dard which he had always found good enough for
himself. In this man there was neither the enthusiastic patriotism of
a Chauvelin, nor the ardent selflessness of a Danton. He served the
revolution and fostered the anarchical spirit of the times only because
these brought him a competence and a notoriety, which an orderly and
fastidious government would obviously have never offered him.

History shows no more despicable personality than that of Collot
d'Herbois, one of the most hideous products of that utopian Revolution,
whose grandly conceived theories of a universal levelling of mankind
only succeeded in dragging into prominence a number of half-brutish
creatures who, revelling in their own abasement, would otherwise have
remained content in inglorious obscurity.

Chauvelin tolerated and half feared Collot, knowing full well that if
now the Scarlet Pimpernel escaped from his hands, he could expect no
mercy from his colleagues.

The scheme by which he hoped to destroy not only the heroic leader but
the entire League by bringing opprobrium and ridicule upon them, was
wonderfully subtle in its refined cruelty, and Chauvelin, knowing by now
something of Sir Percy Blakeney's curiously blended character, was never
for a moment in doubt but that he would write the infamous letter, save
his wife by sacrificing his honour, and then seek oblivion and peace in
suicide.

With so much disgrace, so much mud cast upon their chief, the League of
the Scarlet Pimpernel would cease to be. THAT had been Chauvelin's plan
all along. For the end he had schemed and thought and planned, from the
moment that Robespierre had given him the opportunity of redeeming his
failure of last year. He had built up the edifice of his intrigue, bit
by bit, from the introduction of his tool, Candeille, to Marguerite at
the Richmond gala, to the arrest of Lady Blakeney in Boulogne. All that
remained for him to see now, would be the attitude of Sir Percy Blakeney
to-night, when, in exchange for the stipulated letter, he would see his
wife set free.

All day Chauvelin had wondered how it would all go off. He had
stage-managed everything, but he did not know how the chief actor would
play his part.

From time to time, when his feeling of restlessness became quite
unendurable, the ex-ambassador would wander round Fort Gayole and on
some pretext or other demand to see one or the other of his prisoners.
Marguerite, however, observed complete silence in his p