Then he looked up again, snatching his thoughts back to control.
"Liberty is only a name, as yet," he said; "we have taken away the visible chain which manacled the body, but an invisible one lies deep, and corroded, fettering the heart and will, and as it rusts into decay it breeds a deadly poison there. The work of healing cannot be done in a day. There can be no true liberty until our children are cradled in it, educated in it, taught to hold it as the air, without which they cannot breathe. That time is to come, but first there will be much bitterness, much suffering, much that is to be deplored. You may well pray for strength and patience," he continued, after a momentary pause, "for we shall all need them in the times that are coming."
Slowly, but surely, the spirit of the two great Republican Clubs was turning to violence and lust of power. Hébert, Marat, and Fouquier Tinville were rising into prominence—fatal, evil stars, driven on an orbit of mad passion.
Robespierre's name still stood for moderation, but there was, at times, an expression on his livid face, a spark in his haggard eyes, which left a more ominous impression than Marat's flood of vituperation or Tinville's calculating cruelty.
Dangeau's heart was very heavy. The splendid dawn was here—the dawn longed for, looked for, hoped for through so many hours of blackest night—and behold, it came up redly threatening, precursor, not of the full, still day of peace, but of some Armageddon of wrath and fury. The day of peace would come, must come, but who could say that he would live to see it? There were times when it seemed unutterably far away.
A dark mood was upon him. He could not write, but stared gloomily before him. That anxiety, that quickened sense of all life's sadness and dangers which comes over us at times when we love, possessed him now. How long would this young life, which meant he was afraid to gauge how much to him, be safe in the midst of this fermenting city? Her innocence stabbed his soul, her delicate pride caught at his heart-strings. How long could the one endure? How soon might not the other be dragged in the dust? Rosalie he knew only too well. She would not betray the girl, but neither would she go out of her own safe way to protect her; and she was venal, narrow, and hard.
He did not kiss Mademoiselle's hand to-night, but he took it for a moment as she passed, and stood looking down at it as he said:
"If God is, He will bless you."
Mademoiselle's heart beat violently.
"And you too, Citizen," she murmured, with an involuntary catch of the breath.