The aristocrats assembled of an evening in a common room which was always called the salon, powdered and dressed in the fashion, saluted one another by the titles which they had ceased to own, and disputed precedence as at Versailles. Visits were paid and returned, and never was a fool's paradise so scrupulously ordered. It was admirable in its way; the old order would die by rule. The prisoners were fortunate in their concierge, Benoît. A veteran of seventy, gentle and genial, with a heart as fine as the manners of his royalist prisoners, he smoothed all paths, and ushered in a new-comer to a lodging of four bare walls and a naked floor with an apology that transformed it into a royal boudoir. He seemed to know all his guests as they arrived, and placed them where he thought they would find the easiest entertainment and the most congenial company. He played the part of master of ceremonies, and put each guest into his proper niche. In Benoît's hands, the marquis who had arrived without his valet found himself handling the broom, fetching water, and taking his turn at the spit, as if the custom of a lifetime had used him to those offices. It was Benoît who learned at once what money a prisoner had brought in with him, and who saved the needy suspect the humiliation of begging his meals, by a whisper in the ear of a good-natured noble. By-and-bye, the suspects had the gratification of knowing that their perils, present and to come, were shared by the enemy himself. There arrived as a prisoner one evening a president of the revolutionary tribunal. It was one Kalmer, a German Jew, and reputed millionaire (he had an income of about £8000), who had been active in filling the chamber-cells of the Luxembourg. He presented himself in sabots and a costume of the shabbiest simplicity, and his reception was of the coolest. He displayed from the first a voracious appetite, and every day an ass laden with provisions was brought for him to the palace door. The ex-president seemed well disposed to end his days eating and drinking in the Luxembourg, and was not a little shocked on receiving the news that he had been sentenced to death, "for conspiring secretly with the enemy abroad." He went to the guillotine without a benediction. Came next the much more notable Chaumette, ex-sailor, ex-priest, and recently Procureur of the Commune, in which capacity he had been foremost in demanding and promoting the Law of the Suspects. He was as chapfallen as a wolf in a snare, but he did not escape the mordant jests of the company. It was Chaumette who had declared in the Chamber that "you might almost recognise a suspect by the look of him." He himself was recognised on the instant.