"The Scarlet Pimpernel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Orczy Baroness)

But this was as it should be: were not the people now the
rulers of France? Every aristocrat was a traitor, as his ancestors
had been before him: for two hundred years now the people had sweated,
and toiled, and starved, to keep a lustful court in lavish
extravagance; now the descendants of those who had helped to make
those courts brilliant had to hide for their lives--to fly, if they
wished to avoid the tardy vengeance of the people.

And they did try to hide, and tried to fly: that was just the
fun of the whole thing. Every afternoon before the gates closed and
the market carts went out in procession by the various barricades,
some fool of an aristo endeavoured to evade the clutches of the
Committee of Public Safety. In various disguises, under various
pretexts, they tried to slip through the barriers, which were so well
guarded by citizen soldiers of the Republic. Men in women's clothes,
women in male attire, children disguised in beggars' rags: there were
some of all sorts: CI-DEVANT counts, marquises, even dukes, who
wanted to fly from France, reach England or some other equally
accursed country, and there try to rouse foreign feelings against the
glorious Revolution, or to raise an army in order to liberate the
wretched prisoners in the Temple, who had once called themselves
sovereigns of France.

But they were nearly always caught at the barricades, Sergeant
Bibot especially at the West Gate had a wonderful nose for scenting an
aristo in the most perfect disguise. Then, of course, the fun began.
Bibot would look at his prey as a cat looks upon the mouse, play with
him, sometimes for quite a quarter of an hour, pretend to be
hoodwinked by the disguise, by the wigs and other bits of theatrical
make-up which hid the identity of a CI-DEVANT noble marquise or count.

Oh! Bibot had a keen sense of humour, and it was well worth
hanging round that West Barricade, in order to see him catch an aristo
in the very act of trying to flee from the vengeance of the people.

Sometimes Bibot would let his prey actually out by the gates,
allowing him to think for the space of two minutes at least 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