Then, perceiving that he had got mixed in his quotation—
"Pirithous or some other, it is all the same!"
"But I take my oath ..."
"Then it is you yourself?" exclaimed Rabbe, before Brézé had time to finish his sentence. "Well, monsieur, you shall account to me for this insult!"
At this proposition, Brézé gave such a jump that he tore himself from the pincer-like grip that held him and ran to put himself under the protection of the pensioner who took the toll at the bridge.
Rabbe took himself off after first making a gesture significant of future vengeance. Next day he had forgotten all about it. Brézé, however, remembered it ten years afterwards!
Two explanations must follow this anecdote which ought really to have preceded it. From much study of the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rabbe had imbibed something of the character of the susceptible Genevese; he thought there was a general conspiracy organised against him: that his Catiline and Manlius and Spartacus were Latouche, Santo-Domingo and Loëve-Weymars; he even went so far as to suspect his two Pylades, Thiers and Mignet.
"They are my d'Alembert and Diderot!" he said.
It was quite evident he believed Brézé's suggestion was the result of a conspiracy that was just breaking out.
Rabbe's life was a species of perpetual hallucination, an existence made up of dreams; and sleep, itself, the only reality. One day, he button-holed Méry; his manner was gloomy, his hand on his breast convulsively crumpled his shirt-front.