At his command the men marched down––to encounter unexpectedly a company of national gendarmes that had been hurriedly summoned to the scene of the disturbance.
In the porch melee Danton’s side had been painfully slashed. Despite the pain, he recognized his little preserver and thanked her. Still holding his hand to his side and half-reeling, he moved to go. Now that all seemed quiet, he proposed to rid her of the compromising presence of a man in her room.
Henriette seized him with her little arms.
“No, no, you can’t go!” she said with a little smile of divine pity. “Better a little gossip about me than that you should lose your life.” Henriette locked the door!
She strove to carry the disabled giant to the nearest chair. Leaning heavily on her, he walked with an effort and plumped down on it. One of his arms was around her. She tried to free it, but it clung. With hands and knees she crawled out backward from the unconscious embrace.
It was the work of but a few minutes to wash and bind his wound. Next she spread a pallet on the floor, assisted him to it, wrapped him warmly, and with a kind “Good night!” left him to go to her little boudoir....
That same night the spadassins were met and disarmed by the gendarmes who (largely owing to Danton’s eloquence) espoused the people’s side. And that is why Monsieur Robespierre, his confrere, was abroad very early, without fear of assassins, and nosing for news.
“I hear Danton was in a little trouble last night!” gossiped the slick citizen with his landlady. “The fight was in this very house, was it not?”
The landlady, it seemed, was ignorant of Danton’s refuge. But Robespierre suspected. He decided to investigate, being a stickler for propriety. Mounting the stairs stealthily, he knocked at Henriette’s door.