ordecai. The intelligence
reached him just in time to save me, by a daring claim of my person as
an agent of the English ministry. He had then lost sight of me, and
began to think that I had perished; when the application of my friend
the doctor told him where I was to be found. The message of the head of
the Republic, requiring a confidential bearer of documents, struck him
as affording an opportunity of my liberation; and though the palpable
absurdity of my worthy friend Pantoufle prevented any communication with
_him_, no time was lost in proposing my name to authority.

"And now," said my entertainer, after drinking my safe arrival in a
bumper of imperial tokay, "En avance, for Madame Roland."

We drove to a splendid mansion in the Rue de la Revolution. The street
in front was crowded with equipages, and it was with some difficulty
that we could make our way through the long and stately suite of rooms.
The house had belonged to the Austrian ambassador; and on the
declaration of war it had been taken possession of by the Republic
without ceremony.

I observed to Elnathan, that "to judge from the pomp of the furniture,
republicanism was not republican every where."

"Nowhere but in the streets, or the prisons," was his reply in a
whisper. "Since the Austrian left it, the whole hotel has been furnished
anew at the most profuse expense, which I had the honour of supplying.
Roland is a great personage, an honest nobody, a mill-horse at the wheel
of office. He is probably drudging over his desk at this moment; but
Madame is of another mould. "La voila!" He turned suddenly, and made a
profound bow to a very showy female, who had advanced from a group for
the purpose of receiving the Jew and the stranger. I had now, for the
first time, the honour of seeing this remarkable personage. Her figure
was certainly striking, and her physiognomy conveyed a great deal of
her character for intelligence and decision. She had evidently dressed
herself on the model of the _classique_; and though not handsome enough
for a Venus, nor light enough for a nymph, she might have made a
tolerable Minerva. She had probably some thoughts of the kind; for
before we had time to make our bows, she threw herself into an attitude
of the Galerie des Antiques, and, with her eyes fixed profoundly on the
ground, awaited our incense. But when this part was played, the idol
condescended to become human, and she spoke with that torrent of
language which h