"It is to Monsieur's vocation what action is to speech, or the body to the soul," said the ugly guest.
But his tongue was heavy, and he got confused; he could only utter unintelligible words. Happily, the conversation took another turn. By the end of half an hour we had forgotten the surgeon to the Court pages, and he was asleep.
When we rose from table, the rain was pouring in torrents.
"The lawyer is no fool," said I to Beaumarchais.
"Oh! he is dull and cold. But you see the provinces can still produce good folks who take political theories and the history of France quite seriously. It is a leaven that will spread."
"Have you a carriage?" Madame de Saint-James asked me.
"No," said I shortly. "I did not know that I should want it this evening. You thought, perhaps, that I should take home the Controller-General? Did he come to your house en polisson?" (the fashionable name at the time for a person who drove his own carriage at Marly dressed as a coachman). Madame de Saint-James left me hastily, rang the bell, ordered her husband's carriage, and took the lawyer aside.
"Monsieur de Robespierre, will you do me the favor of seeing Monsieur Marat home, for he is incapable of standing upright?" said she.
"With pleasure, madame," replied Monsieur de Robespierre with an air of gallantry; "I wish you had ordered me to do something more difficult."
Paris, January 1828.