gratitude was as intolerable
to him as the memory of insult. But why, now, should he fly from
France?--he could possess himself of Glyndon's gold; he doubted not
that he could so master Fillide by her wrath and jealousy that he
could command her acquiescence in all he proposed. The papers he had
purloined--Desmoulins' correspondence with Glyndon--while it insured the
fate of the latter, might be eminently serviceable to Robespierre, might
induce the tyrant to forget his own old liaisons with Hebert, and
enlist him among the allies and tools of the King of Terror. Hopes
of advancement, of wealth, of a career, again rose before him. This
correspondence, dated shortly before Camille Desmoulins' death, was
written with that careless and daring imprudence which characterised the
spoiled child of Danton. It spoke openly of designs against Robespierre;
it named confederates whom the tyrant desired only a popular pretext
to crush. It was a new instrument of death in the hands of the
Death-compeller. What greater gift could he bestow on Maximilien the
Incorruptible?

Nursing these thoughts, he arrived at last before the door of Citizen
Dupleix. Around the threshold were grouped, in admired confusion,
some eight or ten sturdy Jacobins, the voluntary body-guard of
Robespierre,--tall fellows, well armed, and insolent with the power that
reflects power, mingled with women, young and fair, and gayly dressed,
who had come, upon the rumour that Maximilien had had an attack of bile,
to inquire tenderly of his health; for Robespierre, strange though it
seem, was the idol of the sex!

Through this cortege stationed without the door, and reaching up the
stairs to the landing-place,--for Robespierre's apartments were not
spacious enough to afford sufficient antechamber for levees so numerous
and miscellaneous,--Nicot forced his way; and far from friendly or
flattering were the expressions that regaled his ears.

"Aha, le joli Polichinelle!" said a comely matron, whose robe his
obtrusive and angular elbows cruelly discomposed. "But how could one
expect gallantry from such a scarecrow!"

"Citizen, I beg to advise thee (The courteous use of the plural was
proscribed at Paris. The Societies Populaires had decided that whoever
used it should be prosecuted as suspect et adulateur! At the door of
the public administrations and popular societies was written up, "Ici on
s'honore du Citoyen, et on se tutoye"!!! ("Here they respect the title
of C