whom he, still smiling, had passed indulgently by, looked on him
with that subtle contempt born of familiarity, shrugged their
shoulders at his passage, and envisaged his probable visit on the
morrow with lighthearted indifference.

Paris--despite the horrors that had stained her walls had remained
a city of pleasure, and the knife of the guillotine did scarce
descend more often than did the drop-scenes on the stage.

On this bitterly cold evening of the 27th Nivose, in the second
year of the Republic--or, as we of the old style still persist in
calling it, the 16th of January, 1794--the auditorium of the
Theatre National was filled with a very brilliant company.

The appearance of a favourite actress in the part of one of
Moliere's volatile heroines had brought pleasure-loving Paris to
witness this revival of "Le Misanthrope," with new scenery,
dresses, and the aforesaid charming actress to add piquancy to the
master's mordant wit.

The Moniteur, which so impartially chronicles the events of
those times, tells us under that date that the Assembly of the
Convention voted on that same day a new law giving fuller power to
its spies, enabling them to effect domiciliary searches at their
discretion without previous reference to the Committee of General
Security, authorising them to proceed against all enemies of
public happiness, to send them to prison at their own discretion,
and assuring them the sum of thirty-five livres "for every piece
of game thus beaten up for the guillotine." Under that same date
the Moniteur also puts it on record that the Theatre National