ith a downcast humble eye. A milder, meeker face no
pastoral poet could assign to Corydon or Thyrsis,--why did the crowd
shrink and hold their breath? As the ferret in a burrow crept that
slight form amongst the larger and rougher creatures that huddled and
pressed back on each other as he passed. A wink of his stealthy eye, and
the huge Jacobins left the passage clear, without sound or question. On
he went to the apartment of the tyrant, and thither will we follow him.

CHAPTER 7.VII.

Constitutum est, ut quisquis eum HOMINEM dixisset fuisse,
capitalem penderet poenam.
--St. Augustine, "Of the God Serapis," l. 18, "de Civ. Dei," c. 5.

(It was decreed, that whoso should say that he had been a MAN,
should suffer the punishment of a capital offence.)

Robespierre was reclining languidly in his fauteuil, his cadaverous
countenance more jaded and fatigued than usual. He to whom Catherine
Theot assured immortal life, looked, indeed, like a man at death's door.
On the table before him was a dish heaped with oranges, with the juice
of which it is said that he could alone assuage the acrid bile that
overflowed his system; and an old woman, richly dressed (she had been a
Marquise in the old regime) was employed in peeling the Hesperian fruits
for the sick Dragon, with delicate fingers covered with jewels. I
have before said that Robespierre was the idol of the women. Strange
certainly!--but then they were French women! The old Marquise, who, like
Catherine Theot, called him "son," really seemed to love him piously and
disinterestedly as a mother; and as she peeled the oranges, and heaped
on him the most caressing and soothing expressions, the livid ghost of a
smile fluttered about his meagre lips. At a distance, Payan and Couthon,
seated at another table, were writing rapidly, and occasionally pausing
from their work to consult with each other in brief whispers.

Suddenly one of the Jacobins opened the door, and, approaching
Robespierre, whispered to him the name of Guerin. (See for the espionage
on which Guerin was employed, "Les Papiers inedits," etc., volume i.
page 366, No. xxviii.) At that word the sick man started up, as if new
life were in the sound.

"My kind friend," he said to the Marquise, "forgive me; I must dispense
with thy tender cares. France demands me. I am never ill when I can
serve my country!"

The old Marquise lifted up her eyes to heaven and murmured, "Quel ange!"

Ro