Having finished her accounts, Charlotte closed her books, took out a portfolio of white paper, and prepared to write.

"I must seem very curious, my dear daughter," said Madam Desmarais, "but I am piqued about these sheets of paper which you fill with manuscript every night, and which will soon make a book."

"It is a surprise I am preparing for John upon his return, good mother."

"May he be able, for his sake and for ours, to enjoy the surprise soon! His last letter gave us at least the hope of seeing him any moment. He wrote in the same tenor to Monsieur Billaud-Varenne, who came to see us day before yesterday expecting to find your husband here."

"John awaited only the permission of his surgeon to set out on his way, for the results of his wound made great precautions imperative. Ah, mother! How proud I am to be his wife! With what joy and honor I will embrace him!"

"Alas, that pride costs dear. My fear is that our poor John will be crippled all his life. Ah, war, war," sighed Madam Desmarais, her eyes moistening with tears. "Poor Victoria—what a terrible end was hers!"

Madam Desmarais took the sheet which her daughter held out to her, and read upon it, traced in large characters, "To my child!"

"So!" began Madam Desmarais, much moved, "these pages you have been at work on so many days—"

"Are addressed, in thought, to my child. The babe will see the light during a terrible period. If it is a boy, I can not hold before him a better example than that of his own father; if it is a girl—" and Charlotte's voice changed slightly, "I shall offer her as a model that courageous woman whom chance gave me to know, to love, and to admire for a short while before her martyrdom."

"Lucile!" cried Madam Desmarais, shuddering at the recollection. "The unfortunate wife of Camille Desmoulins! Poor Lucile! So beautiful, so modest, so good—and a young mother, too! Nothing could soften the monsters who sat upon the revolutionary tribunal; they sent that innocent young woman of twenty to the scaffold!"

"Alas, the eve of her death, she sent to Madam Duplessis, her mother, this letter of two lines:

"The child protects the mother. So I address this writing to my child, to whom, perchance, I may owe my life. Camille Desmoulins, Danton, those illustrious men, those lofty patriots, were all sacrificed yesterday. My husband has equalled them in civic virtue, he may be judged and guillotined to-morrow. Sad outlook!"

"Ah, blood, always blood!" murmured Madam Desmarais, her heart sinking within her. "Good God, have pity on us."

"Good mother, let me read you a few lines from the memoirs I have written for my child on the events of our times:

"'You are born, dear child, in times without their like in the world. And when your reason is sufficiently grown, you will read these pages written by me under the eyes of a loving mother, while your father was gone to fight for the independence of our country, and for the safety of the Revolution and the Republic.

"'Perhaps some day you will hear curses and calumnies leveled at this heroic epoch in which you were born. Perhaps for a day, but for a day only, you will see walk again the phantoms of the Church of Rome and of royalty.

"'Christ, the proletarian of Nazareth said, The chains of the slaves will be broken; all men shall be united in one fraternal equality; the poor, the widows and the orphans shall be succored.

"'And now the time has arrived.

"True, true, my daughter," assented Madam Desmarais, "the Republic did in one day what the Church had for centuries refused to do. It was the place of the Church at least to set the example in freeing the slaves, the serfs and the vassals who belonged to it before the Revolution. May it be accursed for its failure to do so."

"You recognize, then, dear mother, that in these troublous times the good still outdistances the bad;" and Charlotte resumed her reading:

"'Church and royalty purposely kept the people in profound ignorance, in order to render them more docile to exploitation. On the other hand, behold what the Republic decreed, on the 8th Nivose, year II (December 28, 1793):

"'This it followed up by two other decrees, the first under date of the 28th Nivose, year II (January 17, 1794):

"These are, as you say, my daughter, great and useful things."

Charlotte continued reading:

"'The National Convention, upon a report of the Committee of Public Safety, adopted also this resolution:

"'These decrees prove that the Republic, in its commiseration for the unfortunate, consecrates to them a sort of religious care; not only does it relieve the miseries of the people, but it honors their misfortune. It is not a degrading alms which it throws them, it is the debt of the country which it seeks to pay off to the aged who have used up their lives in toil upon the land or in trades. This debt the Republic also pays off to the poor widows who can not undertake the care of their young family. The aged, the child, and the woman, are the constant objects of the solicitude of the Republic.'"

"My husband has come!"

