which the Englishman had left with her, together with the assurance
that when she showed it there would be no further trouble.

Tinville took it roughly out of her hand, but would not glance at it.
He crushed it into a ball and then Merlin snatched it from him with a
coarse laugh, smoothed out the creases on his knee and studied it for
a moment.

There were two lines of what looked like poetry, written in a
language which Merlin did not understand. English, no doubt.

But what was perfectly clear, and easily comprehended by any one,
was the little drawing in the corner, done in red ink and representing
a small star-shaped flower.

Then Tinville and Merlin both cursed loudly and volubly, and bidding
their men follow them, turned away from the house in the Rue de
l'Ancienne Comedie and left its toothless landlady on her own
doorstep still volubly protesting her patriotism and her desire to serve
the government of the Republic.

Tinville and Merlin, however, took the scrap of paper to Citizen
Robespierre, who smiled grimly as he in his turn crushed the offensive
little document in the palm of his well-washed hands.

Robespierre did not swear. He never wasted either words or oaths,
but he slipped the bit of paper inside the double lid of his silver snuff
box and then he sent a special messenger to Citizen Chauvelin in the
Rue Corneille, bidding him come that same evening after ten o'clock
to room No. 16 in the ci-devant Palace of the Tuileries.