“Saturday—of Messidor!” he exclaimed, when ordering the Moniteur to be dated on a certain day. “We shall be laughed at! But I will do away with the Messidor! I will efface all the inventions of the Jacobins!” [109]
Barras fled to Brussels; Tallien, his part played out and his power and position gone, returned to France, the last link broken between him and Térèzia. He did not wish for a divorce, but he was obliged to consent to one. And he had himself been one of its most fervent advocates.
Napoleon gave him a consulship at Alicante, where he spent some years. Before he went, Ouvrard offered him the cottage in the Champs-Elysées and a pension of twelve thousand francs, which he refused with indignation. He was again a journalist, and would live by his pen.
He returned to Paris when he left Spain, and lived there, poor, sickly, and forgotten by all but Térèzia, then Princess de Chimay. She was nearly his only friend. She visited him often, and though he would never take money from her, she persuaded him to accept a refuge in the house in the Champs-Elysées called the Chaumière, their first dwelling in Paris.
For some years Térèzia continued to live at Paris, where she had witnessed so many transformations and passed through the extremes of prosperity and adversity.
Many friends were about her; her beauty and fascination were as remarkable as ever. From numbers of people she met with the affection and gratitude which, however they might deplore and disapprove of the laxity of her morals, no one who was not altogether contemptible would fail to render to a woman who had saved their life or the lives of those they loved.
Others there were who showed the basest ingratitude. The Marquise de —— had been saved by Mme. Tallien, and hidden for three weeks in her boudoir. Not even her maid knew of her presence there. Térèzia herself not only brought her food and waited upon her, but obtained her pardon and got part of her fortune restored to her. For some time she appeared very grateful, and as long as Tallien was powerful she came constantly to see Térèzia, often asking for fresh favours.
When Tallien had fallen and Napoleon was supreme she ceased to go near her.
A man of her acquaintance, disgusted by her conduct, remarked one day—
“Mme. Tallien is indignant at your ingratitude; she saved your life, and I advise you to go and see her.”