On the evening to which we have alluded he went to the Palais Egalite as usual. It was after nightfall, and the restaurants were filled to overflowing with crowds of excited people glad to forget in the distractions of play, of speculation and of good cheer the woes of the country and their own degradation. Some were eagerly buying tickets that would entitle them to seats in the Theatre de la Republique, only a hundred paces distant; others were buying the daily papers. Some were promenading with that careless gayety that never deserts the French even in their darkest days, while they insolently eyed the shameless women, who, with bold gaze and naked shoulders, stood there endeavoring to attract the attention of the passers-by. Others rushed to the gambling saloons, already dreaming of the stroke of good fortune that would enlarge the rolls of assignats with which their pockets were filled. Some promenaders approached each other with mysterious proposals, and afterwards repaired to the garden where they could converse undisturbed. It was there that many confidential interviews were held, it was there that the most diverse hopes had birth; it was there that the Royalists, the friends and the relatives of the Emigres or of suspected persons incarcerated in prison plotted for the return of the Bourbons or for the deliverance of the poor wretches whose lives hung upon a thread. There, too, the spies in the employ of the Committee of Public Safety, or of the Commune, flitted about, trying to discover any secret that might be hostile to the Republic. Sometimes gloomy visaged men or women with pale and anxious looks were seen hurrying through the crowd; some man who had been vainly seeking bread for his children; some woman whose husband was in the Luxembourg or in the Abbaye prisons, awaiting the dread fiat of the Revolutionary Tribunal. These livid and despairing faces were the only blemishes upon the exuberant gayety that prevailed; but no one saw them and the poor wretches disappeared without exciting either anger or pity. The eyes of Coursegol were accustomed to this spectacle, so he walked coolly through the galleries heedless of the tumult around him and paused only when he met a group of acquaintances who were discussing the news of the day. Suddenly some one tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. "Is that you, Citizen Vauquelas?" "I wish to speak to you, Coursegol."