Here I came forward, and said that, three days since, I had received an order to quit Strasburg for Paris immediately after a conversation with Schneider, in which I had asked him his aid in promoting my marriage with my cousin, Mary Ancel; that he had heard from me full accounts regarding her father’s wealth; and that he had abruptly caused my dismissal, in order to carry on his scheme against her. “You are in the uniform of a regiment of this town; who sent you from it?” said St. Just. I produced the order, signed by himself, and the despatches which Schneider had sent me. “The signature is mine, but the despatches did not come from my office. Can you prove in any way your conversation with Schneider?” “Why,” said my sentimental friend Gregoire, “for the matter of that, I can answer that the lad was always talking about this young woman: he told me the whole story himself, and many a good laugh I had with citizen Schneider as we talked about it.” “The charge against Edward Ancel must be examined into,” said St. Just. “The marriage cannot take place. But if I had ratified it, Mary Ancel, what then would have been your course?” Mary felt for a moment in her bosom, and said—“He would have died to-night—I would have stabbed him with this dagger.”[*] * This reply, and, indeed, the whole of the story, is historical. An account, by Charles Nodier, in the Revue de Paris, suggested it to the writer. The rain was beating down the streets, and yet they were thronged; all the world was hastening to the market-place, where the worthy Gregoire was about to perform some of the pleasant duties of his office. On this occasion, it was not death that he was to inflict; he was only to expose a criminal who was to be sent on afterwards to Paris. St. Just had ordered that Schneider should stand for six hours in the public place of Strasburg, and then be sent on to the capital to be dealt with as the authorities might think fit. The people followed with execrations the villain to his place of punishment; and Gregoire grinned as he fixed up to the post the man whose orders he had obeyed so often—who had delivered over to disgrace and punishment so many who merited it not.