There was dead silence for a while save for the murmur in the wind outside and from the floor above the measured tread of the sentinel guarding the precious hostage in No.

6.
Both men were staring straight in front of them.

Collot d'Herbois incredulous, half-contemptuous, did not altogether approve of these schemes which seemed to him wild and uncanny: he liked the direct simplicity of a summary trial, of the guillotine, or of his own well stage-managed "Noyades." He did not feel that any ridicule or dishonour would necessarily paralyze a man in his efforts at intrigue, and would have liked to set Chauvelin's authority aside, to behead the woman upstairs and then to take his chances of capturing the man later on.
But the orders of the Committee of Public Safety had been peremptory: he was to be Chauvelin's help--not his master, and to obey in all things.
He did not dare to take any initiative in the matter, for in that case, if he failed, the reprisals against him would indeed be terrible.
He was fairly satisfied now that Chauvelin had accepted his suggestion of summarily sending to the guillotine one member of every family resident in Boulogne, if Marguerite succeeded in effecting an escape, and, of a truth, Chauvelin had hailed the fiendish suggestion with delight.

The old abbe with his nephew and niece were undoubtedly not sufficient deterrents against the daring schemes of the Scarlet Pimpernel, who, as a matter of fact, could spirit them out of Boulogne just as easily as he would his own wife.
Collot's plan tied Marguerite to her own prison cell more completely than any other measure could have done, more so indeed than the originator thereof knew or believed....

A man like this d'Herbois--born in the gutter, imbued with every brutish tradition, which generations of jail-birds had bequeathed to him,--would not perhaps fully realize the fact that neither Sir Percy nor Marguerite Blakeney would ever save themselves at the expense of others.