hurried down the street towards the Abbaye,
then he stopped to think--should he return there or make his way
to the Bicetre. He could not tell whether his friends had, like
the Duc de Gisons, been removed to the Abbaye. If they had been
so, it was clearly impossible for him to aid them in any way. They
might already have fallen. The crowd was too great for him to regain
the gallery, and even there could only witness, without power to
avert, their murder. Were they still at the Bicetre he might do
something. Perhaps the assassins had not yet arrived there.

It was now nine o'clock in the evening. The streets were almost
deserted. The respectable inhabitants all remained within their
houses, trembling at the horrors, of which reports had circulated
during the afternoon. At first there had been hopes that the Assembly
would take steps to put a stop to the massacre, but the Assembly
did nothing. Danton and the ministers were absent. The cannon's
roar and the tocsin sounded perpetually. There was no secret as to
what was going on. The Commune had the insolence to send commissioners
to the bar of the Assembly to state that the people wished to break
open the doors of the prisons, and this when two hundred priests
had already been butchered at the Carmelites.

A deputation indeed went to the Abbaye to try to persuade the murderers
to desist; but their voices were drowned in the tumultuous cries.
The Commune of Paris openly directed the massacre. Billaud-Varennes
went backwards and forwards to superintend the execution of his
orders, and promised the executioners twenty-four francs a day.
The receipt for the payment of this blood-money still exists.

On arriving in front of the Bicetre Harry found all was silent
there, and with a faint feeling of hope that the massacre would not
extend beyond the Abbaye, he again turned his steps in that direction.

The bloody work was still going on, and Harry wandered away into
the quiet streets to avoid hearing the shrieks of the victims and
the yells of the crowd. A sudden thought struck him, and he went
along until he saw a woman come out of a house. He ran up to her.

"Madam," he said, "I have the most urgent need of a bonnet and
shawl. Will you sell me those you have on? The shops are all shut,
or I would not trouble you. You have only to name your price, and
I will pay you."

The woman was surprised at this proposition, but seeing that a good
bargain was to be made she asked