The announcement of the visit of his colleague seemed to reanimate the lawyer. A glow of hope shone in his almost deathly countenance. He rose abruptly, saying:
"Billaud must have seen St. Just. If he accepts my proposition, I am saved!" Then, in a curt, hard voice he addressed his wife: "Retire to your apartment, madam; I have to talk business, grave political business, with Citizen Billaud-Varenne."
Followed by her daughter, Madam Desmarais went out, and her husband ordered Gertrude to show Citizen Billaud-Varenne into the parlor. As the maid left, the two police agents placed on watch were seated near the parlor door.
"Come now, let's compose ourselves," muttered the advocate, mopping the perspiration which beaded his brow. "Billaud-Varenne is another sort of monster, and perhaps more dangerous than Marat. What answer will he bring me? If St. Just consents to be my son-in-law, I have nothing more to fear! If not—ah! What a hell!"
Billaud-Varenne entered. The Representative of the people was not a monster, as the advocate had christened him; but a man of inflexible convictions and rigid probity, besides being the possessor of some fortune. He did not touch, any more than Lepelletier St. Fargeau, Herault of Sechelles, and other wealthy citizens, the compensation allowed to a Representative. Gifted with natural eloquence, always sanguine, there was no patriot more devoted to the Revolution than Billaud-Varenne. He wore a short-haired black wig, and a maroon suit with steel buttons; like Robespierre, St. Just, Camille Desmoulins and other Jacobins, he carried dignity even into the care of his person and his clothes.
"Eh, well, colleague," quoth Billaud-Varenne on entering, "what am I to surmise by this visit of the Section commissioner, whom I just met leaving your rooms?"
"Confess that it is a spicy incident to find, in the house one of us Mountainists a deposit of royalist poniards!"
"That is very easily explained: You receive a case from the depot, you don't know what is in it—nothing simpler."
"Do you think, my dear colleague, that it seemed so simple to the commissioner?"
"He could know nothing to the contrary. But, between ourselves, you exhibited extreme rigor towards your wife."