Under date of January 26, 1793, the diary of John Lebrenn bears the record, without comment:
"To-day I espoused Charlotte Desmarais."
Despite the circular addressed by advocate Desmarais to his colleagues in the Convention, and in which he fixed as the date for his daughter's wedding the day of the tyrant's death, Charlotte, without regard for her father's very lively disappointment, and unmindful of his reiterated importunities, would not consent to be married until the 26th of January. With his habitual calculation, considering the union merely as a precaution, the lawyer had chosen Robespierre and Marat as witnesses to the ceremony; those selected by John Lebrenn were Billaud-Varenne and Legendre. The municipal officer of the Section received the vows of the young couple in his office on the evening after the Convention session of January 26. John Lebrenn had several days previously obtained from his old employer, Master Gervais, the deed of his smithy and the lease of the house. The preparations, the modest embellishments of his future home, were finished on the eve of his marriage.
After returning from the offices of the Section, the young couple received the pledges and felicitations of the witnesses, and presently were left alone with Madam Desmarais and her husband, who said to John:
"My dear son-in-law, I leave you an instant to go to look up my daughter's dowry and present it to you."
When Desmarais left the room, his wife addressed her daughter and new-found son:
"My children, this is the decisive instant. I would rather die than live any longer with my husband; but I tremble to think of the rage into which our resolution will throw him. Do not forsake me."
"Dear mother," responded Charlotte, "could you really think that of us? Is not our life bound up with yours?"
"Nevertheless, if he should oppose our separation? He would perhaps be in the right, my children?"
"Reassure yourself, dear mother," quoth John in his turn. "In the first place, the separation will relieve Monsieur Desmarais of one fear, that of being compromised by his relationship with Monsieur Hubert, your brother; who, unfortunately, as you tell me, has refused to accept the proposal made to him in my name."