"I turned from him," adds my uncle, "with disgust, as you, I hope, will turn from your unworthy husband, and come back, my dearest niece, to your affectionate and anxious uncle."
For one moment I felt inclined to obey his wishes—my husband really living with an abandoned woman, as her avowed protector! wife, country, reputation, sacrificed for her sake!
Horrible and disgusting it was indeed! but I soon recollected, that if it was really a duty in me to come to Paris for his sake at all, it was equally a duty now, for his criminality could not destroy his claims on my duty; nor could his breach of duty excuse the neglect of mine. In short, whether love or conscience influenced me, I know not, but I resolved to stay where I was. And so he was in the Rue Rivoli! I was glad to know where he was, but I did not as before wish to see him, and even to gaze on him unseen. No: I felt him degraded, and I thought that I should now turn away if I met him.
We took a pleasant and retired lodging on the Italian Boulevards; but I soon found that in this situation we were not likely to learn any tidings of Pendarves; and by the time we had been ten days at Paris, Juan and I resolved, having first felt our way, to put a plan which we had formed into execution.
It was absolutely necessary that we should have opportunities of knowing what was going forward in public affairs, in order to learn the degree of safety or of danger in which Pendarves was; and if Madame Beauvais had really been a spy in London for the Convention, she must be connected with the governing persons in Paris.
Accordingly, we hired a small house which had stood empty some time in a street through which most of the members of the National Convention were likely to pass in their way to and fro. The street door opened into a front parlour, and that into a second parlour: of this with a kitchen and two chambers consisted the whole of the house. Humble as it was, I assure you it was on the plan of one which Robespierre occupied in the zenith of his power.
The windows of the front parlour Juan converted into a sort of shop window; and as he and his wife were both good bakers, they filled it with a variety of cakes, which they called gateaux républicains; and it was not long before, to our great joy, they obtained an excellent sale for their commodity. This emboldened us to launch out still more; and in hopes that our shop might become a sort of resting and lounging place to the men in power as they passed, Juan put a coat of paint on the outside of the house, converted the parlour into a complete shop, and at length put a notice over the door in large tricolour letters, importing that at such hours every day plum and plain pudding à l'Américaine was to be had hot, as well as gateaux républicains.
If this affiche succeeded, there was a chance of Juan's hearing something relative to the objects of our anxiety from the members of the Convention, while I myself, hidden behind the glass door of the back parlour, might also overhear some to me important conversation. At any rate, it was worth the trial; and experience proved that the scheme was not as visionary as it at first appeared.
It was not without considerable emotion that I saw our shop opened, and business prospering. Never, surely, was there a more curious and singular situation than mine. Think of me, the daughter of an American Loyalist, living an unprotected woman in the metropolis of republican France, and helping to make puddings and cakes for the members of the National Convention!
Though I have never paused in my narrative to mention politics, still you cannot suppose that I was ignorant of what was passing on the great theatre of the Continent, nor that the names of the chief actors in it were unknown to me. On the contrary, I often beguiled my lonely hours with reading the accounts of the proceedings at Paris; had mourned not only over the fate of the royal family, but had deplored the death of those highly gifted men, and that great though mistaken woman (Madame Roland) in whom I fancied that I perceived some of the republican virtue to which others only pretended; and though far from being a Republican myself, I could not but respect those who, having adopted a principle however erroneous, acted upon it consistently. But with Brissot and his party ended all my interest in the public men of France, though their names were familiar to me, and aversion and dread were the only feelings which they excited.