Near the École Militaire Évariste pointed out to his companion the Egyptian statues designed by David on Roman models of the age of Augustus, and they overheard a Parisian, an old man with powdered hair, ejaculate to himself:
"Egad! you might think yourself on the banks of the Nile!"
It was three days since Élodie had seen her lover, and serious events had befallen meantime at the Amour peintre. The citoyen Blaise had been denounced to the Committee of General Security for fraudulent dealings in the matter of supplies to the armies. Fortunately for himself, the print-dealer was well known in his Section; the Committee of Surveillance of the Section des Piques had stood guarantee of his patriotism with the general committee and had completely justified his conduct.
This alarming incident Élodie now recounted in trembling accents, concluding:
"We are quiet now, but the alarm was a hot one. A little more and my father would have been clapped in prison. If the danger had lasted a few hours more, I should have come to you, Évariste, to make interest for him among your influential friends."
Évariste vouchsafed no reply to this, but Élodie was very far from realizing all his silence portended.
They went on hand in hand along the banks of the river, discoursing of their mutual fondness in the phrases of Julie and Saint-Preux; the good Jean-Jacques gave them the colours to paint and prank their love withal.
The Municipality of Paris had wrought a miracle,—abundance reigned for a day in the famished city. A fair was installed on the Place des Invalides, beside the Seine, where hucksters in booths sold sausages, saveloys, chitterlings, hams decked with laurels, Nanterre cakes, gingerbreads, pancakes, four-pound loaves, lemonade and wine. There were stalls also for the sale of patriotic songs, cockades, tricolour ribands, purses, pinchbeck watch-chains and all sorts of cheap gewgaws. Stopping before the display of a petty jeweller, Évariste selected a silver ring having a head of Marat in relief with a silk handkerchief wound about the brows, and put it on Élodie's finger.
The same evening Gamelin proceeded to the Rue de l'Arbre-Sec to call on the citoyenne Rochemaure, who had sent for him on pressing business. She received him in her bedchamber, reclining on a couch in a seductive dishabille.