Before telling you how the Chevalier de Vaudrey got out of Caen and how he fared forth to his love, it is meet that the reader should understand the rapidly changing conditions that converted the New France into a veritable Hell on earth.

After the Fall of the Bastille, and even after the mob’s sortie on Versailles which enforced the royal family’s return to Paris where they lived in the Tuileries, it was the hope of the moderate patriots that constitutional monarchy might prevail.

These hopes were dashed, first, by royalty’s intrigues and double-dealing, and, secondly, through the pressure of the revolting emigres and the threat of foreign invasion that welded all the defenders of France, willy-nilly, into a traitor-crushing and invader-defying Republic.

Of all the personages of that unhappy time, the locksmithing King Louis XVI least understood what was going on about him.

A true Bourbon with an ancestry of nearly a thousand years’ possession of the French throne, he never learned anything and never forgot anything. He played at being a limited monarch but his sympathies were naturally with the riffled aristocrats––the nobility whose privileges had been taken away, their estates commandeered, their chateaux fired or sacked, and themselves obliged to flee for their lives to the protection of the foreigner.

Not comprehending the nature of the Storm that wiped out old tyranny, Louis dangerously rode the Storm, he could not guide it. His lack of understanding is sadly shown in the closing scene at Versailles when they brought him news of the people’s coming.

“Mais, c’est une revolte. Why, that is a revolt!” exclaimed the bewildered monarch.

“No, Sire,” replied the Minister gravely, “’tis not a revolt. It is a revolution!”

Within a few hours the yelling maenads and bold satyrs of the sansculottes possessed the gorgeous Salon de la Paix, whilst the King and his family were on their way to Paris....

Then followed many weary months of 131 royalist intrigue, plot and counter plot, secret dickers with foreign Powers, attempts at escape, fresh indignities by the mob, until at last Royalty is suspended from its function, becomes the prisoner instead of the ruler. Turned out of the Tuileries, Louis and Marie Antoinette are no longer King and Queen––henceforth Citizen and Citizeness Capet. At the end of dreadful imprisonments, looms for the hapless pair the dread Scaffold....

A real Republic teeters for a short period on the crest of the Revolutionary wave. Men are mad with the joy over the new thought of universal brotherhood. Little do Danton and the other Utopians realize that the Pageant of Brotherhood is but the prelude of a new Despotism.

For a dark ring of foes––spurred to invasion by the King’s misfortunes––surrounds France on every side. Within, the cry re-echoes: “The traitors to the prisons!” and all the aristocrats as yet at large are hunted down and put in durance.

As Minister of Justice, Danton, the idol of the people, acts quickly to subdue aristocracy, and ceaselessly organizes––organizes––organizes the raw republican levies 132 into troops fit to resist the advancing Prussians, Austrians and Savoyards.

Lashed to uncontrollable rage by the preliminary successes of the invading Prussians, the Paris proletariat break into the prisons and massacre the unfortunate members of the nobility there immured. Few are spared. Young equally with the old––girls and women no less than the sterner sex––the noble, the wise, the cultivated, the beautiful, are murdered in cold blood. The September Massacres shock moderates everywhere with the feeling that France is at last running amuck––the mad dog of the Nations.

Yes, France now is running amuck––’ware of her when she strikes! Lafayette and other moderates––indeed, several of the Generals commanding the patriot armies have fled over the border, disgusted with the national rabies, utterly unable to quench it.

The patriot ranks close up. The wilder element of the sansculottes grasps the helm of State. In the desperate need of a dictatorship to cope against the foreign invasion, Danton procures from the Legislature absolute 133 power for a little inner group, the Committee of Public Safety.

Working on the passions of the people, worming himself into favor by denouncing moderate suspects and advocating the extremest measures, our sly acquaintance of the faubourg lodgings––Maximilien Robespierre––becomes the head of this Committee––thereby the Tyrant of France.

The foreign foe is indeed driven back, but at what a cost! The rule of Robespierre’s fanatical minority that has seized the State, inaugurates the dreadful Reign of Terror. The great Revolutionary leader Danton––Minister of Justice in the earlier time––has himself caused to be established the Revolutionary Tribunal for the quick trial of the public’s foes, and the guillotine for the guilty. Robespierre uses it as a ready forged weapon for destroying all who do not think as he does.

In this storm-wracked world Jacques-Forget-Not is now a great judge and a most fanatical patriot. The avenger of the de Vaudreys heads the Revolutionary Tribunal. He is in his glory now, for the aristocrats that the mobs overlooked are sent in batches to the guillotine––on the most 134 trifling charges, or finally without accusation at all. The mere fact of being an aristocrat is a capital offence!

And in and among these slaughters is intermixed the destruction of Robespierre’s personal and political rivals––a work in which the vengeful Jacques-Forget-Not studies and obeys every whim of his master, for does not Jacques also have private grudges as yet unpaid?

... But Danton remains a popular hero. For his work in driving back the foreign foe, he is upraised in chair of state by the multitudes, heading a huzzaing procession and preceded by young girls strewing flowers.

None of the bloody butchery has been Danton’s. He has been too busy fighting Prussia, Austria and Savoy. Today, as he sits in the chair of state acknowledging the acclamations, his heart wells in gratitude to Henriette who had once saved his life––no face of treasured memory so dear as hers!

Confessedly, under the New Tyranny, there is nothing to engage the great heart and soul. Sick of the murderous scramble for pelf and power, he withdraws from most political activity, though still able to exert a wide influence.

About this time twenty-two political rivals of Robespierre––the Girondists––were sent by one decree to the guillotine. Danton, vainly pleading for mercy, saw that the Committee of Safety machine was being made an instrument of slaughter. “France must be purged of all vice!” was Robespierre’s sanctimonious reply to his passionate protest. Not long after, the rival masters of France faced one another in the hall of the Revolutionary Tribunal, whereof Jacques-Forget-Not was President.

“Well works this Tribunal you established, Danton!” said Robespierre, in glee at the increasing number of executions.

“It was established,” replied the pock-marked man solemnly, “to punish the enemies of the people. Now through you––Robespierre––France rivers with innocent blood!”

... God help our hero and heroine if they should encounter its dread fury!