r! His busts are
as many as the heads he wanted to cut off."

"Venomous toad!"

"Tiger!"

"Vile serpent!"

Suddenly an elegantly dressed spectator clambers on to the edge of his
box, pushes the bust, oversets it. The plaster head falls in shivers on
the musicians' heads amid the cheers of the audience, who spring to
their feet and strike up the _Reveil du Peuple_:

_Peuple francais, peuple de freres!..._

Among the most enthusiastic singers Elodie recognized the handsome
dragoon, the little lawyer's clerk, Henry, her first love.

After the performance the gallant Desmahis called a cabriolet and
escorted the _citoyenne_ Blaise back to the _Amour peintre_.

In the carriage the artist took Elodie's hand between his:

"You know, Elodie, I love you?"

"I know it, because you love all women."

"I love them in you."

She smiled:

"I should be assuming a heavy task, spite of the wigs black, blonde and
red, that are the rage, if I undertook to be all women, all sorts of
women, for you."

"Elodie, I swear...."

"What! oaths, _citoyen_ Desmahis? Either you have a deal of simplicity,
or you credit me with overmuch."

Desmahis had not a word to say, and she hugged herself over the triumph
of having reduced her witty admirer to silence.

At the corner of the Rue de la Loi they heard singing and shouting and
saw shadows flitting round a brazier of live coals. It was a band of
young bloods who had just come out of the Theatre Francais and were
burning a guy representing the Friend of the People.

In the Rue Honore the coachman struck his cocked hat against a burlesque
effigy of Marat swinging from the cord of a street lantern.

The fellow, heartened by the incident, turned round to his fares and
told them how, only last night, the tripe-seller in the Rue Montorgueil
had smeared blood over Marat's head, declaring: "That's the stuff he
liked," and how some little scamps of ten had thrown the bust into the
sewer, and how the spectators had hit the nail on the head, shouting:

"That's the Pantheon for him!"

Meanwhile, from every eating-house and restaurateur's voices could be
heard singing:

_Peuple francais, peuple de freres!..._

"Good-bye," said Elodie, jumping out of the cabriolet.

But Desmahis begged so hard, he was so tenderly urgent and spoke so
sweetly, that she had not the heart to leave him at the door.

"It is late," she said; "you must only stay an instant."

In the blue chamber she threw of