1This new comer was a woman.

2But a strange one, having a good deal of the masculine in her composition—a perfect amazon—one might say a virago.

3She was habited in a long dress of red stuff, surmounted by a cape; she wore a plumed hat, and a large sword at her side.

4I touched M. Drouet’s arm.

5“Oh!” said I; “who is that?”

6“I am no wiser at present than yourself,” said he; “unless it is—yes, it is the famous Thèroigne de Méricourt.”

7I had once or twice heard the name of the heroine of the 5th and 8th of October—the impetuous Liègoise, beautiful, but terrible; who, at Versailles, with a smile and soft voice, had ordered the regiments of Flanders to lay down their arms. An unhappy affection—the treason of an unfaithful one, had thrust her out from woman’s life. She had embraced the cause of the Revolution with transport. It was her last love. The unhappy woman was whipped by the Royalists in the Garden of the Tuileries, became insane, and died in Bicetre, or Charenton, I forget which, after twenty years of agony.

8But at present she was young, pretty, proud, if not happy. Alas! her misplaced love had seared her heart.

9Her entrance was great.

10“There is the Queen of Sheba!” cried Camille Desmoulins, stammering more than ever.

11Then, turning to Danton, “Rise up, Solomon,” said he; “and go and receive her Majesty!”

12She stood boldly in front of Danton, put her hands on the hilt of her sabre, and said, “If thou art Solomon, build the temple. We have space enough on the site of the Bastille, or better on the Field of the Federation. I will head the subscription.”

13She took a gold chain from off her neck, and threw it to Danton.

14“I ask to speak,” said a tall, fair man, with a strong German accent; “to support the proposition of the Citizen Thèroigne.”

15“Citizen Anacharsis Clootz will address the meeting,” said Danton. “Place to the orator of the human race.”

16The Prussian Baron mounted the rostrum.

17“Look!” said Drouet; “there is a republican who has a hundred thousand crowns a year, and yet they say that only the bootless and stockingless are revolutionists.”

18“Yes,” said he, with a soft smile and quiet voice, which contrasted with the harshness of the former speaker; “yes, I second the motion of Citizen Thèroigne. The temple should be built in Paris. Why was Paris built at an equal distance between the Pole and the Equator, if not to be the centre of attraction for all men? At Paris will one day assemble the Etats Généraux of all the world. You are laughing, Camille, you eternal grinner. The day is not so distant as you suppose. Oh, that the Tower of London may fall as did the Bastille! Oh, that a second Cromwell may rise from insignificance into power, and the tyrant of a day will be seen no more! When the tricolor of liberty floats, not over England and France alone, but over all the world, there will then no longer be provinces, soldiers, and vessels of war; here will be a people, and better than that, a family. It will then be as easy to go from Paris to Pekin as from Bordeaux to Strasbourg; the shores of the ocean will be brought together by a bridge of ships; and the East and the West will embrace on the Champ de la Fédération. Rome was the queen of nations by force of arms; Paris will be the same by dint of peace. Think not that this is mere imagination, oh, my brothers! No, the more I think over the matter, the more sure am I that I am right; and the more I believe in the possibility of one great and united nation. Oh, listen to the voice of reason; may patriotism warm your hearts to build up a temple which will hold all the representatives of the human race. Then ten thousand men will suffice to represent the universe!”

19“Bravo! bravo!” cried all from all sides.

20“There are plenty of heads to chop off here and there,” said Marat.

21“Ye-ye-yes,” Stammered Camille Desmoulins; “six hundred yes-yes-yesterday, nineteen thousand four hun-hundred to-day; and if a to-morrow arrives, there will be fif-fif-fifty thousand.”

22“Anacharsis,” cried Danton, “you err, but on the side of a good and generous heart.”

23The terrible man looked at him with a soft smile, and he continued: “Men will be what they ought to be, when one can say, ‘The world is my country, the world is mine;’ but till then, there are more proscriptions, more banishments, more exiles. Nature is one; why is not society one? They are divided forces, which strike one another when nations are driven against each other by the breath of hatred, and, like clouds, they strike and are scattered. Tyrants, we wish not that, and the proof is that we demand not your death. Kill yourselves, slay each other. Descend, O kings, from your thrones, and we will give you your choice ’twixt misery and a scaffold. Usurpers of sovereignty! Balthazars of modern times! is it possible that you see not on your palace walls, amid the glare of your thousand lamps, the shouts of your revelries, and the crash of your song, the writing, not in fire, but in your people’s blood, Mené, Mené! Tekel Upharsin? Lay down your sceptres and your crowns, and head a revolution which delivers kings from the grasp of kings, and the people from the rivalry of the people.”

24“A-a-amen!” stammered Camille Desmoulins. “Ana-Anacharsis wishes to carry me away by the hair of my head, as the angel did Habakkuk.”

25“Long live Camille Desmoulins!” said Thèroigne, while the friends of the true son of Voltaire tendered him their hands. “If ever I have love, it shall be for you, I promise you. By the bye, you are fond of Sieyes?”

26“Yes, truly,” replied Thèroigne. “Between you and me, he is the only one who gives me the idea of a man.”

27“What am I, then?” said Danton.

28“What are you?” said Thèroigne, scanning him from head to foot. “You are only a bull.”

29“Well re-re-replied,” said Camille; “that is what I call taking the bull by the horns.”

30“In the meantime,” cried Marat, “you are losing sight of the public safety. I speak to you of a great treason, and you will not listen, Lafayette!”

31“Ah, good!” said Camille. “Go on, Marat!”

32“Lafayette has caused to be made in the Faubourg St. Antoine ten thousand snuff-boxes, all of which are embellished with his portrait as General of the National Guard. Lafayette aspires to the dictatorship.”

33“Of tobacco merchants?” queried Camille Desmoulins.

34Marat’s yellow skin assumed a green tinge, and perspired with rage.

35“He has some scheme beneath that,” continued he; “so I pray all good citizens in whose hands these snuff-boxes may fall, to destroy them.”

36“In order to discover the names of his accomplices?” asked Camille.

37“There are many of them. I told you that twenty thousand pieces of cord would suffice, but bring thirty or forty thousand, and you will not have enough.”

38The applause drowned the voice of Marat, but eventually their breath failed them, and they could hear Camille Desmoulins, who, like a swimmer who had dived, again remounted to the surface.

39“Always tragic, friend Ma-Marat—always tragic! hypertragic, in fact.”

40“And these cords,” continued Marat—“take care, Camille Desmoulins, that one of them is not first tried on you.”

41“In that case,” replied the incorrigible railer, “I have a chance, if they take me, of growing ugly. You haven’t.”

42Here the laughter broke out irresistibly, and as it arose from Camille’s side, he may be fairly said to have gained the victory.

43Marat descended, furiously shaking his fist.

44“Return to thy cave, night-bird! Go back to thy hole, hyena! Sneak into thy nest, viper!” murmured Danton, with a look of ineffable disdain. But Danton’s murmurs were like thunder; every one heard them.

45When Marat left, all joined in brotherly communion, his presence having alone restrained them hitherto.

46M. Jean Baptiste knew Danton, and went to shake hands with him, and to compliment Camille Desmoulins.

47I could not turn my eyes from the face of the ex-advocate, that terrible blind man whom Providence had given to guide the revolution.

48I shall have occasion to speak again of him, and to show what sensibility of heart was hidden beneath that rough exterior.

49We left the club at midnight, and returned to the “Hotel des Postes,” Rue Grange Batélière.

50At daybreak on the morrow we had to be under arms.