TWO DREAMS
In 1786 Bodard de Saint-James, treasurer of the navy, excited moreattention and gossip as to his luxury than any other financier inParis. At this period he was building his famous "Folie" at Neuilly,and his wife had just bought a set of feathers to crown the tester ofher bed, the price of which had been too great for even the queen topay.
Bodard owned the magnificent mansion in the place Vendome, which thefermier-general, Dange, had lately been forced to leave. Thatcelebrated epicurean was now dead, and on the day of his interment hisintimate friend, Monsieur de Bievre, raised a laugh by saying that he"could now pass through the place Vendome without danger." Thisallusion to the hellish gambling which went on in the dead man'shouse, was his only funeral oration. The house is opposite to theChancellerie.
To end in a few words the history of Bodard,--he became a poor man,having failed for fourteen millions after the bankruptcy of the Princede Guemenee. The stupidity he showed in not anticipating that"serenissime disaster," to use the expression of Lebrun Pindare, wasthe reason why no notice was taken of his misfortunes. He died, likeBourvalais, Bouret, and so many others, in a garret.
Madame Bodard de Saint-James was ambitious, and professed to receivenone but persons of quality at her house,--an old absurdity which isever new. To her thinking, even the parliamentary judges were of smallaccount; she wished for titled persons in her salons, or at allevents, those who had the right of entrance at court. To say that manycordons bleus were seen at her house would be false; but it is quitecertain that she managed to obtain the good-will and civilities ofseveral members of the house of Rohan, as was proved later in theaffair of the too celebrated diamond necklace.
One evening--it was, I think, in August, 1786--I was much surprised tomeet in the salons of this lady, so exacting in the matter ofgentility, two new faces which struck me as belonging to men ofinferior social position. She came to me presently in the embrasure ofa window where I had ensconced myself.
"Tell me," I said to her, with a glance toward one of the new-comers,"who and what is that queer species? Why do you have that kind ofthing here?"
"He is charming."
"Do you see him through a prism of love, or am I blind?"
"You are not blind," she said, laughing. "The man is as ugly as acaterpillar; but he has done me the most immense service a woman canreceive from a man."
As I looked at her rather maliciously she hastened to add: "He's aphysician, and he has completely cured me of those odious red blotcheswhich spoiled my complexion and made me look like a peasant woman."
I shrugged my shoulders with disgust.
"He is a charlatan."
"No," she said, "he is the surgeon of the court pages. He has a fineintellect, I assure you; in fact, he is a writer, and a very learnedman."
"Heavens! if his style resembles his face!" I said scoffingly. "Butwho is the other?"
"What other?"
"That spruce, affected little popinjay over there, who looks as if hehad been drinking verjuice."
"He is a rather well-born man," she replied; "just arrived from someprovince, I forget which--oh! from Artois. He is sent here to concludean affair in which the Cardinal de Rohan is interested, and hisEminence in person had just presented him to Monsieur de Saint-James.It seems they have both chosen my husband as arbitrator. Theprovincial didn't show his wisdom in that; but fancy what simpletonsthe people who sent him here must be to trust a case to a man of hissort! He is as meek as a sheep and as timid as a girl. His Eminence isvery kind to him."
"What is the nature of the affair?"
"Oh! a question of three hundred thousand francs."
"Then the man is a lawyer?" I said, with a slight shrug.
"Yes," she replied.
Somewhat confused by this humiliating avowal, Madame Bodard returnedto her place at a faro-table.
All the tables were full. I had nothing to do, no one to speak to, andI had just lost two thousand crowns to Monsieur de Laval. I flungmyself on a sofa near the fireplace. Presently, if there was ever aman on earth most utterly astonished it was I, when, on looking up, Isaw, seated on another sofa on the opposite side of the fireplace,Monsieur de Calonne, the comptroller-general. He seemed to be dozing,or else he was buried in one of those deep meditations which overtakestatesmen. When I pointed out the famous minister to Beaumarchais, whohappened to come near me at that moment, the father of Figaroexplained the mystery of his presence in that house without uttering aword. He pointed first at my head, then at Bodard's with a maliciousgesture which consisted in turning to each of us two fingers of hishand while he kept the others doubled up. My first impulse was to riseand say something rousing to Calonne; then I paused, first, because Ithought of a trick I could play the statesman, and secondly, becauseBeaumarchais caught me familiarly by the hand.