"Madam—that is to say—but pray, madam, in your condition do not agitate yourself too greatly—" replied Gertrude. "Monsieur John is, indeed, come, if you please—but—"

Charlotte and her mother were both about to rush to meet their returning soldier when he appeared on the threshold, supported on Castillon's arm. The two men were dressed in the uniform of the volunteers of the Republic. John embraced his wife and her mother rapturously, and wiped from his eyes the happy tears which his wife's approaching motherhood caused him. Then seeing that Castillon stood aside, with tears in his eyes also, John said:

"A hug for Castillon, too. In this campaign he has been to me not a comrade, but a brother."

"I knew it by your letters," replied Charlotte, as she warmly embraced the foreman.

"You will sup with us, Citizen Castillon—you would not leave us to celebrate my husband's return alone?"

"You are very kind, Citizeness Lebrenn. I accept your offer gratefully—my day will then be complete," answered the foreman. "I shall just run out and say good-day to my comrades in the shop. But do not forget—friend John must be kept from walking, if he is not to remain a cripple." And Castillon stepped out of the room.

Several hours later John and his wife were sitting together, still drinking in the delicious raptures which follow long separations. Day was nearly done.

"When I left you," John was saying, "you were the dearest and best of wives. I return to find you the noblest of mothers. Words fail me to express how moved I am by the sentiment which dictated to you that address to our child which you have just read me. I, too, am affrighted, not for the future but for the present, for the present generation. The most upright spirits seem now to be stricken with a sort of mad vertigo; and still the republican arms are everywhere victorious, everywhere the oppressed peoples stretch out their hands to us. The Terror has become a fatal necessity. The Convention, having restored the public credit and assured the livelihood of the people, continues daily to issue decrees as generous and lofty in sentiment and as practical in operation as those you have embodied in your pages to our child. The national wealth still opens to the country enormous financial resources. The people, calm and steady, has cast the slough, so to speak, of its effervescence and political inexperience. It now shows itself full of respect for the law, and for the Convention, in which it sees the incarnation of its own sovereignty. And yet, it is at this supreme moment that the best patriots are decimating, mowing one another down, with blind fury. Anacharsis Clootz, Herault of Sechelles, Camille Desmoulins, Danton, and many others, the best and most illustrious citizens, are sent to the scaffold."

Charlotte and her husband turned quickly around, to see Billaud-Varenne standing in the open doorway. For some moments he had been a party to Lebrenn's confidences; an indiscretion almost involuntary on Billaud's part, for the young couple, absorbed in their conversation, had not noticed his entrance. Now stepping forward, he said to Charlotte:

"Be so good as to excuse me, madam, for having listened. Your door was open, and that circumstance should mitigate my 'spying'." Then with a friendly gesture preventing John's rising from the reclining chair where he half sat, half lay, Billaud-Varenne added, as he affectionately pressed the hand of Charlotte's husband: "Do not move, my dear invalid. You have won the right to remain on your stretcher. Your worthy wife must have written to you what interest I took in all that concerned you since your departure for the army."

"My wife has often given me intimation of your affectionate remembrance, my dear Billaud; and further, I know it is through your intervention that Citizen Hubert, my mother-in-law's brother, has been mercifully forgotten in the prison of Carmes, where he has long been held as a suspect. Thanks to you, his life is no longer in danger."

It was forty-five days after the visit of Billaud-Varenne to John Lebrenn; that is to say, it was the 8th Thermidor of the year II (July 26, 1794). Alone in his parlor, towards eight o'clock in the evening, advocate Desmarais now paced up and down in agitation, now sank pensively into a chair, his face between his hands. The anguish and terror which for two years had dogged the hypocrite's steps had completely whitened his hair. His sallow, atrabilious features disclosed the tortures of his soul. Throwing himself into the arm-chair, worn out, he muttered to himself:

After this outburst the lawyer remained for a long time silent and dejected. Then, rising of a sudden, he shouted: "That infamous Lebrenn! It is he who is the cause of my woes. He came to bring trouble under my roof."

The advocate's soliloquy was cut short by the entrance of a lackey, who announced that several citizens desired audience with him.

"Show them in," answered the lawyer; and as the servant vanished he added, mentally: "The devil take Fouché, who conceived the idea of choosing my house for the meeting place of his friends—a perilous honor I wish I had the power of declining."

