ested
and imprisoned. Probably the mere fact that she was a marquise was
sufficient to entangle her in the meshes of the revolutionary net. It is
certain, however, that whilst lying under sentence of death in the
prison at Bordeaux she attracted the attention of Tallien, the son of
the Marquis of Bercy's butler and _ci-devant_ lawyer's clerk, who had
blossomed into "a Terrorist of the first water." He obtained her release
and she became his mistress. She took advantage of the equivocal but
influential position which she had attained to engage in a vile traffic.
She and her paramour amassed a huge fortune by accepting money from the
unfortunate prisoners who were threatened with the fate which she had so
narrowly escaped, and to which she was again to be exposed. The venal
lenity shown by Tallien to aristocrats rendered him an object of
suspicion, whilst the marked tendency displayed by Robespierre to
mistrust and, finally, to immolate his coadjutors was an ominous
indication of the probable course of future events. Robespierre had
already destroyed Vergniaud by means of Hebert, Hebert by means of
Danton, and Danton by means of Billaud. As a preliminary step to the
destruction of Tallien, he caused his mistress to be arrested, probably
with a view to seeing what evidence against her paramour could be
extracted before she was herself guillotined.

From this point in the narrative history is merged into legend. The
legend would have us believe that on the 7th Thermidor the "Citoyenne
Fontenay" sent a dagger to the "Citoyen Tallien," accompanied by a
letter in which she said that she had dreamt that Robespierre was no
more, and that the gates of her prison had been flung open. "Alas!" she
added, "thanks to your signal cowardice there will soon be no one left
in France capable of bringing such a dream to pass." Tallien besought
Robespierre to show mercy, but "the Incorruptible was inflexible." Then
the "Lion Amoureux" roared, being, as the legend relates, stricken to
the heart at the appalling danger to which his beloved mistress was
exposed or, as his detractors put the case, being in deadly fear that
the untoward revelations of the Citoyenne might cost him his own head.
The next act in this Aeschylean drama is described by the believers in
the legend in the following words: "Tallien drew Theresia's dagger from
his breast and flashed it in the sunlight as though to nerve himself for
the desperate business that confronted hi