"Why do you do that, monsieur?" I said.
He winked at the comptroller.
"Don't wake him," he said in a low voice. "A man is happy whenasleep."
"Pray, is sleep a financial scheme?" I whispered.
"Indeed, yes!" said Calonne, who had guessed our words from the meremotion of our lips. "Would to God we could sleep long, and then theawakening you are about to see would never happen."
"Monseigneur," said the dramatist, "I must thank you--"
"For what?"
"Monsieur de Mirabeau has started for Berlin. I don't know whether wemight not both have drowned ourselves in that affair of 'les Eaux.'"
"You have too much memory, and too little gratitude," replied theminister, annoyed at having one of his secrets divulged in mypresence.
"Possibly," said Beaumarchais, cut to the quick; "but I have millionsthat can balance many a score."
Calonne pretended not to hear.
It was long past midnight when the play ceased. Supper was announced.There were ten of us at table: Bodard and his wife, Calonne,Beaumarchais, the two strange men, two pretty women, whose names Iwill not give here, a fermier-general, Lavoisier, and myself. Out ofthirty guests who were in the salon when I entered it, only these tenremained. The two queer species did not consent to stay until theywere urged to do so by Madame Bodard, who probably thought she waspaying her obligations to the surgeon by giving him something to eat,and pleasing her husband (with whom she appeared, I don't preciselyknow why, to be coquetting) by inviting the lawyer.
The supper began by being frightfully dull. The two strangers and thefermier-general oppressed us. I made a sign to Beaumarchais tointoxicate the son of Esculapius, who sat on his right, giving him tounderstand that I would do the same by the lawyer, who was next to me.As there seemed no other way to amuse ourselves, and it offered achance to draw out the two men, who were already sufficientlysingular, Monsieur de Calonne smiled at our project. The ladiespresent also shared in the bacchanal conspiracy, and the wine ofSillery crowned our glasses again and again with its silvery foam. Thesurgeon was easily managed; but at the second glass which I offered tomy neighbor the lawyer, he told me with the frigid politeness of ausurer that he should drink no more.
At this instant Madame de Saint-James chanced to introduce, I scarcelyknow how, the topic of the marvellous suppers to the Comte deCagliostro, given by the Cardinal de Rohan. My mind was not veryattentive to what the mistress of the house was saying, because I waswatching with extreme curiosity the pinched and livid face of mylittle neighbor, whose principal feature was a turned-up and at thesame time pointed nose, which made him, at times, look very like aweasel. Suddenly his cheeks flushed as he caught the words of adispute between Madame de Saint-James and Monsieur de Calonne.
"But I assure you, monsieur," she was saying, with an imperious air,"that I saw Cleopatra, the queen."
"I can believe it, madame," said my neighbor, "for I myself havespoken to Catherine de' Medici."
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Monsieur de Calonne.
The words uttered by the little provincial were said in a voice ofstrange sonorousness, if I may be permitted to borrow that expressionfrom the science of physics. This sudden clearness of intonation,coming from a man who had hitherto scarcely spoken, and then in a lowand modulated tone, surprised all present exceedingly.
"Why, he is talking!" said the surgeon, who was now in a satisfactorystate of drunkenness, addressing Beaumarchais.
"His neighbor must have pulled his wires," replied the satirist.
My man flushed again as he overheard the words, though they were saidin a low voice.
"And pray, how was the late queen?" asked Calonne, jestingly.
"I will not swear that the person with whom I supped last night at thehouse of the Cardinal de Rohan was Catherine de' Medici in person.That miracle would justly seem impossible to Christians as well as tophilosophers," said the little lawyer, resting the tips of his fingerson the table, and leaning back in his chair as if preparing to make aspeech. "Nevertheless, I do assert that the woman I saw resembledCatherine de' Medici as closely as though they were twin-sisters. Shewas dressed in a black velvet gown, precisely like that of the queenin the well-known portrait which belongs to the king; on her head wasthe pointed velvet coif, which is characteristic of her; and she hadthe wan complexion, and the features we all know well. I could nothelp betraying my surprise to his Eminence. The suddenness of theevocation seemed to me all the more amazing because Monsieur deCagliostro had been unable to divine the name of the person with whomI wished to communicate. I was confounded. The magical spectacle of asupper, where one of the illustrious women of past times presentedherself, took from me my presence of mind. I listened without daringto question. When I roused myself about midnight from the spell ofthat magic, I was inclined to doubt my senses. But even this greatmarvel seemed natural in comparison with the singular hallucination towhich I was presently subjected. I don't know in what words I candescribe to you the state of my senses. But I declare, in thesincerity of my heart, I no longer wonder that souls have been foundweak enough, or strong enough, to believe in the mysteries of magicand in the power of demons. For myself, until I am better informed, Iregard as possible the apparitions which Cardan and otherthaumaturgists describe."
