They trip over the words, that's the first sign. And their uniforms

don't fit them much better than Vidocq's suit fits me. Monsieur may

have dressed up his lackeys, but they still smell unmistakably of the

barrieres.

"How dare you?" The voice of civilization comes at them from behind. "Leave at once! "

It takes but a single club to silence the Marquis. Down he goes on

the silk runner, like a cartload of wood.

After that . . . well, it's doom, that's all. Struggle as I might,

I'm pinned limb by limb. To my left, I see a boot catching Charles

in the temple. I see him crumple and fall. A hand closes round my

throat. . . .

The strange part is I never once call for aid. (Who, after all, would

come?) But just as the canvas sack is placed over my head, I do manage to say:

"He'll know."

No antecedent, of course. They might as easily think I'm talking of

God. In truth, they make no such mistake.

"Your Vidocq will be dead before the sun has set," they say. And then, almost as an afterthought:

"So will you."

CHAPTE R 45.

The Fate of Parricides A f te rwa rd, w hat will amaze me most is the speed of it all. One moment, we're bidding farewell to the Duchesse d'Angouleme; the next, we're saying hello to the Hotel de Ville.

All the middle stages are skipped. No trial, no appeal. No cell in the Conciergerie. Two men named Cornevin and Husson are ushered out of a holding pen; Charles and I are ushered in; the lock clicks. Everything is carried off with a minimum of fuss.

In the end, I would guess, no more than a handful of officials needed to be bribed. The rest simply absorb us into their appointed rounds. At the strike of three in the afternoon, for instance, a guard comes to tell us: "It's time."

"For what?" mumbles Charles, still drifting in and out of consciousness.

The man doesn't stay to answer. And when the next guard comes, he says only:

"This way."

A long drafty corridor . . . a f light of stairs . . . we stop in a dark vaulted chamber.

"Sit," says the guard.

The dawning comes in three stages. First: a sound of splashing, as if the Seine had overrushed its boundaries-broken at intervals by human laughter. A crowd is gathering. Outside. In the Place de Greve.

The second clue: the white-haired priest by the door. His name is Father Montes, and he's chaplain-in-chief to the Paris prisons.

And finally: that stout, doughy, agreeable-looking fellow in the frock coat and rumpled tricorn hat. His name is Charles-Henri Sanson, and he is public executioner of Paris. He's the man who held up the heads of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie-Antoinette to the baying mob. He's about to do the same to us.

"Good afternoon," he says, with a bashful smile.

Somebody strips me of my jacket. Somebody else ropes my wrists behind me and undoes my shirt. Cold metal grazes against my neck; locks of hair begin to fall on my shoulder.

"You've got the wrong men," I say.

"Oh, yes."

"We're not Cornevin and Husson. My name is Dr. Hector Carpentier . . ."