Soon there were introduced into the parlor the Convention members Tallien, Durand-Maillane, and Fouché; the reverend Father Morlet accompanied them. The three Representatives of the people belonged to the bloc formed against Robespierre. Durand-Maillane was a member of the Right, or royalist side of the Assembly. Tallien was from the Mountain; while Fouché, an ex-monk of the Oratory, was a Terrorist. A more ignoble physiognomy than Fouché's it would be impossible to imagine. It was a hang-dog face, hedged about with tow-hair, and seamed with vice, treachery, dishonesty, baseness, and cruelty unrestrained. A cynical smirk raised one corner of his thin mouth. He was the first to enter the advocate's parlor. Leading up the Jesuit Morlet, he said:

"Allow me, citizen colleague, to introduce to you a former priest, the reverend Father Morlet. He is of the Society of Jesus, as I was of the Order of the Oratory. Cassock and frock go together."

"The reverend is one of us," answered Fouché. "He comes from London, and will give us information of the greatest importance. His head answers for his discretion; he is a dissident priest. And so, let us get to work."

Fouché, Durand-Maillane, Tallien, Abbot Morlet and advocate Desmarais thereupon seated themselves about a round table. Desmarais was made chairman, and the conference began.

"I ask the floor," said Durand-Maillane, "to state the question, and to establish the conditions upon which as spokesman of the leaders of the Right, I am empowered to pledge here the assistance of my political friends, royalists, clericals, and conservatives."

"You have the floor," said the chairman.

Durand-Maillane continued:

Durand-Maillane drew a paper from his pocket and read:

"'The counter-revolution has made its appearance in all parties. The conspirators have pushed us, in spite of ourselves, to violent measures, which their crimes alone rendered necessary. This system is the work of the foreigners, who proposed it through the venal medium of Chabot, Lhuilier, Hebert, and a number of other scoundrels. Every effort must be made to restore the Republic to a natural and mild rule; this work has not yet commenced. Slacken the reins of the Revolution for a moment, and you will see military despotism seize upon it, and overturn the maligned national representation; a century of civil wars and calamities will desolate our country, and we would die for not having seized the moment marked by history for the founding of liberty. Aye, we would deliver up our country to calamities without number, and the people's maledictions will fall upon our memory, which should remain dear to the human race....

"I declare my approval of all the previous speaker has said," observed Morlet the Jesuit. "Robespierre is the enemy not only of us Catholics and royalists, but also of the Terrorists and Mountainists here present, and of several of their friends, who insist upon living in splendor, peace and happiness at the popular expense."

"Robespierre to-morrow will attempt to hold a 'day,' with the support of Commandant Henriot and the Commune. His designs must be frustrated," added Tallien.

"The surest way of reaching our end," Fouché advised, "is to drown St. Just's voice when he mounts the tribunal to complete the speech of Robespierre. He will want to speak in defense of his partner. Our cries will redouble: 'Down with the tyrant!' 'Down with the dictator!' 'Death to St. Just and Robespierre!'"

"It is decided, then," asked Durand-Maillane, "that from the beginning of the session we are to interrupt St. Just and Robespierre, and demand of the Assembly their immediate arrest? Who will start the ball?"

"I will," volunteered Tallien.

"It is probable," continued the Jesuit, "that the Convention will not confine itself to packing to the guillotine Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, Lebas, and the other leaders of this truculent party of virtue. It may add to the batch several of the most rabid Jacobins from outside of the Convention."

"We shall rid ourselves at once of the big guns of the club, and the Jacobins in the Commune, Fleuriot-Lescot the Mayor, Coffinhal, and their consorts," chuckled Tallien.

"I greatly desire," the Jesuit put in, "for motives of my own, to see included in that batch a certain John Lebrenn, who has been made member of the General Council of the Commune since his return from the army."

At the mention of the name Fouché turned to Desmarais and said, with a leer, "Hey, colleague, the reverend Father demands your son-in-law!"

To which Desmarais grandiosely replied: "Brutus gave his own son—and this Lebrenn is not even of my family. I grant you the Jacobin's head."

"To-morrow, messieurs, let us be present at the Assembly before the opening of the session, in order to prepare our colleagues of the Right and the Center for what we expect of them," suggested Durand-Maillane.

"Fouché and I," acquiesced Tallien, "will take care of the Mountain and the Terrorists."

