"The new decree?
What?
You may denounce whom you please, search whom you please, arrest whom you please, and send whom you please to the Supreme Tribunal without giving them the slightest chance of escape." "Is it in order to tell me all this that you have come to see me at this hour of the night ?" queried Heron with a sneer.
"No; I came at this hour of the night because I surmised that in the future you and your hell-hounds would be so busy all day 'beating up game for the guillotine' that the only time you would have at the disposal of your friends would be the late hours of the night.

I saw you at the theatre a couple of hours ago, friend Heron; I didn't think to find you yet abed." "Well, what do you want ?" "Rather," retorted de Batz blandly, "shall we say, what do YOU want, citizen Heron ?" "For what?
"For my continued immunity at the hands of yourself and your pack ?" Heron pushed his chair brusquely aside and strode across the narrow room deliberately facing the portly figure of de Batz, who with head slightly inclined on one side, his small eyes narrowed till they appeared mere slits in his pockmarked face, was steadily and quite placidly contemplating this inhuman monster who had this very day been given uncontrolled power over hundreds of thousands of human lives.
Heron was one of those tall men who look mean in spite of their height.
His head was small and narrow, and his hair, which was sparse and lank, fell in untidy strands across his forehead.

He stooped slightly from the neck, and his chest, though wide, was hollow between the shoulders.

But his legs were big and bony, slightly bent at the knees, like those of an ill-conditioned horse.
The face was thin and the cheeks sunken; the eyes, very large and prominent, had a look in them of cold and ferocious cruelty, a look which contrasted strangely with the weakness and petty greed apparent in the mouth, which was flabby, with full, very red lips, and chin that sloped away to the long thin neck.
Even at this moment as he gazed on de Batz the greed and the cruelty in him were fighting one of those battles the issue of which is always uncertain in men of his stamp.
"I don't know," he said slowly, "that I am prepared to treat with you any longer.

You are an intolerable bit of vermin that has annoyed the Committee of General Security for over two years now.