and all, united in a moment, by her benign air, hoped for better days.

The pale sun of afternoon (very rare in Brumaire), penetrating into the dark hall, dispersed some of the shadows. The Dantonists demanded that the Assembly should hold to their promise, of going to Notre Dame, to return the visit of Reason. They all rose simultaneously.

The weather was delighful, light, dry, and clear, like the most beautiful winter's day. The Convention took up their line of march, happy at this flash of unity which had appeared at a time of so much division. Many joined with all their hearts in this fête, firmly believing that in it they saw the true end of all their troubles. Their thought is plainly declared in an ingenious manner, in a speech of Clootz: "The discordant federalism of sects, vanished in the unity and indivisibility of reason."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE WORSHIP OF WOMEN FOR ROBESPIERRE.

It is an astonishing thing that a man like Robespierre, of an austere appearance, voluntarily poor, of a careful, exact, but uniform and mediocral dress, and with an affected simplicity, should be so much loved and sought after by

women.

There is but one answer, and it is the secret of the worship of which he was the object: he inspired confidence. Women do not hate a severe and grave appearance. So often victims of the levity of men, they willingly approach those who reassure them. They instinctively think that an austere man, in general, is the one who will keep his heart better for a loved person. For them, the heart is everything. The world is wrong in thinking they want to be amused. The sentimental rhetoric of Robespierre stood a good

chance of being sometimes very tiresome; he had only to say: "The charms of virtue, the sweet lessons of maternal love, a holy and sweet intimacy, the sensibility of my heart,” and other like phrases, and the women were touched. Add that amongst these generalities he always had an individual part, still more sentimental, generally on himself, on the works of his sorrowful career, and his personal sufferings; all this was in each discourse, and so regularly was it introduced that the handkerchiefs were holden in readiness for these passages. Then, the emotion commenced, the well known part had arrived, with such or such variety, on the dangers which he run from the hatred of his enemies, the tears which one day would water the ashes of the martyrs of liberty. But, arrived there, it was too much, the heart burst forth, they could contain themselves no longer, but broke out in sobs.

Robespierre's pale and sad appearance aided him much in all this, pleading for him in advance with feeling hearts. With his torch of Emile and the Contrat-social, at the tribune he had the air of a sad bastard of Rousseau. His sparkling and quick eyes wandered without cessation

all over the hall, plunging into badly lighted corners, and often raised to the tribune of women. Joined to this, he managed, with gravity and dexterity, two pair of spectacles, one to see near objects or to read, and the other to distinguish far off, or to seek some person. Each one said: "It is I."

The excited partiality of the women especially burst out when, towards the end of 1792, in his struggle against the Girondists, he declared to the Jacobins, that if the intriguers disappeared, he himself would quit public life, and fly from the tribune, desiring nothing "but to pass his days in the delights of a tranquil and holy intimacy." A number of women's voices proceeded from the tribune: "We will follow you! We will follow you!"

There was one thing respectable in this fondness, separating it from the absurdities of the person and the time. Women followed with their hearts one whose behavior was the most worthy, whose probity was the best established, whose ideality was the highest, the one who, with as much capability as courage, constituting himself the defender of religious opinions at this time, dared, in December, 1792, to thank Providence for the safety of the country.

CHAPTER XXV.

ROBESPIERRE AT MADAME DUPLAY'S (1791-94).

THE little, mediocral, and faded portrait of Robespierre, at seventeen years old, represents him with a rose in his hand, perhaps to indicate that he was already a member of the academy of the Rosates at Arras. He holds this rose on his heart. Below is read this touching line: "All for my friend." (The Saint-Abin Collection.)

Would a young man, transported to Paris, remain always faithful to this sentimental purity? We do not know, but perhaps at the Constituent Assembly, the intimate friendship of the Lameths and other young nobles of the left, made him commit some fault. Perhaps during the first months of this Assembly, thinking that he had need of them, and desiring to bind this tie by a calculated attraction, had not made him a stranger