She then seated herself at the table and began to write, while Thérèse was making a tour round the room, taking a survey of the furniture. Suddenly catching sight of an illustrated paper on a sofa, she took it up to pass the time away. It was five weeks old, and had been preserved no doubt on account of the illustrations. Its pages gave an elaborate account of the Fête of the Supreme Being of which she had heard Olivier speak, and against which he had so vehemently protested during his visit to the prison of La Bourbe. It had taken place, then? She became interested and commenced reading to herself in a low voice: "_Description of the Procession.--Fireworks at the Fountain of the Tuileries.--Typical Groups.--Arrest of a Chouan.--Popular Indignation!_" "I saw that myself," interrupted Urbain. Thérèse turned to the servant, who was now dusting the mantelpiece, and asked him why the man had been arrested. "Why? Because he cried: 'Down with the scaffold!'" The words struck Clarisse, who looked up from her writing. Only the day before the _fête_ Olivier had reproached the French for not daring to throw that cry in the teeth of the Government of Terror. Thérèse, seeing her aunt look up from her writing, was struck with the same coincidence, and both, almost in the same breath, questioned the domestic, who said that, as far as he could remember, the young man appeared to be about twenty. He had been arrested at once to save him from the crowd, who would otherwise have torn him to pieces. "His name? his name?" they both gasped. That Urbain could not tell them. Clarisse rose, mastering her emotion, and with all a mother's solicitude set herself to reassure Thérèse. Yes, they both had the same thought, hadn't they? She also was thinking of Olivier, but it could not be he. He would have written to them. Why, it was six weeks ago, and his visit to the prison would have been remembered! They would have been involved, but they had, on the contrary, been in no way made to feel it, and had been treated with every consideration. "That is true," answered Thérèse, glad enough to be convinced. Clarisse took the paper gently from her hands, saying, "Instead of reading all this awful news, which inflames your imagination, go, dear, and arrange our room a little." And she added in half a reproachful tone: "You have not even looked at it, yet!" Then gently pushing her into the room, she shut the door sharply behind her. A terrible fear had taken possession of Clarisse. Why in his letter to her had Robespierre sedulously avoided mentioning Olivier's whereabouts? Turning to Urbain, she addressed him in a hoarse voice: "You say you saw this young fellow?" The good man evinced surprise at her strange recurrence to the subject. "I had the honour to tell you so just now, _citoyenne_."