These words, said with indescribable eloquence of tone, were of anature to rouse the curiosity of all present. We looked at the speakerand kept silence; our eyes alone betrayed our interest, their pupilsreflecting the light of the wax-candles in the sconces. By dint ofobserving this unknown little man, I fancied I could see the pores ofhis skin, especially those of his forehead, emitting an inwardsentiment with which he was saturated. This man, apparently so coldand formal, seemed to contain within him a burning altar, the flamesof which beat down upon us.
"I do not know," he continued, "if the Figure evoked followed meinvisibly, but no sooner had my head touched the pillow in my ownchamber than I saw once more that grand Shade of Catherine rise beforeme. I felt myself, instinctively, in a luminous sphere, and my eyes,fastened upon the queen with intolerable fixity, saw naught but her.Suddenly, she bent toward me."
At these words the ladies present made a unanimous movement ofcuriosity.
"But," continued the lawyer, "I am not sure that I ought to relatewhat happened, for though I am inclined to believe it was all a dream,it concerns grave matters.
"Of religion?" asked Beaumarchais.
"If there is any impropriety," remarked Calonne, "these ladies willexcuse it."
"It relates to the government," replied the lawyer.
"Go on, then," said the minister; "Voltaire, Diderot, and theirfellows have already begun to tutor us on that subject."
Calonne became very attentive, and his neighbor, Madame de Genlis,rather anxious. The little provincial still hesitated, andBeaumarchais said to him somewhat roughly:--
"Go on, maitre, go on! Don't you know that when the laws allow butlittle liberty the people seek their freedom in their morals?"
Thus adjured, the small man told his tale:--
"Whether it was that certain ideas were fermenting in my brain, orthat some strange power impelled me, I said to her: 'Ah! madame, youcommitted a very great crime.' 'What crime?' she asked in a gravevoice. 'The crime for which the signal was given from the clock of thepalace on the 24th of August,' I answered. She smiled disdainfully,and a few deep wrinkles appeared on her pallid cheeks. 'You call thata crime which was only a misfortune,' she said. 'The enterprise, beingill-managed, failed; the benefit we expected for France, for Europe,for the Catholic Church was lost. Impossible to foresee that. Ourorders were ill executed; we did not find as many Montlucs as weneeded. Posterity will not hold us responsible for the failure ofcommunications, which deprived our work of the unity of movement whichis essential to all great strokes of policy; that was our misfortune!If on the 25th of August not the shadow of a Huguenot had been left inFrance, I should go down to the uttermost posterity as a noble imageof Providence. How many, many times have the clear-sighted souls ofSixtus the Fifth, Richelieu, Bossuet, reproached me secretly forhaving failed in that enterprise after having the boldness to conceiveit! How many and deep regrets for that failure attended my deathbed!Thirty years after the Saint-Bartholomew the evil it might have curedwas still in existence. That failure caused ten times more blood toflow in France than if the massacre of August 24th had been completedon the 26th. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in honor of whichyou have struck medals, has cost more tears, more blood, moremoney, and killed the prosperity of France far more than threeSaint-Bartholomews. Letellier with his pen gave effect to a decreewhich the throne had secretly promulgated since my time; but, thoughthe vast execution was necessary of the 25th of August, 1572, on the 25thof August, 1685, it was useless. Under the second son of Henri de Valoisheresy had scarcely conceived an offspring; under the second son ofHenri de Bourbon that teeming mother had cast her spawn over the wholeuniverse. You accuse me of a crime, and you put up statues to the sonof Anne of Austria! Nevertheless, he and I attempted the same thing;he succeeded, I failed; but Louis XIV. found the Protestants withoutarms, whereas in my reign they had powerful armies, statesmen,warriors, and all Germany on their side.' At these words, slowlyuttered, I felt an inward shudder pass through me. I fancied Ibreathed the fumes of blood from I know not what great mass ofvictims. Catherine was magnified. She stood before me like an evilgenius; she sought, it seemed to me, to enter my consciousness andabide there."
