be bound!" cried Olivier ironically. "But you shall not have my name!" Lebas, having finished the letters, came forward, and Robespierre gave him a questioning glance. The letters, he said, revealed nothing in particular. They had been written two or three years ago, and bore no address or signatures of importance. Two signed Marie Thérèse were apparently from a young girl, the prisoner's sister or _fiancée_. "Then the medallion belongs to her," put in Victoire; "M.T. are the initials on it." But these letters revealed nothing, nor did three others signed "Your mother," couched in terms of endearment and advice. The style was most certainly that of an aristocrat. Only one letter--dated 1791--gave a slight indication, a very vague one. Robespierre pricked up his ears-- "And the contents of that letter?" he asked. Lebas scanned it once more. It was dated 1791, from a country place in one of the suburbs of Paris, and addressed to the young man, then a student, by his grandfather, who seemed also to be his godfather, for he says: "I shall expect you to-morrow evening, for my _fête_ and yours, the Feast of St. Olivier."