Gerald Fitzgerald supped with Marat at the Rue de Moulins: he sat down with Fauchet, Etienne, Chaptal, Favart and the rest—all writers for the Ami du Peuple—all henchmen of the one great and terrible leader.
Gerald had often taken his part in the wild excesses of a youthful origin; he had borne a share in those scenes where passion stimulated by debauch becomes madness, and where a frantic impetuosity usurps the place of all reason and judgment; but it was new to him to witness a scene where the excesses were those of minds worked up by the wildest nights of political ambition, the frantic denunciations of political adversaries, and the maddest anticipations of a dreadful vengeance. They talked before him with a freedom which, in that time, was rarely heard. They never scrupled to discuss all the chances of their party, and the casualties of that eventful future that lay before them.
How the monarchy must fall—how the whole social edifice of France must be overthrown—how nobility was to be annihilated, and a new code of distinction created, were discussed with a seriousness, mingled with the wildest levity. That the road to these changes lay through blood, never for a moment seemed to check the torrent of their speculations. Some amused themselves by imaginary lists of proscriptions, giving the names and titles of those they would recommend for the honours of the guillotine.
‘Every thing,’ cried Guadet, ‘everything that calls itself Duke, Marquis, or Count.’
‘Do not include the Barons, Henri, for my cook is of that degree, and I could not spare him,’ cried Viennet.
‘Down with the aristocrat,’ said several; ‘he stands by his order, even in his kitchen.’
‘Nay,’ broke in Viennet, ‘I am the first of you all to reduce these people to their becoming station.’
‘Do not say so,’ said Gensonné: ‘the Marquis de Trillac has been a gamekeeper on my property this year back.’
‘Your property!’ said Marat contemptuously. ‘Your paternal estate was a vegetable stall in the Marché aux Bois; and your ancestral chateau, a room in the Pays Latin, five stories high.’
‘You lived at the same house, in the cellar, Marat; and, by your own account, it was I that descended to know you!’