“What!—a conspirator! Do you know what you are saying, Mr. Jean Paul?”
“Perfectly, citizen Marianne; and since your mistress loves ink, they are going to give her and her nurse some. Listen; I do not meddle—I say nothing, but I see all. This morning I had a little talk with the officer who lives near, and he is of my opinion concerning your mistress. She holds correspondence with the enemy—the English! Otherwise, why should she be writing all day? It is not natural for a woman to write so much. My wife never writes; it is true, she does not know how to write—but that makes no difference. Now I have an idea—I may have an idea, may I not?—well, I have an idea that she wishes to sell France; who knows but that she has already sold it, and that it is with some of the money she is going to buy the piano! O, my country—my poor country! into what hands have you fallen!”
“You are either a fool, or you don’t love music, which is the same thing; for if I understand a word you say, I hope my head may be cut off!” With this retort, Marianne turned toward Madam Cottin’s apartments.
Madam Cottin did not go to bed that night, but labored without relaxation to have her book ready by the appointed hour, and to receive the twelve hundred francs, by which she was to aid the escape of her husband’s friend. Morning and noon passed, the sun began to decline, and as the clock sounded five, she finished the last letter. The same moment the door of her chamber was opened with violence, and Marianne, weeping, rushed in, followed by a motley crowd of soldiers and “citizens,” the porter at their head.
“In the name of the law, search every where,” said a municipal officer; and in an instant they were ransacking every corner of the apartment. As soon as Madam Cottin could recover her self-possession, which had deserted her at first sight of these intruders, she demanded,
“What do you here—and what do you wish of me, sirs?”
Carrying his hand to his cap with a military air, the officer replied,
“Citizen, you are accused of holding correspondence with the enemies of France, and we are ordered to seize your papers.”
“Me, sir, holding correspondence with the enemy!” cried Madam Cottin, in a tone of surprise; “me, a poor widow, without friends and without experience! Who has been so base as to invent this falsehood?”
“If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear,” replied the officer, “and the examination of your papers will clear you without doubt.”