In the midst of the hall are the bureau and chair of the president,--the chair long preserved by the piety of the monks as the relic of St.Thomas Aquinas! Above this seat scowls the harsh bust of Brutus.

An iron lamp and two branches scatter over the vast room a murky, fuliginous ray, beneath the light of which the fierce faces of that Pandemonium seem more grim and haggard.

There, from the orator's tribune, shrieks the shrill wrath of Robespierre! Meanwhile all is chaos, disorder, half daring and half cowardice, in the Committee of his foes.

Rumours fly from street to street, from haunt to haunt, from house to house.

The swallows flit low, and the cattle group together before the storm.