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It had cost him a great deal of money and many sleepless nights to ensure his safety. Amazing that the Comte de Saint Cyr should be associated in the paranoid mind of Robespierre with this rabid anarchist. Or maybe that was just an excuse. It was futile in these insane days to look for logical cause and effect. Awful things just happened to good men and bad men alike, seemingly at random.
Hébert remained pompous and self-righteous to the end, decrying at length the betrayal of the revolution, until the guards finally tired of his hectoring and dragged him, still shouting to the guillotine. The Baron heard little above the jeering and catcalls. The crowd further back could have heard nothing at all. How much more meaningful, the Baron reflected, if he had used his last moments to take leave of his wife, who stood sobbing quietly a few paces away.
He could not watch the actual execution. He had never been able to do so on any of the occasions when, for political reasons, he had felt compelled to attend these hideous spectacles. He heard the swish and the thump. The first time he had heard that sound, he had been sick. Now its familiarity had deprived it of its visceral effect. When he looked up, it was to see the executioner nonchalantly retrieve the severed head from where it had rolled just a few inches from the Baron's face and place it in the basket kept for the purpose. He was in the right position.
The Baron did not count the number of times he heard that awful sound. Swish, thump. Swish, thump. Each time, the head rolled to a few inches from him. He tried not to look at the faces. His thoughts were fixed on the Comte. Could he bring himself to watch? If he could not even watch the despicable Hébert meet his richly merited fate, how could he watch his dear friend, innocent as he was, so cruelly butchered?
And then, suddenly, there he was. Mounting the scaffold slowly and with dignity. The Comte nodded to the guards and shook hands with the executioner, and the Baron felt an overpowering rush of pride at the sight of his friend. Here was a man who had known how to live and knew how to die with honor. The Comte stood in silence for a moment, breathing deeply, raising his face to the sun, now high in the midday sky. A large lump rose in the Baron's throat. The Comte lowered his gaze from the sky and searched the crowd for a moment before recognizing the Baron, no more than fifteen feet from him. He smiled weakly and nodded. The Baron nodded in turn and, trembling, raised his spectacles to his eyes. The Comte swallowed heavily several times, his Adam's apple moving rapidly up and down, and allowed himself to be led to the machine. It could not have taken more than ten seconds to secure him in its deadly embrace. To the Baron it seemed an eternity. The blade was raised, hovered for a moment, fell. Swish. The Baron tried desperately to control the shaking of his spectacles, to keep his eyes open. Thump. His friend's head dropped from his body and bounced onto the scaffold. It rolled towards the Baron and came to rest close enough for him to lean over the scaffold and look into the face of his martyred comrade, almost resting his spectacles against the chin. The eyes were wide open and seemed for a moment to show recognition. Immediately the lips moved. "Reason" they mouthed. Then something extraordinary happened, something which the Baron, though he lived many more years, was never able to explain. The Comte's eyes opened still wider, as if in astonishment, looking beyond the Baron's face and trembling spectacles, staring up into the clear blue sky. Again the lips moved and quite clearly and unmistakably formed the words, "Who are you?"
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