A few words of sympathy astonish them. A young female foundling, whom want had caused to take to bad ways, was admitted into the “Bon Pasteur” institution: the fulness of her joy made her shed tears abundantly, because it was the first time, she said, that any one had spoken kindly to her. The horror of this condition has many a time been the cause of mental aberration and suicide.[12] The consciousness of their degraded condition has been apparent even in the queens of fashion who have become famous in backstairs society. Théroigne de Méricourt one day recognised, in Paris, the gentleman who had deceived her; she darted so vindictive a look at him that he perceived how dangerous his position was becoming, at a time when the lower orders were exercising such an implacable justice against crimes unpunished till then, and he dared to ask forgiveness of her. “My forgiveness!” she replied, “and with what price could you pay for it? My innocence betrayed, my honour lost, that of my family sullied, my brothers and sisters pursued in their native place by the sarcasms of their neighbours; my father’s curse; my exile from my native land; my enrolment in the infamous caste of courtesans; the blood with which I stain and shall stain my hands; my memory execrated among men; that immortality of virtue which you have taught me to doubt—this is what you wish to redeem! Let us see: do you know a price on earth able to pay me for all that?”[13] Théroigne not believing that the guilty man’s blood was too precious or too pure to wipe out her shame, allowed, or caused, him to perish in the September massacres.[14]