“Oh, if I had known it,” said M. Duplay, “I would not have allowed you to present yourself at the National Assembly.”
“How so?” said Robespierre.
“Yes; it was Réné,”—M. Duplay pointed me out,—“it was Réné, a good young man, a staunch patriot, and a friend of M. Drouet de St. Menehould, who, you know, arrested the King; it was Réné who came and announced the massacre on the Champ de Mars. We have but one bond to the Jacobins, and, as I belong to the club——”
“Ah, I now recognise you,” said Robespierre.
“Then it was decided to go and fetch you.”
“And I arrived just in time to see the gates shut. Not wishing to return home, at the bottom of the Marais, I was going to get a little shelter at the house of Pétion, who lives in the Faubourg St. Honoré. You came across me on my road, and brought me here. I ask permission to remain here all night. Surrounded by the spies of Lafayette, and satellites of Bailly, the life of an honest man runs great danger. I do not fear death, but my ambition is to die in a way useful to my country.”
I assisted at this scene without the slightest emotion. It seemed to me a great honor to address this great man.
“Then,” said he, “you are the friend of the Citizen Drouet?”
“He cared for me like a father,” said I. “The little I know I owe to him and to Rousseau.”