“The citizen Billot,” said he, “having the character of bearer of a flag of truce, I confide his care to your honor.”
Flesselles looked at Marat, as if he would rather have smashed his flat face with his fist than do that which he had requested.
“Would you resist, sir?” demanded Marat.
“No,” replied Flesselles, “for, after all, you only ask me what is strictly right.”
And he wrote the postscript demanded of him.
“However, gentlemen, you will be pleased to observe this well, that I do not answer for the safety of Monsieur Billot.”
“And I—I will be answerable for it,” said Marat, jerking the paper out of his hands; “for your liberty is the guarantee of his liberty,—your head for the safety of his head. Here, worthy Billot,” continued Marat, “here is your passport.”
“Labrie!” cried M. de Flesselles,—”Labrie!”
A lackey in grand livery entered the room.
“My carriage,” said the provost.
“It is waiting for you, sir, in the courtyard.”
“Let us go, then,” said the provost. ” There is nothing else which you desire, gentlemen?”
“No,” simultaneously replied Billot and Marat.
“Am I to let them pass?” inquired Pitou.
“My friend,” said Flesselles to him, “I would observe to you that you are rather too indecently attired to mount guard at my door. If you insist upon remaining here, turn your cartouche-box round in front, and set your back against the wall.”
“Am I to let them pass?” Pitou repeated, with an air which indicated that he did not greatly relish the jest of which he had been the subject.
“Yes,” said Billot.
Pitou made way for the provost to pass by him.
“Perhaps you were wrong in allowing that man to go,” said Marat. “He would have been a good hostage to have kept. But, in any case, let him go where he will, you may feel perfectly assured that I will find him again.”
“Labrie,” said the Provost of the Merchants, as he was getting into his carriage, “they are going to distribute powder here. Should the Hôtel de Ville perchance blow up, I should like to be out of the way of the splinters. Let us get out of gunshot, Labrie,—out of gunshot.”
The carriage rattled through the gateway, and appeared upon the square, on which were growling some four or five thousand persons.
Flesselles was afraid that they might misinterpret his departure, which might be considered as a flight.
He leaned half-way out of the door.
“To the National Assembly,” cried he, in a loud voice to the coachman.
This drew upon him from the crowd a loud and continued outburst of applause.
Marat and Billot were on the balcony, and had heard the last words of Flesselles.
“My head against his,” said Marat, “that he is not going to the National Assembly, but to the king.”
“Would it not be well to have him stopped?” said Billot.
“No,” replied Marat, with his hideous smile; “make yourself easy; however quickly he may go, we shall go still quicker than he. But now for the gunpowder.”
“Yes, to the gunpowder,” said Billot.
And they both went down the great staircase, followed by Pitou.
1 Town House, or City Hall.