"Take these to my mother, please!" Poor Gomin gathered them up and carried them from the room without a word. And Louis Charles smiled to himself all that day, thinking of the pleasure he had given his mother. Who shall say that Marie Antoinette, looking down on her little son from that other world, did not smile too, and bless him in her heart! So the months passed, till one night in January, 1795, as Jean was preparing to go home for his weekly visit to the Rue de Lille, Caron laid his hand on the boy's arm. "Don't go home to-night,--at least not till later!" he whispered. "Why not?" demanded Jean wonderingly. "_Because the time has come!_" answered Caron, enigmatically. But Jean understood, and waited in breathless expectation. Later the two passed into the deserted streets about the Temple. Caron stopped suddenly in the shadow of a high wall, and grasped Jean's arm. "Are you truly devoted to _him_?" he asked in an undertone pointing to the Tower. "I am!" responded the boy quietly, in a simple but convincing manner. "So much so that you are willing to risk life, liberty, everything, in his cause?" "Yes!" "Then come with me!" And Caron led the way through many winding, half-deserted streets, till at length they stood before a little tumble-down hovel in a black, unsightly alley. Caron knocked on the door with three peculiar taps, two loud and one soft. The door was opened a moment later by an unseen hand, and someone demanded: "The password!" "_Marie Antoinette!_" whispered Caron. The voice replied: "_And Louis XVII!_ Enter and be silent!" Jean was mystified beyond expression, but in his young enthusiasm he was eager for adventure of any kind, and one that related to his dearest hopes was all the more alluring. He entered with Caron, his heart beating high. In utter darkness they passed through rooms apparently empty, guided always by the unseen owner of the voice. Then they descended a stairway, and stood in what Jean took to be the cellar. Here the guide lighted a taper and bent to examine the floor. By the uncertain light, Jean perceived only that it was a man, and that his face was hidden by a black mask covering eyes, nose and mouth. Presently he found an iron ring, lifted it, thereby pulling up a large stone, and disclosed another staircase reaching far down beyond the range of light. "Do not fear!" whispered Caron.