"No, your return to-night to the fortress would only set all the tongues of Paris in motion to-morrow. You must be seen in public to-night, at the opera, the theatre, or where you will. You must figure as an Englishman travelling at his pleasure and his leisure—a Milor."
"Madame Roland gives a soiree to-night," humbly interposed the Jew.
"Ha!—that is the best of all. You must go there. You will be seen by all the world. Elnathan will introduce you to the 'philosophic lady' of the circle." He then resumed his pacing round the room. I could observe the vulpine expression of his visage, the twitching of his hands, the keen sidelong look of a man living in perpetual alarm.
We prepared to take our leave; but he now suddenly resumed the petit-maître, flourished his perfumed handkerchief again, gave a passing smile at the mirror, and offered me the honours of his snuff-box with the affectation of the stage. But, as we reached the door of the apartment, he made a long, single stride, which brought him up close to me. "Remember, sir," said he, in a stern voice, wholly unlike the past—"You have it in charge from me to inform the government of your country of the actual feeling of France. It is true that there are madmen among us—Brissotins, Girondists, and other enthusiasts—who talk of war. I tell you that they are madmen, and that I will have no war.—There may be conspirators, who think to shake the existing régime of the republic, and look to war as the means of raising themselves on its ruins.—I tell you, and you may tell your cabinet, that they will not accomplish their objects here; and that, if they accomplish them, it will be the fault and the folly alone of England. Impress those truths on the minds of your countrymen: the Republic desires no war; her principle is peace, her purpose is peace, her prosperity is peace. There will be, there shall be, there can be, no war." He folded his arms, and stood like a pillar till we withdrew.
I happened to ascertain shortly afterwards, that on this very day Robespierre had presided at a council which has sent off orders to Dumourier to open the Scheldt, the notorious and direct preliminary to war with England. Such is the sincerity of diplomacy!
I remained during the rest of the day with Elnathan. His hotel was splendid, and all that surrounded him gave the impression of great opulence; but it was obvious that he lived like a man in a gunpowder magazine. He had several sons and daughters, whom, in the terrors of the time, he had contrived to send among his connexions in Germany; and he now lived alone, his wife having been dead for some years. All his wealth could not console him for the anxiety of his position; and doubtless he would have perished long before, in the general massacre of the opulent, except for the circumstance of being the chief channel of moneyed communication between the government and Germany. In the course of our lonely but most recherché dinner, he explained to me slightly the means of my recent preservation. The police-officer had acquainted him with my being the bearer of a letter from Mordecai. The intelligence reached him just in time to save me, by a daring claim of my person as an agent of the English ministry. He had then lost sight of me, and began to think that I had perished; when the application of my friend the doctor told him where I was to be found. The message of the head of the Republic, requiring a confidential bearer of documents, struck him as affording an opportunity of my liberation; and though the palpable absurdity of my worthy friend Pantoufle prevented any communication with him, no time was lost in proposing my name to authority.
"And now," said my entertainer, after drinking my safe arrival in a bumper of imperial tokay, "En avance, for Madame Roland."
We drove to a splendid mansion in the Rue de la Revolution. The street in front was crowded with equipages, and it was with some difficulty that we could make our way through the long and stately suite of rooms. The house had belonged to the Austrian ambassador; and on the declaration of war it had been taken possession of by the Republic without ceremony.
I observed to Elnathan, that "to judge from the pomp of the furniture, republicanism was not republican every where."