The Citoyen Godard looked wildly at the speaker, and then drew the young woman aside. Her garb was that of a man. A red cap confined her luxuriant hair; a full coat, loose tricolored pantaloons, and a sword and brace of pistols completed her attire.
"Citoyenne!" said the revolutionary clothier, drily, "thou art an aristocrat. I should denounce thee!"
"But thou wilt not?" replied the young woman, with a winning smile, "nor my cousin, though playing so foolish, so unworthy a part."
"Oh!" said Godard, "thou ownest this, then?"
"Papa Godard," answered the young countess, in a low, imploring tone, "my father was once thy best customer, and thou hadst never reason to complain of him. He was a good man. For his and for my sake, spare my cousin, led away by bad counsels and by fatal ambition."
"I will spare him," said the clothier, moving away, "but let him take the warning I shall give him."
The clothier had noticed that the Citoyen Gracchus Bastide was about to finish, and he hurried to ask a hearing, which was instantly granted him. The Citoyen Godard was not an orator, and, as is the case under such circumstances, his head, arms, and feet were more active than his tongue. Ascending the tribune, he struck the desk three times with his feet, while his eyes seemed ready to start out of his head, at the same time that his lips moved inarticulately. At length, however, he spoke:
"The truths spoken by the citizen who preceded me are truths of which every man is fully aware, and I am not here in consequence to reiterate them. The friends of the defunct Louis Capet are conspiring in the midst of us every day. But the citoyen preopinant forgot to say, that they come to our very forum—that they dress like true patriots—that they take names which belong rightly only to the faithful—and denounce often true men to cheat us. Many a Gracchus hides a marquis—many a bonnet rouge a powdered crown! I move the order of the day."
The citizen Gracchus Bastide had no sooner caught sight of Godard advancing toward the tribune, than he hurried toward the door, and ere the conclusion of the other's brief oration, had vanished. Godard's object gained, he descended from the forum, and gave way to a speaker big with one of those propositions which were orders to the Legislature, and which swayed the fate of millions at that eventful period.
Godard reassumed his former post, which he patiently kept until a late hour, when the sitting being terminated, after speeches from Danton, Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins, he sallied forth into the open air.