"Oh yes! speaking loud in your sleep."
"And what did I say?"
"Oh, I never understood anything, ... disconnected words, that's all.... And then I was so accustomed, I did not pay much attention. But last night it was too much and I got up."
"You should not have done so, it was nothing more serious than usual, only the worry and bother that upset me so."
"It was the cross-examination of the Chouan yesterday which unstrung you, I suppose?"
"Perhaps; ... it may be.... But, you see, now I am quite well."
As the lad was going he called after him.
"Now you know, and you won't give it another thought, will you? And not a word, mind, not a word! Now go, child."
He was subject to such nightmares then?
"Perhaps I don't take enough exercise," he thought, and he resolved to go out at once into the open air. A good walk to the Champs-Elysées would completely revive him. He changed his clothes, shaved, powdered and perfumed himself as usual, and had actually started, but went back and took from a drawer in his desk the draft of the new law which he had prepared the day before, and put it in his pocket. He had decided after reflection not to submit it himself, but to confide it to Couthon, one of the most faithful of his friends on the Committee with Lebas, Saint-Just, and Augustin. Couthon would read the document from the tribune, and this would leave him fresh and fit for the ensuing debate.