"He dreamed all that," whispered Beaumarchais; "he certainly neverinvented it."
"'My reason is bewildered,' I said to the queen. 'You praise yourselffor an act which three generations of men have condemned, stigmatized,and--' 'Add,' she rejoined, 'that historians have been more unjusttoward me than my contemporaries. None have defended me. I, rich andall-powerful, am accused of ambition! I am taxed with cruelty,--I whohave but two deaths upon my conscience. Even to impartial minds I amstill a problem. Do you believe that I was actuated by hatred, thatvengeance and fury were the breath of my nostrils?' She smiled withpity. 'No,' she continued, 'I was cold and calm as reason itself. Icondemned the Huguenots without pity, but without passion; they werethe rotten fruit in my basket and I cast them out. Had I been Queen ofEngland, I should have treated seditious Catholics in the same way.The life of our power in those days depended on their being but oneGod, one Faith, one Master in the State. Happily for me, I uttered myjustification in one sentence which history is transmitting. WhenBirago falsely announced to me the loss of the battle of Dreux, Ianswered: "Well then; we will go to the Protestant churches." Did Ihate the reformers? No, I esteemed them much, and I knew them little.If I felt any aversion to the politicians of my time, it was to thatbase Cardinal de Lorraine, and to his brother the shrewd and brutalsoldier who spied upon my every act. They were the real enemies of mychildren; they sought to snatch the crown; I saw them daily at workand they wore me out. If we had not ordered the Saint-Bartholomew,the Guises would have done the same thing by the help of Rome and themonks. The League, which was powerful only in consequence of my oldage, would have begun in 1573.' 'But, madame, instead of ordering thathorrible murder (pardon my plainness) why not have employed the vastresources of your political power in giving to the Reformers thosewise institutions which made the reign of Henri IV. so glorious and sopeaceful?' She smiled again and shrugged her shoulders, the hollowwrinkles of her pallid face giving her an expression of the bitterestsarcasm. 'The peoples,' she said, 'need periods of rest after savagefeuds; there lies the secret of that reign. But Henri IV. committedtwo irreparable blunders. He ought neither to have abjuredProtestantism, nor, after becoming a Catholic himself, should he haveleft France Catholic. He, alone, was in a position to have changed thewhole of France without a jar. Either not a stole, or not aconventicle--that should have been his motto. To leave two bitterenemies, two antagonistic principles in a government with nothing tobalance them, that is the crime of kings; it is thus that they sowrevolutions. To God alone belongs the right to keep good and evilperpetually together in his work. But it may be,' she saidreflectively, 'that that sentence was inscribed on the foundation ofHenri IV.'s policy, and it may have caused his death. It is impossiblethat Sully did not cast covetous eyes on the vast wealth of theclergy,--which the clergy did not possess in peace, for the noblesrobbed them of at least two-thirds of their revenue. Sully, theReformer, himself owned abbeys.' She paused, and appeared to reflect.'But,' she resumed, 'remember you are asking the niece of a Pope tojustify her Catholicism.' She stopped again. 'And yet, after all,' sheadded with a gesture of some levity, 'I should have made a goodCalvinist! Do the wise men of your century still think that religionhad anything to do with that struggle, the greatest which Europe hasever seen?--a vast revolution, retarded by little causes which,however, will not be prevented from overwhelming the world because Ifailed to smother it; a revolution,' she said, giving me a solemnlook, 'which is still advancing, and which you might consummate. Yes,you, who hear me!' I shuddered. 'What! has no one yet understoodthat the old interests and the new interests seized Rome and Luther asmere banners? What! do they not know Louis IX., to escape just such astruggle, dragged a population a hundredfold more in number than Idestroyed from their homes and left their bones on the sands of Egypt,for which he was made a saint? while I--But I,' she added, 'failed.'She bowed her head and was silent for some moments. I no longer behelda queen, but rather one of those ancient druidesses to whom humanlives are sacrificed; who unroll the pages of the future and exhumethe teachings of the past. But soon she uplifted her regal andmajestic form. 