ll of audacity from sheer ignorance of danger and an
unbounded confidence in the efficacy of her charms.

The soldier who escorted her was in the heyday of youth. A brazen helmet
decorated with a panther skin and the crest set off with a crimson
cock's-comb shaded his fresh young face and displayed a long and
terrific mane that swept his back. His red jacket was cut short and
square, barely reaching to the waist, the better to show off his elegant
figure. In his girdle he carried an enormous sabre, the hilt of which
was a glittering eagle's beak. A pair of flapped breeches of sky blue
moulded the fine muscles of his legs and was braided in rich arabesques
of a darker blue on the thighs. He might have been a dancer dressed for
some warlike and dashing role, in _Achilles at Scyros_ or _Alexander's
Wedding-feast_, in a costume designed by a pupil of David with the one
idea of accentuating every line of the shape.

Gamelin had a vague recollection of having seen him before. He was, in
fact, the same young soldier he had come upon a fortnight previously
haranguing the people from the arcades of the Theatre de la Nation.

The _citoyenne_ Rochemaure introduced him by name:

"The _citoyen_ Henry, Member of the Revolutionary Committee of the
Section of the Rights of Man."

She had him always at her heels,--a mirror of gallantry and a living and
walking guarantee of patriotism.

The _citoyenne_ complimented Gamelin on his talents and asked him if he
would be willing to design a card for a protegee of hers, a fashionable
milliner. He would, of course, choose an appropriate _motif_,--a woman
trying on a scarf before a cheval glass, for instance, or a young
workwoman carrying a band-box on her arm.

She had heard several artists mentioned as competent to execute a little
matter of the sort,--Fragonard _fils_, young Ducis, as well as a certain
Prudhomme; but she would rather apply to the _citoyen_ Evariste
Gamelin. However, she made no definite proposal on this head and it was
evident she had mentioned the commission merely by way of starting the
conversation. In truth she had come for something quite different. She
wanted the _citoyen_ Gamelin to do her a favour; knowing he was a friend
of the _citoyen_ Marat, she had come to ask him to introduce her to the
Friend of the People, with whom she desired an interview.

Gamelin replied that he was too insignificant an individual to present
her to Marat, besides which, she had no