The Countess De Charny - Volume II by Alexandre Dumas

made him, perhaps, the great writer with whom we are familiar, Camille had won her by his wit, his refinement, and the natural goodness of his heart.
    Although he agreed with Mirabeau, who said, “You will never make the Revolution a success unless you de-christianize it,” Camille was married in Saint Sulpice Church in accordance with the rites of the Catholic Church; but in 1792, when a son was born to them, he carried the infant to the city-hall, and requested a Eepublican baptism for it.
    It was in their apartments, on the second floor of a house on tlie Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, that the entire plan of the insurrection was unfolded, to Lucile’s great pride and alarm, — a plan which Barbaroux frankly confessed he had sent, by mistake, in the pocket of his nankeen breeches, to his laundress a few days before.
     
    74 LA COMTESSE DE CHAKNY.
    As Barbaroux was by no means confident of the success of his scheme, and feared he might fall into the hands of his opponents, he exhibited with truly antique simplicity a poison, prepared, like Condorcet’s, by Cabanis.
    At the beginning of the repast, Camille, who was not much more sanguine than Barbaroux, raised his glass, and quoted in Latin, so as not to be understood by Lucile, the words : —
    ^” Edamus et bibamus, eras enim moriemur;” h it Lucile comprehended, nevertheless, and exclaimed : —
    ” Why do you speak in a foreign tongue. I understand what you say. Go on, Camille. It is not I, you may rest assured, who will hinder you from fulfilling your noble mission.”
    After this they all talked very plainly. Freron was the most determined of them all. It was known that he loved some woman hopelessly, though no one knew who the woman was at that time; but his despair over Lucile’s death subsequently revealed his sad secret.
    “Have you any poison, Freron?” asked Lucile.
    “I? If we do not succeed to-morrow, I shall manage to get myself killed. I am so tired of life that I am trying my best to find some way of ridding myself of it,” was the reply.
    Rebecqui was more sanguine.
    “I know my Marseillais,” he exclaimed. “I selected them myself, and know that every mother’s son of them ■will be faithful to the last! Kot one of them will flinch.”
    After supper some one suggested that they should pay Danton a visit. Barbaroux and Rebecqui declined, saying they were expected at the barracks, Freron had an appointment at the city-hall with Sergent and Manuel, and Brune was to spend the night with Santerre; so only Camille and Lucile went to Danton’s when the party broke up.
    The Desmoulins and Danton households were intimate, the women as well as the men being close friends.
    We are all well acquainted with Danton, — his wife is not
     
    AN EVENTFUL NIGHT AT DANTON’S. 75
    SO well known ; so a few words in regard to this remarkable woman, who was the object of her husband’s idolatrous affection, may not be out of place here.
    In the plaster cast in Colonel Morin’s collection, taken, Michelet believes, after death, the chief characteristics noticeable in her countenance are goodness, calmness, and strength.
    Although not yet attacked by the malady which resulted in her death in 1793, she was already nervous and depressed, as if with the near approach of death had come an intuitive knowledge of the future.
    Tradition states that she was naturally pious and timid; but, in spite of this piety and timidity, she certainly spoke her mind most vigorously on one occasion, and that was on the day she announced her intention of marrying Danton, in the face of her parents’ violent opposition.
    Like Lucile, Madame Danton seemed to see behind the gloomy and perturbed features of this obscure man, destitute alike of fame and fortune, the god of her idolatry; though, as in the case of Jupiter and Semele, this love was to prove her destruction.
    One felt that it was a terrible and tempestuous fortune to which this poor creature bound herself; and perhaps there