So it was arranged. The cabal then broke up, while Jesuit Morlet said to himself:

During this mental invocation of the Jesuit's, Desmarais showed his four guests to the door and returned to his parlor alone. For some time he brooded somber and silent in his arm chair. At last he muttered defiantly:

Why follow the debate into all its bitterness and spite; why tell how again and again the plotters against the Republic raised their cries of "Down with the tyrant! Death to St. Just and Robespierre!"? Suffice it to say that the day ended in decrees of accusation against the Robespierres, elder and younger, St. Just, Lebas, and Couthon. An officer of the gendarmery was commissioned by the president to lead the accused to prison.

At five o'clock that afternoon, the 9th Thermidor, Madam Desmarais and her daughter, seated side by side in their parlor, pricked their ears at hearing the sound of the drum, mingled from time to time with the hurried and distant clanging of the tocsin.

"My God!" exclaimed Madam Desmarais, grief-stricken, "Again a 'day'—again a bloody struggle!"

"Reassure yourself, good mother; the wicked shall not triumph," Charlotte replied. "Robespierre is put under ban of arrest, but the Jacobins and the Sections will go to his rescue. The Commune has declared the country in danger, the tocsin calls the people to arms."

"Alas, I fear for your husband. He is at the City Hall as a member of the General Council. The Commune is in insurrection against the Convention; if the Commune loses, John will have become an outlaw."

Suddenly Castillon entered the parlor, crying: "Good news! The Sections are taking arms and assembling to march to the Commune, with their cannon; the Jacobins have declared themselves in permanent session. Robespierre has been taken to the Luxembourg Prison; his brother to St. Lazare; St. Just to the Scotch Prison; Couthon to La Bourbe; and Lebas to the Chatelet. As I left the City Hall they were discussing the means of rescuing them."

"You see, mother, the Sections are in the majority, with the Commune."

"Ah, madam, madam!" cried Gertrude, running in in a fright. "Don't be too alarmed—Oh, heavens, there he is!"

Hardly had Gertrude uttered these words when advocate Desmarais, pale, half frightened to death, tumbled into the room, crying: "Save me! In heaven's name!"

And running to his wife and daughter, whom he pressed in his arms, he continued wailing, "Hide me! They are after me!"

"Fright has unbalanced you, father," said Charlotte. "No one is pursuing you."

Madam Desmarais had hurriedly found a bottle of smelling salts, which she held to the nose of her half-fainting spouse. He recovered his senses, and began again, in a quaking voice: "Thank you. You are generous. Now, I beseech you both, conceal me somewhere. Charlotte's husband may come back and be accompanied by some member of the General Council. I shall be recognized—arrested—guillotined. Pity me!"

At that moment Gertrude, opening a crack of the door, called mysteriously to her mistress:

"Madam, come at once!"

"What is it, Gertrude?" Charlotte asked. "Who is there?"

"A man of the mounted police demands to speak with you."

Hearing the nature of the visitor, Monsieur Desmarais flew into a new fit of fear. His mind gave way. He ran to a window and sought to hide by wrapping himself up in the curtains. Charlotte left the room, closing the door behind her. In a second she was back, joyfully waving a paper she held in her hand. "It is good news, mother. Where's father?"

Madam Desmarais indicated with a gesture the window, the curtains of which revealed the figure of the attorney, and left his feet exposed at the bottom. Then she added, in a low voice: "If we do not hide your father somehow, he will die of agony and fright."

"His fright is baseless, but I think you are right about it," responded Charlotte in the same tone. "We can take him up to the garret, to the locked room; there he will no doubt feel that he is safe, and his fears will calm down." And she went to the window where her father, white as a sheet and bathed in a cold sweat, was clinging for support to the window casing.

"That gendarme!" stammered the lawyer. "What did he want?"

"If the suburbs march with the Commune, the Convention is lost!" murmured the lawyer. "Conduct me to the hiding place you spoke of. You shall lock me in, you will keep the key about you, you will not give the key to anyone, not even to your husband—you promise me?"

"I swear it;" and forcing a smile, the young woman added: "I alone shall be your jailer. Come, come."

Charlotte at that moment returned, bearing the walnut casket in which reposed the legends and relics of the Lebrenn family. Madam Desmarais, running to her daughter quickly, said, in a tone of reproach, as she helped her set the casket down on a table, "Could you not have called Gertrude, instead of yourself carrying such a burden?"

"Have you asked Castillon to come here, good mother? I wish to set him to a task."

"I forgot your request, my girl. I shall at once repair the forgetfulness, and go seek your foreman. But before all, tell me, why you have brought this box in here?"

