Horrified at the hôtel of Tallien being in the place de l’Échafaud, she exclaimed—
“I will not come here again!”
“Well, I will come and live at your hôtel.”
“No, I shall come back here. It is not you who will go away, it is the scaffold.”
To divert his thoughts and attention from the rigours and cruelties, for the perpetration of which he had been sent to Bordeaux, she persuaded him to have his portrait done, and induced him and the artist to prolong the sittings on pretence of making the picture a chef d’œuvre, but in reality to occupy his time and attention; in fact, he was found by some one who called to see him reclining comfortably in a boudoir, dividing his attention between the artist who was painting the portrait and Térèzia, who was also present.
The Marquis de Paroy, a royalist, whose father, a Girondist, had just been arrested, wrote to ask for an interview, sending an illustrated petition, in the taste of the day, to the “goddess of Bordeaux,” with a Cupid he called a sans-culotte, &c. Having received an invitation, he went to her house, where, in the ante-rooms, crowds were waiting with petitions in their hands. Presently folding doors were thrown open and Térèzia appeared, exquisitely dressed, asked for the citoyen Paroy, and invited him to come into her boudoir, which was filled with the traces of her pursuits. Music was upon the open piano, a guitar lay upon a sofa, a harp stood in a corner of the room, an easel, a half-sketched-out miniature, a table covered with drawings, colours, and brushes, an embroidery frame, a writing table piled with petitions, notes, and papers. After the first greeting she said—
“I think I remember meeting you at the house of the Comte de l’Estaing with my father, and I hope you will come and see me as often as you can. But let us speak of your father. Where is he in prison? I hope to obtain his release from the citoyen Tallien. I will give him your petition myself, and present you to him.”
She did so on the following day, and Tallien advised him to wait.
“Your father must be a little forgotten in order to save him. It all depends on the president of the tribunal, Lacomb.”
Térèzia asked him to supper to meet the mistress of Ysabeau, whom she thought might influence Ysabeau in his favour. During the supper one of the revolutionary guests, observing a ring with a Love painted on it, and the inscription—