now began to cast furious glances at me.

"You are insolent: what brought you into the territory of France?"

"The same thing which placed you on that bench--force."

"Are you mad?"

"No--are you?"

"Do you not know that we can send you to the"--

"If you do, I shall only go before _you_."

This put an end to my interrogatory at once. I had accidentally
touched upon the nerve which quivered in every bosom of these fellows.
There was a singular presentiment among even the boldest of the
Revolutionists, that the new order of things would not last, and that,
when the change came, it would be a bloody one. Life had become
sufficiently precarious already among the possessors of power; and the
least intimation of death was actually formidable to a race of
villains whose hands were hourly imbued in slaughter. I had been
hitherto placed in scarcely more than surveillance. An order for my
confinement as a "Brigand Anglais," was made out by the indignant
"commission," and I was transferred from my narrow and lonely cell
into the huge crowded building in the opposite cloister, which had
been the scene of the attack on the previous night. I could, with
Cato, "smile on the drawn dagger and defy its point." I walked out
with the air of a Cato.