Nursing these thoughts, he arrived at last before the door of Citizen Dupleix.Around the threshold were grouped, in admired confusion, some eight or ten sturdy Jacobins, the voluntary body-guard of Robespierre,--tall fellows, well armed, and insolent with the power that reflects power, mingled with women, young and fair, and gayly dressed, who had come, upon the rumour that Maximilien had had an attack of bile, to inquire tenderly of his health; for Robespierre, strange though it seem, was the idol of the sex!
Through this cortege stationed without the door, and reaching up the stairs to the landing-place,--for Robespierre's apartments were not spacious enough to afford sufficient antechamber for levees so numerous and miscellaneous,--Nicot forced his way; and far from friendly or flattering were the expressions that regaled his ears.
"Aha, le joli Polichinelle!" said a comely matron, whose robe his obtrusive and angular elbows cruelly discomposed."But how could one expect gallantry from such a scarecrow!""Citizen, I beg to advise thee (The courteous use of the plural was proscribed at Paris.The Societies Populaires had decided that whoever used it should be prosecuted as suspect et adulateur! At the door of the public administrations and popular societies was written up, "Ici on s'honore du Citoyen, et on se tutoye"!!! ("Here they respect the title of Citizen, and they 'thee' and 'thou' one another.") Take away Murder from the French Revolution and it becomes the greatest farce ever played before the angels!) that thou art treading on my feet.I beg thy pardon, but now I look at thine, I see the hall is not wide enough for them.""Ho! Citizen Nicot," cried a Jacobin, shouldering his formidable bludgeon, "and what brings thee hither?--thinkest thou that Hebert's crimes are forgotten already? Off, sport of Nature! and thank the Etre Supreme that he made thee insignificant enough to be forgiven.""A pretty face to look out of the National Window" (The Guillotine.), said the woman whose robe the painter had ruffled.
"Citizens," said Nicot, white with passion, but constraining himself so that his words seemed to come from grinded teeth, "Ihave the honour to inform you that I seek the Representant upon business of the utmost importance to the public and himself;and," he added slowly and malignantly, glaring round, "I call all good citizens to be my witnesses when I shall complain to Robespierre of the reception bestowed on me by some amongst you."There was in the man's look and his tone of voice so much of deep and concentrated malignity, that the idlers drew back, and as the remembrance of the sudden ups and downs of revolutionary life occurred to them, several voices were lifted to assure the squalid and ragged painter that nothing was farther from their thoughts than to offer affront to a citizen whose very appearance proved him to be an exemplary sans-culotte.Nicot received these apologies in sullen silence, and, folding his arms, leaned against the wall, waiting in grim patience for his admission.
