The Scarlet Pimpernel | Page 4

that he really had
escaped out of Paris, and might even manage to reach the coast of
England in safety, but Bibot would let the unfortunate wretch walk
about ten metres towards the open country, then he would send two
men after him and bring him back, stripped of his disguise.
Oh! that was extremely funny, for as often as not the fugitive would
prove to be a woman, some proud marchioness, who looked terribly

comical when she found herself in Bibot's clutches after all, and knew
that a summary trial would await her the next day and after that, the
fond embrace of Madame la Guillotine.
No wonder that on this fine afternoon in September the crowd round
Bibot's gate was eager and excited. The lust of blood grows with its
satisfaction, there is no satiety: the crowd had seen a hundred noble
heads fall beneath the guillotine to-day, it wanted to make sure that it
would see another hundred fall on the morrow.
Bibot was sitting on an overturned and empty cask close by the gate of
the barricade; a small detachment of citoyen soldiers was under his
command. The work had been very hot lately. Those cursed aristos
were becoming terrified and tried their hardest to slip out of Paris: men,
women and children, whose ancestors, even in remote ages, had served
those traitorous Bourbons, were all traitors themselves and right food
for the guillotine. Every day Bibot had had the satisfaction of
unmasking some fugitive royalists and sending them back to be tried by
the Committee of Public Safety, presided over by that good patriot,
Citoyen Foucquier-Tinville.
Robespierre and Danton both had commended Bibot for his zeal and
Bibot was proud of the fact that he on his own initiative had sent at
least fifty aristos to the guillotine.
But to-day all the sergeants in command at the various barricades had
had special orders. Recently a very great number of aristos had
succeeded in escaping out of France and in reaching England safely.
There were curious rumours about these escapes; they had become very
frequent and singularly daring; the people's minds were becoming
strangely excited about it all. Sergeant Grospierre had been sent to the
guillotine for allowing a whole family of aristos to slip out of the North
Gate under his very nose.
It was asserted that these escapes were organised by a band of
Englishmen, whose daring seemed to be unparalleled, and who, from
sheer desire to meddle in what did not concern them, spent their spare
time in snatching away lawful victims destined for Madame la
Guillotine. These rumours soon grew in extravagance; there was no
doubt that this band of meddlesome Englishmen did exist; moreover,
they seemed to be under the leadership of a man whose pluck and
audacity were almost fabulous. Strange stories were afloat of how he

and those aristos whom he rescued became suddenly invisible as they
reached the barricades and escaped out of the gates by sheer
supernatural agency.
No one had seen these mysterious Englishmen; as for their leader, he
was never spoken of, save with a superstitious shudder. Citoyen
Foucquier-Tinville would in the course of the day receive a scrap of
paper from some mysterious source; sometimes he would find it in the
pocket of his coat, at others it would be handed to him by someone in
the crowd, whilst he was on his way to the sitting of the Committee of
Public Safety. The paper always contained a brief notice that the band
of meddlesome Englishmen were at work, and it was always signed
with a device drawn in red--a little star-shaped flower, which we in
England call the Scarlet Pimpernel. Within a few hours of the receipt of
this impudent notice, the citoyens of the Committee of Public Safety
would hear that so many royalists and aristocrats had succeeded in
reaching the coast, and were on their way to England and safety.
The guards at the gates had been doubled, the sergeants in command
had been threatened with death, whilst liberal rewards were offered for
the capture of these daring and impudent Englishmen. There was a sum
of five thousand francs promised to the man who laid hands on the
mysterious and elusive Scarlet Pimpernel.
Everyone felt that Bibot would be that man, and Bibot allowed that
belief to take firm root in everybody's mind; and so, day after day,
people came to watch him at the West Gate, so as to be present when
he laid hands on any fugitive aristo who perhaps might be accompanied
by that mysterious Englishman.
"Bah!" he said to his trusted corporal, "Citoyen Grospierre was a fool!
Had it been me now, at that North Gate last week. . ."
Citoyen Bibot spat on the ground to express his