panied the magistrate a calmness of mind which was barely
disturbed when the door of the Conciergerie closed on him. Alone in his
cell, he climbed upon the table to look out. His tranquillity was due to
his weariness of spirit, to his numbed senses, and to the fact that he
no longer stood in fear of arrest. His misfortune endowed him with
superior wisdom. He felt he had fallen into a state of grace. He did not
think too highly or too humbly of himself, but left his cause in the
hands of God. With no desire to cover up his faults, which he would not
hide even from himself, he addressed himself in mind to Providence, to
point out that if he had fallen into disorder and rebellion it was to
lead his erring angel back into the straight path. He stretched himself
on the couch and slept in peace.

On hearing of the arrest of a music-hall singer and of a young man of
fashion, both Paris and the provinces felt painful surprise. Deeply
stirred by the tragic accounts which the leading newspapers were
bringing out, the general idea was that the sort of people the
authorities ought to bring to justice were ferocious anarchists, all
reeking and dripping from deeds of blood and arson; but they failed to
understand what the world of Art and Fashion should have to do with such
things. At this news, which he was one of the last to hear, the
President of the Council and Keeper of the Seals started up in his
chair. The Sphinxes that adorned it were less terrible than he, and in
the throes of his angry meditation he cut the mahogany of his imperial
table with his penknife, after the manner of Napoleon. And when Judge
Salneuve, whose attendance he had commanded, appeared before him, the
President flung his penknife in the grate, as Louis XIV flung his cane
out of the window in the presence of Lauzun; and it cost him a supreme
effort to master himself and to say in a voice of suppressed fury:

"Are you mad? Surely I said often enough that I meant the plot to be
anarchist, anti-social, fundamentally anti-social and anti-governmental,
with a shade of syndicalism. I have made it clear enough that I wanted
it kept within these lines; and what do you go and make of it?... The
vengeance of anarchists and aspirants to freedom? Whom do you arrest? A
singer adored of the nationalist public, and the son of a man highly
esteemed in the Catholic party, who receives our bishops and has the
_entree_ to the Vatican; a man who may be one day sent as ambassad