May 1797.

François Noël Babeuf walked through the cobblestone alley, wistfully looking
at the sphere slowly heading toward the horizon. There were already visible clouds of night, with every passing minute more and more extending across the sky.

The air consisted of an indefinite, sweet scent. He noticed a woman opening the window on the second floor of an old, ugly house on the street. She had fluffy, curly blond hair. 

Her alabaster skin attracted attention, but not because of her beauty. Babeuf thought she was ill and needed an urgent medical visit. He blinked, and after a while, he realized the woman held a wooden bucket. Without thinking, he jumped back, miraculously avoiding the slop inside the container. She put her hand to her mouth, seeing someone on the street, and silently chastised herself.

„Is everything all right with your eyes, meuf?!” Babeuf shouted indignantly, dragging
a hand through his long, black as a raven’s wing hair. There was an embarrassed smile on her face.

„Monsieur, forgive me!” she said, closed the window with a bang, and disappeared. François released air from his mouth, shook his head, and coughed slightly. He smoothed his olive, jacquard coat and frowned. The stench drove straight into his nostrils. Damn Paris,
he thought. On edge and, avoiding the slimy puddle, he slipped away along the street. Since the Bastille was liberated, crossing the capital was extremely dangerous.  Everywhere herpes were hanging around, capable of robbing you of any gold coin. 

The sweet smell in the air faded, replaced by a horrible stench. Babeuf closed his mouth and began to run. He whizzed past the surprised aristocrats, strolling along the pavement with grace. Fortunately, he hadn’t strayed far from home When he returned home, he closed the door and leaned against it. He felt the spilling lava of hatred towards Parisians, the king, and his lieutenants, who had made France a pitiful cesspool.
This stench on the boulevards, the lice aristocracy and gentry with their heads so high, that they could almost pierce the clouds. He was sick of it.

I demand freedom and equality, he muttered under his nose and turned toward the door, then banged on it. He felt anger and frustration, shaking him like a puppet in a children’s theater. The only joy it gave him was that he was writing down formulas for a new, much better constitution. He dreamed of seeing it in print, universally accepted and admired.
He looked out the window. The horizon was dominated by the dark blue ribbon of night. 

They pierced the sky, appropriating piece by piece for themselves until it took a whole. Without thinking, he walked to his desk, grabbed the pen, and looked at the parchment on which were written the first words of the new constitution. 

He glanced at the ink pot. „I have to write down further dreams,” he whispered and dipped his pen in the ink. 

He managed to create only two lines when someone knocked on the door. Surprised, he looked at it and grunted. 

„Who is there?” Babeuf asked, annoyed.

„Open!” came a wheezing. No less shocked, he moved away from his desk and walked to the door. Opening it, he tilted his head back. It was a short man with a carefully manicured, black mustache and a linen, beige shirt. He looked like a peasant.

**

Babeuf frowned. Who was that man? 

„Monsieur…” the stranger began and smiled, showing his rotten, yellowed teeth. 

Well, yes, thought François, disgusted. It must have been a hungry gadabout, looking for something to eat. Like all of them, he had this custom. A suffocating smell of sulfur came from his mouth.

„I will not give you any coin!” Babeuf growled and slammed the door in his face. 

He returned to his desk, sat down, and bit his lower lip softly. He barely saw the words on the manuscript. He rose from the seat again and walked to the window, where he got a porcelain plate with a white, twisted candle. Carrying it in his hand, he left the house and lifted it straight into the burning torches, illuminating the entrance to the „Tavern of Aurélien”. It was a curse to live opposite this place, especially in the evenings. It was full of drunken uproar. There were sounds of pathetic and babbling songs. 

François went into the house.

„I swear that as soon as I hold a crown, I will blow this brothel to the last plank,” he said aloud. Laying down the burning candle, with flame in all directions, he sat at the desk and returned to writing the constitution. He added three more lines when he felt someone in the room. He slowly looked up from the manuscript and drove ahead. Someone emerged from the dark corner. Babeuf screamed, jumped up from his seat, and waved his hand so hard that he knocked the plate off. It fell straight on the wooden floor. Luckily for him, the flame extinguished itself. He rose from the ground with the speed of a galloping horse.

„Monsieur, I have heard everything,” began this person as they came closer to Babeuf. François could see better now. It was the same stranger, reeking of a sulfur farmhand, standing in front of his door.

„Sacrebleu!” Babeuf groaned. His eyelids twitched nervously. „How did you get into my house, you tatterdemalion?” François asked as his face hardened. The peasant raised both eyebrows and shook his head slightly. 

Babeuf began slowly to calm down, although it did not change anything. He still did not know who the stranger was. He looked at the candle with regret in his eyes. 