"I wish to place it in a safe and secret place, with Castillon's aid, dear mother. You know what store John and I set by the papers and objects contained in it. In these times of revolution, one must think of everything. John will be grateful to me for the precaution." So saying, she rang the bell.

Castillon entered. The foreman seemed preoccupied. He had slung on his cartridge box, his sword, and his volunteer's rifle.

"Put this chest on your shoulder and follow me, brave Castillon," said Charlotte. "I shall soon be back, dear mother. Hope and courage, all will go well! The Commune will triumph over the Convention."

Ten o'clock at night of that same day found the General Council of the Insurrectionary Commune of Paris still in session in that chamber of the City Hall called the Equality Chamber. The open windows gave on the square choked with citizens. Their bayonets and pike-heads glittered in the light of numerous torches; several cannon had been dragged up by the Sections, and from time to time one might hear cries of "Long live the Republic!" "Long live the Commune!" Within, torches lighted the vast expanse of the Equality Chamber, and the table about which sat, under the presidency of Fleuriot-Lescot the Mayor of Paris, the members of the Council of the Commune.

"Here is the proclamation," said the Mayor, preparing to read, "which is about to be placarded on the streets of Paris:

As the Mayor's proclamation was declared adopted by the session, John Lebrenn, who had approached one of the windows, remarked that not only had the number of armed Section representatives in the square diminished, but that the place was almost deserted. Soon the whole City Hall Place, with the exception of a group here and there, lay silent and empty. John had barely returned to his seat at the table when the doors were flung open with a crash by the press of people who sought to enter. They carried in Robespierre the elder, Robespierre the younger, Lebas, St. Just and Couthon, borne aloft in chairs. At the sight of the liberated Representatives of the people, surrounded by their Jacobin friends, the members of the Council rose spontaneously with cries of "Long live the Republic!" Gradually the tumult died down, and the Mayor of Paris began to speak:

"Citizens—from this moment the functions of the General Council of the Commune should undergo a change. I move that it be transformed into a committee of action, and that the presidency of it be conferred upon Maximilien Robespierre. The Revolution now commences!"

Robespierre responded in the following words:

On the instant there rushed into the hall General Henriot, pale, excited, his clothing in disorder. "All is lost!" he cried.

In the early morning of the 10th Thermidor, Charlotte Lebrenn and Madam Desmarais, pale from a night of sleeplessness, silent, worried, listened anxiously at their garden windows, which had been left open through the beautiful, balmy July night. From their nests in the trees the birds greeted with their chirping the first glow of the sun, which lighted up the eastern azure. Nature was smiling, with repose and calm in every lineament.

"Not a sound, absolutely nothing!" said Madam Desmarais, the first to break the silence. "It is more than an hour since the tocsin ceased clanging."

"If that is so, mother, have courage! If the tocsin has ceased, the Commune is worsted. The Convention triumphs," replied the younger woman in a tense voice. Then, unable to withstand the emotion which seized her, Charlotte burst into tears, raised her hands heavenward, and cried, "Just God, spare my husband!"

At this moment Gertrude entered and said to her mistress: "Madam, there is a citizen in the ante-chamber who says he is sent by your husband to bring you news of him."

No sooner had she spoken than Jesuit Morlet appeared in the room. His hypocritical countenance at once caused Charlotte a revulsion of feeling; but immediately reproaching herself for what was perhaps an involuntary injustice to the man, she came a few steps toward the Jesuit, saying: "Citizen, you come from my husband?"

"Aye, citizeness; to reassure you, and inform you that he is in a safe place."

"You hear, my poor child," cried Madam Desmarais, weeping with joy as she embraced her daughter. "He is out of danger."

"Can you, citizen, conduct me at once to where my husband is?"

For a moment Charlotte's tears flowed in silence. Reassured as to her husband, she wept for the first five victims of the 9th Thermidor, those illustrious and virtuous citizens.

"My eternal thanks are yours," she at length replied; and added: "Take me to my husband, I implore you. I long to see him."

"To do as you request, citizeness, would be to commit a great imprudence. Perhaps its only result would be to put the police on his track. As to the gratitude you believe you owe me, let us speak no more of it. Between patriots there should be mutual aid and protection; in concealing John from the searches of our enemies I did my duty, nothing more. But time is fleeting, and I must get to the end of the errand your husband sent me on: It is that you give me a certain casket, containing, he told me, some precious legends which it is of importance to carry away from here, lest they fall into the hands of our enemies; the latter will not delay descending with a search party upon your house."

