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"Comte!" said the Baron.
"One moment, Baron." The Comte's eyes searched the floor. "One. Ah yes, over there in the corner. Two. Excellent."
"Bastard!" the old man spat through his bleeding lips. He raised himself to his feet and, holding his face, staggered through the door, shouting "Guards, guards."
"Perhaps they'll arrest me," said the Comte. "Now, Baron, what were you saying?"
The Baron stood for a moment, mouth open, staring after the departed jailer. He took out his lace handkerchief and mopped his brow, pushing his wig back a little at one side as he did so. Then he turned to face the Comte. "Saying? Ah yes. I was saying, Comte, that your death might yet be given some meaning."
"How can that be? Allow me." He raised his hands and straightened the Baron's wig.
"Thank you. Our unfinished project. The head and the heart. I do believe that we have the means of proving our proposition that the head is indeed the seat of consciousness, the originator of all thoughts, the home of what some call the soul. I hope you don't mind what I'm going to say."
"Go on," said the Comte.
"Well, if our theory is correct, it seems to me that the head, once separated from the body....Excuse me, Comte."
The Comte had sat down on the cot. His face was pale and glistened with a mist of perspiration.
"I'm sorry, my friend." The Baron hurried over to the cot and sat down beside the Comte. "I'll go no further."
"Should be capable of thought for a brief moment." The Comte's voice was quiet but steady. "Until the blood has all...." He swallowed. "It should be capable of thought."
"And perhaps of speech," said the Baron. "At least of moving the lips."
"Perhaps, just for a brief moment."
"Yes, and if it were agreed that you were to say a particular word, there would be the proof. The head, separated from the body, able to remember, to think and even to speak."
The Comte raised his face and looked at his friend. "Let it be 'reason.' Let the word be 'reason.'"
The Baron nodded and put his arm round his friend's shoulders, and the two men sat together in the gathering gloom of the cell.
The Baron de Chaumont had long been aware that his money and position were a double edged sword. On the one hand, in the fevered political climate of the day, they made him a potential target of the mob and those who would appease them. On the other hand, the same money, when distributed wisely amongst those in power afforded him some protection. It could also buy him some coveted privileges. So it was that he took his place that morning with the magistrates and deputies next to the scaffold on which the gruesome machine towered into the clear spring sky, casting its shadow over the crowd.
It was to be a busy day for the executioner. The list was a long one. Top of the bill and first to ascend the scaffold was Hébert himself. His twisted little body trembled with what many must have taken for fear. From his vantage point so close to the scaffold, the Baron could observe that it was pure rage that contorted his face and shook his body. The Baron had little sympathy for him. He remembered how, in the early days of the revolution, Hébert's newspaper the Père Duchesne had demanded his execution.
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