„Today is your lucky day,” the farmhand said and looked up. There was a demonic smile on his face. François blinked, not pulling away from the eyes of a stranger.

„Who are you?”.

„They call me Arcadius from Lyon,” he whispered and made an indefinite gesture. „Today I will show you, monsieur, how your future may look.”.

Babeuf was terrified. Not because of the man himself, but of how he got into the house, if not through the door. Was he – for Christ’s sake – a sorcerer?„I do not want to hear it. Leave my property immediately,” ordered François, pointing out the exit. Arcadius looked at him and broke into laughter.

„You will hold a crown,” he started and quickly realized that Babeuf had grabbed the hook. Babeuf’s eyes widened at hearing „crown,” and he was like a puppet. 

„How?” François asked excitedly.

„Look,” said Arcadius.He spread his hands and then put his right hand to the left. 

Rubbing one on the other, steam flowed from the middle. Babeuf blinked, unable to believe what he was seeing, but with each passing moment, it thickened, until it resembled a small black cloud. Once it managed to form a solid mass, the mustachioed man blew into it. It lifted in the air and  spiraled inwardly. One part of the cloud remained motionless, and the other, in the middle, spun like a clock, deepening as if looking for something.

„For God’s sake…” Babeuf stammered and rubbed his eyes. Arcadius squealed
and twisted his mouth, with hands covering his ears. 

„Do not talk about him close to me,” he hissed maliciously but suddenly tried to erase the negative impression. „Look, what fate prepared for you.”. The interior of the puffy clouds brightened. After a while, it looked like a picture floating in the air, maintained (although
it might seem absurd) only condensed with water vapor. Babeuf looked more closely at those shining clouds.

He saw himself, smiling, with his head held proudly.

„The year of 1801,” Arcadius said, breaking the sound of rustling
in the depths of  the indefinite clouds. „Monsieur François Noël Babeuf, the new leader
of the Republic of France.”François could not believe it. The image truly represented him, surrounded by donors honoring him. He was walking along one of the Parisian boulevards, and the people cheered and threw their hands up. Babeuf stared at this miracle with such strong emotions, that he had to suppress the desire to cry with happiness. Suddenly, Arcadius waved his hand and cut the cloud. Everything was gone.

„Oh, non!” François groaned and looked at the mustachioed man with regret in his eyes. 

„It was beautiful, right?” Arcadius asked and smiled. He knew what the crown-hungry man would say. 

„Yes! I want it!” said Babeuf.Arcadius immediately changed his attitude. He straightened up and his face hardened.

„Slowly, monsieur, slowly…” he said and paused, to the dismay of Babeuf. 

„It can only be true if you swear allegiance to me, Arcadius from Lyon. I will lead you to victory.”. François blinked. 

On the one hand, he should not agree. 

He knew nothing about the mysterious man who appeared at his home. However, on the other hand. . . he was powerful! He managed to create a bizarre picture with his bare hands, without linen, without a brush. He needed someone like him. Someone who, together with him, could defeat the Jacobins and receive their power. With this guy, he will tear apart those creepy, Jacobin mongrels.

„I swear,” he said loudly and clearly. He saw on the face of Arcadius a hint of a smile. 

„Not so fast. Get on your knees in front of me,” ordered the man, and took a step forward. 

„Repeat it, as I say. I swear forever allegiance to Arcadius of Lyon and will not leave him in any, even the smallest need.”. „By the way, tell me also, what are you planning to do.” François swallowed hard, blinked, and fell to his knees.

„I swear forever allegiance to Arcadius of Lyon and I will not leave him in any, even the smallest need.”. Babeuf grunted and continued. 

„Tomorrow, when only the first chicken crows, we will meet at 10 Rue de Bordeaux. There we will think about the plan to defeat the Jacobins.”. 

The man bared his slimy, yellow teeth and put his hand to his forehead. After a while, Noël noted that the tatterdemalion began to croak. His face split. The skin at his temples peeled off and fell to the floor. Arcadius’ arms blushed. Babeuf pursed his lips when he saw hard, twisted, black horns appear on his temple. His eyes gradually disappeared, freeing himself from a horrible emptiness, black as tar.

„No…” François whispered and tilted his head back. Arcadius continued to chuckle, with each passing moment growing louder and more intense. In the end, his laughter yelpedlike a devil from the deepest pits of hell, capable of crushing the glass in the windows.

„No!” Babeuf yelled, realizing that the room was getting foggy. The atmosphere became so thick that it could be cut with a knife like a pie. The mustachioed man transformed into the horned demon, faded, and melted in the mist.