'Luther and Calvin,' she said, 'by calling theattention of the burghers to the abuses of the Roman Church, gavebirth in Europe to a spirit of investigation which was certain to leadthe peoples to examine all things. Examination leads to doubt. Insteadof faith, which is necessary to all societies, those two men drewafter them, in the far distance, a strange philosophy, armed withhammers, hungry for destruction. Science sprang, sparkling with herspecious lights, from the bosom of heresy. It was far less a questionof reforming a Church than of winning indefinite liberty for man--which is the death of power. I saw that. The consequence of thesuccesses won by the religionists in their struggle against thepriesthood (already better armed and more formidable than the Crown)was the destruction of the monarchical power raised by Louis IX. atsuch vast cost upon the ruins of feudality. It involved, in fact,nothing less than the annihilation of religion and royalty, on theruins of which the whole burgher class of Europe meant to stand. Thestruggle was therefore war without quarter between the new ideas andthe law,--that is, the old beliefs. The Catholics were the emblem ofthe material interests of royalty, of the great lords, and of theclergy. It was a duel to the death between two giants; unfortunately,the Saint-Bartholomew proved to be only a wound. Remember this:because a few drops of blood were spared at that opportune moment,torrents were compelled to flow at a later period. The intellect whichsoars above a nation cannot escape a great misfortune; I mean themisfortune of finding no equals capable of judging it when it succumbsbeneath the weight of untoward events. My equals are few; fools are inthe majority: that statement explains it all. If my name is execratedin France, the fault lies with the commonplace minds who form the massof all generations. In the great crises through which I passed, theduty of reigning was not the mere giving of audiences, reviewing oftroops, signing of decrees. I may have committed mistakes, for I wasbut a woman. But why was there then no man who rose above his age? TheDuke of Alba had a soul of iron; Philip II. was stupefied by Catholicbelief; Henri IV. was a gambling soldier and a libertine; the Admiral,a stubborn mule. Louis XI. lived too soon, Richelieu too late.Virtuous or criminal, guilty or not in the Saint-Bartholomew, I acceptthe onus of it; I stand between those two great men,--the visible linkof an unseen chain. The day will come when some paradoxical writerwill ask if the peoples have not bestowed the title of executioneramong their victims. It will not be the first time that humanity haspreferred to immolate a god rather than admit its own guilt. You areshedding upon two hundred clowns, sacrificed for a purpose, the tearsyou refuse to a generation, a century, a world! You forget thatpolitical liberty, the tranquillity of a nation, nay, knowledgeitself, are gifts on which destiny has laid a tax of blood!' 'But,' Iexclaimed, with tears in my eyes, 'will the nations never be happy atless cost?' 'Truth never leaves her well but to bathe in the bloodwhich refreshes her,' she replied. 'Christianity, itself the essenceof all truth, since it comes from God, was fed by the blood ofmartyrs, which flowed in torrents; and shall it not ever flow? Youwill learn this, you who are destined to be one of the builders of thesocial edifice founded by the Apostles. So long as you level heads youwill be applauded, but take your trowel in hand, begin to reconstruct,and your fellows will kill you.' Blood! blood! the word sounded in myears like a knell. 'According to you,' I cried, 'Protestantism has theright to reason as you do!' But Catherine had disappeared, as if somepuff of air had suddenly extinguished the supernatural light whichenabled my mind to see that Figure whose proportions had graduallybecome gigantic. And then, without warning, I found within me aportion of myself which adopted the monstrous doctrine delivered bythe Italian. I woke, weeping, bathed in sweat, at the moment when myreason told me firmly, in a gentle voice, that neither kings nornations had the right to apply such principles, fit only for a worldof atheists."
"How would you save a falling monarchy?" asked Beaumarchais.
"God is present," replied the little lawyer.
"Therefore," remarked Monsieur de Calonne, with the inconceivablelevity which characterized him, "we have the agreeable resource ofbelieving ourselves the instruments of God, according to the Gospel ofBossuet."
As soon as the ladies discovered that the tale related only to aconversation between the queen and the lawyer, they had begun towhisper and to show signs of impatience,--interjecting, now and then,little phrases through his speech. "How wearisome he is!" "My dear,when will he finish?" were among those which reached my ear.
When the strange little man had ceased speaking the ladies too weresilent; Monsieur Bodard was sound asleep; the surgeon, half drunk;Monsieur de Calonne was smiling at the lady next him. Lavoisier,Beaumarchais, and I alone had listened to the lawyer's dream. Thesilence at this moment had something solemn about it. The gleam of thecandles seemed to me magical. A sentiment bound all three of us bysome mysterious tie to that singular little man, who made me, strangeto say, conceive, suddenly, the inexplicable influences of fanaticism.Nothing less than the hollow, cavernous voice of Beaumarchais'sneighbor, the surgeon, could, I think, have roused me.
