My orders were, after delivering the horse at its destination, to return on foot, calling on my way at the hay merchant's with an order.
This I duly performed; and was hastening back by way of the Rue Saint Honore, when two muskets were suddenly crossed in front of me, and a harsh voice said,-- "Regnier, you are arrested by order of the Committee of Public Safety." "On what charge ?" faltered I.
"On the accusation of the Citoyenne Souchard, who denounces you as the friend of royalism and of the miscreant Bailly." "I am no friend of either," I exclaimed.

"I do not--" "Silence! march!" said the soldier.
Resistance was hopeless, escape impossible.

In a daze I marched on, pointed at and hooted at by the passers-by, amid cries of,-- "_A bas les mouchards! Mort aux aristocrates_!" [Saint Patrick! that I should be taken for an aristocrat.] "_Vive la guillotine_!" I cared not what became of me now, but when presently my conductors actually turned towards the Island of the City, and I caught sight of the high roofs of the houses on the Quai Necker, a wild hope of seeing my little mistress once more took hold of me.

Alas! it was but for a moment.

The cold muzzle of the soldier's gun recalled me to myself.
I longed to know if the accuser, who seemed to know my name and all my movements, had joined the names of the ladies in my denunciation.