What have I done? – François thought and groaned. It was too late to change. The fog broke into his mouth and nose. Already, it circulated in his veins, soaking in his soul. Coughing, he fell into uncontrollable sleepiness. His eyelids were getting heavier.

„Please…” he muttered helplessly, and fell to the ground, closing his eyes. He felt blissful tranquility.

**

He opened his eyes with fear and cried. His gaze desperately jumped from one wall to another. Outside the window, the first chickens crowed, and he was still in bed.

For God’s sake, it was just a bad dream, he thought and rubbed a hand over his forehead. The horned demon, however, was too real to be a figment of Morpheus. Babeuf had a strange feeling that this was not the end, that something bad would happen. Swallowing,
he remembered the conversation yesterday with his companion. 

On the 27th of May, on Rue de la Bordeaux, as soon as the first chicken crows.
Hell, he was late. Without thinking, he jumped out of bed, and although hunger haunted his mind, he gritted his teeth and ran out of the house in disarray. The Parisian morning hadjust woken up. Only a few people were strolling along the cobbled streets.
Babeuf brusquely passed them.

The moon had gone away. At 10 Rue de Bordeaux there was a small, wooden house, where the opponents of the Jacobins stood and set the strategy to receive their rightful power. Babeuf ran inside without questions and froze, shocked. All six of his closest associates stood at the huge mahogany table, arrested and guarded by Jacobin guards. Tall men with halberds stood nearby. Soon his companions would go to the scaffold.

„Well, well, well. Who came to us? Monsieur François Noël Babeuf,” said a strangely familiar voice. Babeuf looked for the person who had uttered those words. From behind one of the backers of the Jacobins emerged Arcadius. François could not believe it. 

„You lied to me!” he shouted to the amazement of the guards. The mustachioed tatterdemalion smiled slyly and shrugged.

„You swore allegiance to Arcadius from Lyon. It is not me,” Babeuf shook his head
as a sign of discord in his existing situation. What the hell? „How is that possible? Who are you?”.

The tatterdemalion clapped his hands. Time stopped. The guards stood motionless. François’s associates also froze, as if surrounded by an invisible ice crust.

„I am Arganael!”, he said as his skin began to crack. 

„The Lord of Illusion, Master of Fraud, The One Who Seduced Souls!”.

Horns quickly grew out of his temples. As before, they were twisted, hard, and extremely dangerous.

„It is not true!” Babeuf moaned helplessly, slowly realizing that yesterday’s meeting with Arcadius… damn, with Arganael was not a nightmare. He had appeared at his house.

„It is true,” Arganael said quietly and raised his clawed hands. Babeuf opened his mouth to scream, but his voice stuck in his throat. After a moment, the floorboards cracked, one after the other. Something sprang from the ground. Small, covered with scales and nightmarish feet. Babeuf, in the twinkling of an eye, counted ten. Razor-sharp claws at the board, trying to crawl to the surface. They squawked unintelligible gibberish. In the end, François noticed whose feet they belonged to. It was a miniature, satanic creature. The truest imps, which heard only from word of mouth. Without thinking, he turned his back and took to his heels. He fired from there like a royal carriage from the palace. He ran ahead blindly. Arganael smiled and returned to the form of Arcadius, then clapped once again. Time began to flow again. The guards threw him a polite smile.

„Gentlemen, I am sure that Babeuf has gone away,” he said in a hoarse voice. The holders of halberds ran out of the home, in pursuit of a Jacobean traitor.

**

In the Vendée, Prairie, there were crowds gathered. Everyone wanted to see how the executioner would deprive the head of François Noël Babeuf—a vile traitor, the proud and naive revolutionary. A man in an olive, linen shirt, threw a tomato straight at his face, laughing heartily.

„Eat it, you disgusting brawler!” he shouted, shaking his fist. For Babeuf, it was irrelevant. He knelt, shackled in the stocks. The meter above his head dangled silvery, shimmering in the sunlight—a steel guillotine.

„A betrayer of the Jacobins, damn it, François Noël Babeuf, will be sentenced to the death penalty,” said the executioner as he turned toward the prisoner. 

„Do you have any last wish?” François sighed and looked around the crowd. From the  front of the line came Arcadius, and he smiled. Babeuf blinked, unable to believe it.

„I am not guilty!” he roared but realized that it did not make sense. He wanted to take the crown from the Jacobins. The executioner snorted, and when he swung the ax to cut the rope of the guillotine, Babeuf sawArcadius transforminto Arganael. He chuckled devilishly, but the people around him did not react, as if he were invisible.

„Welcome to hell, King of Naivety,” he whispered. The guillotine fell on Babeuf’s head like a curtain ending show in the theater. C’est la vie.