You spoke tenderly and
philanthropically of your horror of capital executions; you exulted
in the approaching Revolution as the termination of all sanguinary
punishments; you quoted reverently the saying of Maximilien Robespierre,
the rising statesman, 'The executioner is the invention of the tyrant:'
and I replied, that while you spoke, a foreboding seized me that
we should meet again when your ideas of death and the philosophy of
revolutions might be changed! Was I right, Citizen Rene-Francois Dumas,
President of the Revolutionary Tribunal?"

"Pooh!" said Dumas, with some confusion on his brazen brow, "I spoke
then as men speak who have not acted. Revolutions are not made with
rose-water! But truce to the gossip of the long-ago. I remember, also,
that thou didst then save the life of my relation, and it will please
thee to learn that his intended murderer will be guillotined to-morrow."

"That concerns yourself,--your justice or your revenge. Permit me the
egotism to remind you that you then promised that if ever a day should
come when you could serve me, your life--yes, the phrase was, 'your
heart's blood'--was at my bidding. Think not, austere judge, that I
come to ask a boon that can affect yourself,--I come but to ask a day's
respite for another!"

"Citizen, it is impossible! I have the order of Robespierre that not one
less than the total on my list must undergo their trial for to-morrow.
As for the verdict, that rests with the jury!"

"I do not ask you to diminish the catalogue. Listen still! In your
death-roll there is the name of an Italian woman whose youth, whose
beauty, and whose freedom not only from every crime, but every tangible
charge, will excite only compassion, and not terror. Even YOU would
tremble to pronounce her sentence. It will be dangerous on a day when
the populace will be excited, when your tumbrils may be arrested, to
expose youth and innocence and beauty to the pity and courage of a
revolted crowd."

Dumas looked up and shrunk from the eye of the stranger.

"I do not deny, citizen, that there is reason in what thou urgest. But
my orders are positive."

"Positive only as to the number of the victims. I offer you a substitute
for this one. I offer you the head of a man who knows all of the very
conspiracy which now threatens Robespierre and yourself, and compared
with one clew to which, you would think even eighty ordinary lives a
cheap purchase."

"That alters the case," said Du