Frederick urged as an obstacle that he did not know how to set about it.
There was nothing easier if he only got himself recommended to the patriots of the Aube by one of the clubs of the capital. All he had to do was to read out, not a profession of faith such as might be seen every day, but a serious statement of principles.
"Bring it to me; I know what goes down in the locality; and you can, I say again, render great services to the country—to us all—to myself."
In such times people ought to aid each other, and, if Frederick had need of anything, he or his friends——
"Oh, a thousand thanks, my dear Monsieur!"
"You'll do as much for me in return, mind!"
Decidedly, the banker was a decent man.
Frederick could not refrain from pondering over his advice; and soon he was dazzled by a kind of dizziness.
The great figures of the Convention passed before his mental vision. It seemed to him that a splendid dawn was about to rise. Rome, Vienna and Berlin were in a state of insurrection, and the Austrians had been driven out of Venice. All Europe was agitated. Now was the time to make a plunge into the movement, and perhaps to accelerate it; and then he was fascinated by the costume which it was said the deputies would wear. Already he saw himself in a waistcoat with lapels and a tricoloured sash; and this itching, this hallucination, became so violent that he opened his mind to Dambreuse.
The honest fellow's enthusiasm had not abated.