Saint Michael's Gold

Last days in Paris are always eventful, but mine were to be
more eventful than most. I knew it when I wakened, at a late
hour, and found the curt note from Laurent Basse telling of
my denunciation. "See Robespierre at once and block an
arrest," he wrote. "Meet me at five this afternoon at the
Bonnet Rouge."

A glance at the clock and I was out of bed, cursing my heavy
slumber. However, there was some excuse for my eight hours
of exhausted sleep, the first in two days, and I had the
satisfaction of knowing that three more women owed their
lives to me.

I had been too long under the shadow of denunciation to
worry over possible arrest. Ever since we voted against the
king's death, Paine and the rest of us had been in the same
boat.

I hurried. I had to eat, shave and dress, then stuff my few
belongings into my pockets and settle
up my bill for lodgings, since there would be no
return here. All this behind me, I hastened out to
the street. The Rue du Bac showed its usual crawling line of
hackney coaches, and I beckoned one. It was past noon of
Monday, the twentieth of May -- a day I was to remember for
its furious happenings.

The morrow would be exactly four months since Louis XVI lost
his head, in January of this year,1793.

From somewhere came darting a street gamin. He flung a
sharp cry at me and in passing thrusta folded newspaper into
my hand; then he ran on without waiting for his money. I
pocketed the paper impatiently as the hackney drew up.

"To the Tuileries -- the convention hall," I said.The driver
shrugged amiably.

"It will cost you five hundred francs, citizen!"

"I'll give you six hundred for speed."

"Bah!" he rejoined, with a laugh and a flourish of his whip.
"Why worry over speed, citizen, when to-morrow may see you
dead?"