need of anyone to be her
sponsor; Marat, albeit overwhelmed with business, was not the
inaccessible person he was said to be,--and, added Gamelin:

"He will receive you, _citoyenne_, if you are in distress; his great
heart makes him compassionate to all who suffer. He will likewise
receive you if you have any revelation to make concerning the public
weal; he has vowed his days to the unmasking of traitors."

The _citoyenne_ Rochemaure answered that she would be happy to greet in
Marat an illustrious citizen, who had rendered great services to his
country, who was capable of rendering greater still, and that she was
anxious to bring the legislator in question into relation with friends
of hers of good repute and good will, philanthropists favoured by
fortune and competent to provide him with new means of satisfying his
ardent affection for humanity.

"It is very desirable," she concluded, "to make the rich co-operate in
securing public prosperity."

In actual fact, the _citoyenne_ had promised the banker Morhardt to
arrange a dinner where he and Marat should meet.

Morhardt, a Swiss like the Friend of the People, had entered into a
combination with several deputies of the Convention, Julien (of
Toulouse), Delaunay (of Angers) and the ex-Capuchin Chabot, to speculate
in the shares of the _Compagnie des Indes_. The game was very
simple,--to bring down the price of these shares to 650 livres by
proposing motions pointing in the direction of confiscation, in order to
buy up the greatest possible number at this figure and then push them up
to 4,000 or 5,000 livres by dint of proposals of a reassuring nature.
But for Chabot, Julien, Delaunay, their little ways were too notorious,
while suspicions were rife of Lacroix, Fabre d'Eglantine, and even
Danton. The arch-speculator, the Baron de Batz, was looking for new
confederates in the Convention and had advised Morhardt to sound Marat.

This idea of the anti-revolutionary speculators was not so extravagant
as might have been supposed at the first blush. It was always the way of
these gentry to form alliance with those in power at the moment, and by
virtue of his popularity, his pen, his character, Marat was a power to
be reckoned with. The Girondists were near shipwreck; the Dantonists,
battered by the hurricane, had lost their hold on the helm. Robespierre,
the idol of the people, was a man jealous of his scrupulous honesty,
full of suspicion, impossible to approach. The g