It was that wrinkled face, sullen and acute; that eye, with its tawny yellow pupil, which shot between its retracted lids a glance replete with malice, that seemed to wound aught it fell upon; it was that mouth, broad and stern, with its compressed lips; it was that voice, harsh in all its notes, and resembling the laugh of a hyena, or the scream of a jackal; it was the whole figure of the man, quivering with a nervous spasm, which caused his fingers to be continually drumming on the ledge of the rostrum, like a pianist on the keys of a spinnet; it was, in short, the revolution incarnate with his implacable good faith, his freshness of blood, his mind determined, bloodthirsty, and cruel.
As we entered, he finished his speech, and descended amid shouts of applause.
I followed him with my eyes, in spite of myself, into the midst of the crowd, through which, small and thin as he was, he easily passed. Not a hand but was stretched out to grasp his, not a voice that did not address him. One man, dressed in black, stopped him, as he passed the desk, and said one word to him. He started, his face expressed hatred and disgust, and he passed on without replying.
“Who was that sombre-looking man who spoke to M. de Robespierre?” said I, to M. Duplay.
He smiled.
“It is a customer of mine, to whose intervention with the Duke of Orleans I owe the right of coming here. His name is M. de Laclos, and he has written a very bad book.”
“What book?” asked I.
“‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses.’”
“Well, what then? Speak lower.”
“He is the man of the Duke of Orleans; he it was who, in the Cour des Fontaines, under the shadow of the Palais Royal, published Le Journal des Amis de la Constitution. Robespierre hates him on account of his fame, but he is all-powerful here. It is he who disposes of the purse of the Prince. Hush! M. de Sillery, the husband of Madame de Genlis, is listening to us.”