"I, too, have dreamed," he said.
I looked at him more attentively, and a feeling of some strange horrorcame over me. His livid skin, his features, huge and yet ignoble, gavean exact idea of what you must allow me to call the scum of theearth. A few bluish-black spots were scattered over his face, likebits of mud, and his eyes shot forth an evil gleam. The face seemed,perhaps, darker, more lowering than it was, because of the white hairpiled like hoarfrost on his head.
"That man must have buried many a patient," I whispered to my neighborthe lawyer.
"I wouldn't trust him with my dog," he answered.
"I hate him involuntarily."
"For my part, I despise him."
"Perhaps we are unjust," I remarked.
"Ha! to-morrow he may be as famous as Volange the actor."
Monsieur de Calonne here motioned us to look at the surgeon, with agesture that seemed to say: "I think he'll be very amusing."
"Did you dream of a queen?" asked Beaumarchais.
"No, I dreamed of a People," replied the surgeon, with an emphasiswhich made us laugh. "I was then in charge of a patient whose leg Iwas to amputate the next day--"
"Did you find the People in the leg of your patient?" asked Monsieurde Calonne.
"Precisely," replied the surgeon.
"How amusing!" cried Madame de Genlis.
"I was somewhat surprised," went on the speaker, without noticing theinterruption, and sticking his hands into the gussets of his breeches,"to hear something talking to me within that leg. I then found I hadthe singular faculty of entering the being of my patient. Once withinhis skin I saw a marvellous number of little creatures which moved,and thought, and reasoned. Some of them lived in the body of the man,others lived in his mind. His ideas were things which were born, andgrew, and died; they were sick and well, and gay, and sad; they allhad special countenances; they fought with each other, or theyembraced each other. Some ideas sprang forth and went to live in theworld of intellect. I began to see that there were two worlds, twouniverses,--the visible universe, and the invisible universe; that theearth had, like man, a body and a soul. Nature illumined herself forme; I felt her immensity when I saw the oceans of beings who, inmasses and in species, spread everywhere, making one sole and uniformanimated Matter, from the stone of the earth to God. Magnificentvision! In short, I found a universe within my patient. When Iinserted my knife into his gangrened leg I cut into a million of thoselittle beings. Oh! you laugh, madame; let me tell you that you areeaten up by such creatures--"
"No personalities!" interposed Monsieur de Calonne. "Speak foryourself and for your patient."
"My patient, frightened by the cries of his animalcules, wanted tostop the operation; but I went on regardless of his remonstrances;telling him that those evil animals were already gnawing at his bones.He made a sudden movement of resistance, not understanding that what Idid was for his good, and my knife slipped aside, entered my own body,and--"
"He is stupid," said Lavoisier.
"No, he is drunk," replied Beaumarchais.
"But, gentlemen, my dream has a meaning," cried the surgeon.
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Bodard, waking up; "my leg is asleep!"
"Your animalcules must be dead," said his wife.
"That man has a vocation," announced my little neighbor, who hadstared imperturbably at the surgeon while he was speaking.
"It is to yours," said the ugly man, "what the action is to the word,the body to the soul."
But his tongue grew thick, his words were indistinct, and he said nomore. Fortunately for us the conversation took another turn. At theend of half an hour we had forgotten the surgeon of the king's pages,who was fast asleep. Rain was falling in torrents as we left thesupper-table.
"The lawyer is no fool," I said to Beaumarchais.
"True, but he is cold and dull. You see, however, that the provincesare still sending us worthy men who take a serious view of politicaltheories and the history of France. It is a leaven which will rise."
"Is your carriage here?" asked Madame de Saint-James, addressing me.
"No," I replied, "I did not think that I should need it to-night."
Madame de Saint-James then rang the bell, ordered her own carriage tobe brought round, and said to the little lawyer in a low voice:--
"Monsieur de Robespierre, will you do me the kindness to drop MonsieurMarat at his own door?--for he is not in a state to go alone."
"With pleasure, madame," replied Monsieur de Robespierre, with hisfinical gallantry. "I only wish you had requested me to do somethingmore difficult."
THE END.
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