What madness! Perhaps at this very moment they were entering the cart which was to take them to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the next day to the scaffold. It was Olivier who was sending them to death, and all because he was too obstinate to say the word which would save them! He was a blind, unnatural son; he would kill his own mother! Olivier, though amazed at Robespierre's persistence, remained unshaken. "Are you so thirsty for her blood?" he cried, hurling at him this last insult. At these words Robespierre lost all self-control. "Fool!" he cried, "insensate fool!" as he paced the room in unrestrained excitement. But Lebas had heard enough. "Let us have done with this madman," he said, hurrying towards the door to call in the police-agents. But Robespierre turned round-- "No! Not yet!..." Lebas, pretending not to have heard, called out-- "Héron! Hér..." Robespierre threw himself on him, and pinning him to the wall, said breathlessly-- "Don't call, I tell you! Don't call!" Then lowering his voice he muttered in a dry whisper-- "Be quiet, man, I say! Be quiet! ... It is my son!" "Ah!" and Lebas looked at him in stupefied amazement. When he had sufficiently recovered from his surprise, he asked in a low voice-- "Why do you not tell him so?" Could Robespierre tell him? Tell the lad who loathed him! Would he believe him? Olivier would say it was false, or how could he hate him so? "Oh, no! I cannot tell him that I am his father!" he said sadly, sinking down exhausted on a chair. Lebas took his hand and pressed it sympathetically, deeply touched. "You are right!" he murmured. And turning to Olivier he said aloud-- "Then let us discover the prisoners without him!" Olivier understood that matters were becoming very serious. However, Robespierre looked discouraged. How was it possible to find the women, under their assumed names, in Vendée? But Lebas remarked that they might be in Paris. At this Olivier visibly trembled, which Lebas did not fail to notice. "Why," he continued--"why should he be so far from them?" The point of this remark struck Robespierre. "Yes, to be sure; you are right," he said, and interpreting Lebas's thoughts he bade him take a carriage and drive to each prison and interview every woman that had been arrested with a young girl. Lebas, who had already put on his hat, remarked that he did not think the night would suffice; there were so many women arrested with a daughter or a younger sister. And what if Olivier spoke the truth, and his mother had been inscribed on the prison-register under another name--her husband's, for instance? "Mauluçon," interrupted Robespierre, the name suddenly recurring to him.