They were obliged to content themselves with this explanation in default of others; but it satisfied no one, and the excitement that it had caused spread from the two councils and the Clichy Club throughout Paris, where each citizen prepared himself for events no less exciting than those which had occurred on the 13th Vendémiaire.
[CHAPTER XVII]
MADEMOISELLE DE SAINTE-AMOUR'S SICK-HEADACHE
The directors were lodged at the Luxembourg, each according to his tastes and habits rather than his needs.
Barras, the man of action and display, the great lord, the Indian nabob, had taken the whole of the wing which now forms the picture-gallery and its appurtenances. Rewbell and La Reveillière-Lepaux shared the other wing. Carnot had taken the whole ground floor for himself and his brother, and had cut off an immense room for his maps from the rest of the apartment. Barthélemy, who had come last, and who was coldly received by his colleagues because he had shared in the counter-revolution, had contented himself with what was left.
On the evening before the stormy meeting at the Clichy Club had taken place, Barras had returned to his rooms in a bad temper. He had invited no one, intending to pass the evening with Mademoiselle de Sainte-Amour, who had replied to his note, sent two hours earlier, by a charming letter saying that, as ever, she would be delighted to see him.
But when he presented himself at the door at nine o'clock, Suzette answered his ring, coming on tiptoe, and entreating him with hand and voice to be silent, as her mistress had been attacked by one of those violent sick-headaches, for which the faculty had as yet found no remedy, since their cause lay, not in the patient's constitution, but rather in her mind.
The director followed Suzette, walking as cautiously as if he had a bandage over his eyes, and were engaged in a game of blind man's buff. As he passed the door of the boudoir, which was shut, he cast a suspicious glance at it before entering the sleeping apartment, with which we are familiar, and which was lighted only by an alabaster lamp in which perfumed oil was burning, and which was suspended from the ceiling.
There was nothing to be said. Mademoiselle de Sainte-Amour was lying upon her bed of rosewood inlaid with Sèvres porcelain. She was wearing a little lace cap especially reserved for days of great suffering, and spoke in the plaintive voice of one to whom speech is an effort.