"My husband has already given me his advice on that subject," answered Charlotte. "Foreseeing that in the struggle against the Convention the Commune might be worsted, my husband arrested, and the house searched, I already have had the casket carried to the home of one of our friends." A slight spasm of anger contracted the brows of the Jesuit; the young woman caught the expression, and the thought flashed over her mind: "Careful! This man may be a false friend!"

The Jesuit's god-son—who else but he?—respectfully greeted Charlotte, at the same moment that the latter whispered to her mother: "My anxiety for John is still lively, despite this man's reassurances. Something tells me he is deceiving us."

"Gentle god-father," Rodin was whispering to the Jesuit, "I just saw John Lebrenn hurry down a street at the end of Anjou Street, and turn in this direction."

"The devil!" thought the Jesuit to himself, "our man will land at home sooner than I counted on. I shall have to double my audacity; nothing is lost as yet." And then, sotto voice to his pupil, "Are the police agents placed, and in sufficient number?"

"They are watching all around the building—I counted twenty. John Lebrenn will be caught like a mouse in a trap, Ad majorem Dei gloriam!"

"While the house is being searched from cellar to garret, follow you the agents, and try to put your hand on that casket you know of."

"Mother," whispered Charlotte, on her part, "they are plotting some treachery." Then, suddenly dashing toward the door, which just then opened, she cried,

"Husband!"

"He professed to be sent by you, my friend. He demanded in your name the chest with the family legends."

"Ah, my reverend! The Society of Jesus never lets the scent of those it seeks to run down grow cold!" cried John. "Wretched, infamous spy—hence!"

"Not before you," replied the reverend with a bow and a smirk, indicating to John the commissioner of the Section, newly appointed by the Convention, who appeared in the door, accompanied by several of his agents.

"Search, the house from top to bottom," ordered the magistrate; and to Lebrenn: "Citizen, here is a warrant of arrest issued against you. I am further ordered to seal your papers and carry them to the office of the revolutionary tribunal."

Lebrenn read the warrant and replied to the magistrate, "I am ready to follow you, citizen."

"I must first place the seals, in your presence, upon all your furniture, and especially on your papers."

"Citizen, in the name of the law, I denounce a plot of which I am victim. Since yesterday I have been sequestered in this house."

While the advocate was speaking to the officer, Charlotte had given her surprised husband in a few words the history of the pretended sequestration, and added, "Now, my friend, for your own dignity, and out of regard for my mother and myself, maintain the silence of contempt. The wretched man is still my father."

"Dear wife, now, and in your presence, I shall keep silence. But later—I shall speak," answered Lebrenn, yielding to Charlotte's plea; then, recollecting, he suddenly asked, softly, "And the casket?"

"It is safe. Yesterday I thought of burying it, with Castillon's aid, in the cellar; but he suggested taking it to the house of one of his friends, a workman like himself, in the St. Antoine suburb. This latter course I adopted."

"You did wisely. This Jesuit's presence here proves to me that the Society of Jesus, which has so many a time and oft already sought the destruction of our family legends, will leave no stone unturned to ferret them out."

John's words were interrupted by an exclamation from Madam Desmarais. "Brother!" she cried as she ran toward the financier, who had just entered the room precipitately, "Hubert! You here! You are free!"

Eight months after the events of Thermidor just described, I, John Lebrenn, write this chapter of the story of the Sword of Honor, on the 26th Germinal, year III of the Republic (April 15, 1795).

This business afforded my wife and mother-in-law an occupation in line with their tastes and aptitudes. For my part I was able, although still very lame, to drive about in a carriage to the various markets and out into the country, to dispose of our cloth. Everything gave me to hope that my obscure name was forgotten in the hurly-burly of the Thermidorean reaction.

A short time after the arrival here of my cherished wife, we made a pilgrimage to the sacred stones of Karnak; we found them as they had lain for so many centuries. You will undertake that same pilgrimage for yourself when you have attained the age of reason, my son Marik, you to whom I bequeath this legend of the Sword of Honor, which I add to the relics of my family.

I conclude my recital of the events of the bourgeois revolution of 1789 with a few words on the last moments of the martyrs of the 9th Thermidor, the words of a hostile eye witness. What could be more touching than his account: