Just, and the rest. It is my business to make a
duplicate of this copy in the first instance. The duplicate will
be compared with the original, and possibly with the copy, too,
either by Robespierre himself, or by some one in whom he can
place implicit trust, and will then be sent to St. Lazare without
passing through my hands again. It will be read in public the
moment it is received, at the grating of the prison, and will
afterward be kept by the jailer, who will refer to it, as he goes
round in the evening with a piece of chalk, to mark the cell
doors of the prisoners destined for the guillotine to-morrow.
That duty happens, to-day, to fall to the hunchback whom you saw
speaking to me. He is a confirmed drinker, and I mean to tempt
him with such wine as he rarely tastes. If--after the reading of
the list in public, and before the marking of the cell doors--I
can get him to sit down to the bottle, I will answer for making
him drunk, for getting the list out of his pocket, and for wiping
your names out of it with the prescription you have just written
for me. I shall write all the names, one under another, just
irregularly enough in my duplicate to prevent the interval left
by the erasure from being easily observed. If I succeed in this,
your door will not be marked, and your names will not be called
to-morrow morning when the tumbrils come for the guillotine.
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