"What we celebrate to-day is the last court festival," said the
prisoners, as they ascended the cars to be carried to the
guillotine. "We have the great good fortune of being present at the
last great levee, and we will show ourselves worthy of the honor."
All faces were smiling, all eyes beaming, and when the twenty-four
condemned persons dismounted from their cars at the foot of the
scaffold, one would believe that he saw twenty-four happy people
preparing to go to a wedding. No one would have suspected that it
was death to whom they were to be united.
There were only two persons in this brilliant and select society who
were less elegantly adorned than the others. One was the young girl,
with the pale angel face, who sat between the sister of Malesherbes
and the wife of the former minister, Montmorin, in a neat white
robe, with a simple muslin veil, that surrounded her like a white
cloud on which she was floating to heaven. The other was the man who
sat behind her, whose firm, defiant countenance gave no token that
an hour before he had wept hot, bitter tears as he took leave of his
wife and only child. But this was all past, and on that lofty,
thoughtful brow not the slightest trace remained of earthly sorrow.
The pains of each had been surmounted, and, even in death, Toulan
would do honor to the name which that woman had given him--whom he
had loved most sacredly on earth-and he would die as Fidele.
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