ing soils.

"Greeting, _citoyen_ Trubert. How are you?"

"I?... I am perfectly well."

The Secretary of the Military Committee, Fortune Trubert, invariably
made this same reply to all who troubled about his health, less by way
of informing them of his welfare than to cut short any discussion on the
subject. At twenty-eight, he had a parched skin, thin hair, hectic
cheeks and bent shoulders. He was an optician on the Quai des Orfevres,
and owned a very old house which he had given up in '91 to a
superannuated clerk in order to devote his energies to the discharge of
his municipal duties. His mother, a charming woman, whose memory a few
old men of the neighbourhood still cherished fondly, had died at twenty;
she had left him her fine eyes, full of gentleness and passion, her
pallor and timidity. From his father, optician and mathematical
instrument maker to the King, carried off by the same complaint before
his thirtieth year, he inherited an upright character and an industrious
temperament.

Without stopping his writing:

"And you, _citoyen_," he asked, "how are you?"

"Very well. Anything new?"

"Nothing, nothing. You can see,--we are all quiet here."

"And the situation?"

"The situation is just the same."

The situation was appalling. The finest army of the Republic blockaded
in Mayence; Valenciennes besieged; Fontenay taken by the Vendeens; Lyons
rebellious; the Cevennes in insurrection, the frontier open to the
Spaniards; two-thirds of the Departments invaded or revolted; Paris
helpless before the Austrian cannon, without money, without bread!

Fortune Trubert wrote on calmly. The Sections being instructed by
resolution of the Commune to carry out the levy of twelve thousand men
for La Vendee, he was drawing up directions relating to the enrolment
and arming of the contingent which the "Pont-Neuf," erstwhile "Henri
IV," was to supply. All the muskets in store were to be handed over to
the men requisitioned for the front; the National Guard of the Section
would be armed with fowling-pieces and pikes.

"I have brought you here," said Gamelin, "the schedule of the
church-bells to be sent to the Luxembourg to be converted into cannon."

Evariste Gamelin, albeit he had not a penny, was inscribed among the
active members of the Section; the law accorded this privilege only to
such citizens as were rich enough to pay a contribution equivalent in
amount to three days' work, and demanded a ten days' contribut