The Psalmist speaks of something "that passeth the love of woman," but the Psalmist was wrong--nothing does. Simonne Evrard gave her good name, her family position, her money, her life--her soul into the keeping of Jean Paul Marat. That his love and gratitude to her was great and profound, there is abundant proof. She was his only servant, his secretary, his comrade, his friend, his wife. Not only did she attend him in sickness, but in banishment and disgrace she never faltered. She even set the type, and at times her arm pulled the lever of the press that printed the daily message. Let it stand to the eternal discredit of Thomas Carlyle that he contemptuously disposes of Simonne Evrard, who represents undying love and unflinching loyalty, by calling her a "washerwoman." Carlyle, with a savage strain of Scotch Calvinism in his cold blood, never knew the sacredness of the love of man and woman--to him sex was a mistake on the part of God. Even for the sainted Mary of Galilee he has only a grim and patronizing smile, removing his clay pipe long enough to say to Milburn, the blind Preacher, "Oh, yes; a country lass elevated by Catholics into a wooden image and worshiped as a deity!" Carlyle never held in his arms a child of his own and saw the light of love reflected in a baby's eyes; and nowhere in his forty-odd volumes does he recognize the truth that love, art and religion are one. And this limitation gives Taine excuse for saying, "He writes splendidly, but it is neither truth nor poetry." When Charlotte Corday, that poor, deluded rustic, reached the rooms of Marat, under a friendly pretense, and thrust her murderous dagger to the sick man's heart, his last breath was a cry freighted with love, "A moi, chere amie!" And death-choked, that proud head drooped, and Simonne, seeing the terrible deed was done, blocked the way and held the murderess at bay until help arrived. Hardly had Marat's tired body been laid to rest in the Pantheon, before Charlotte Corday's spirit had gone across the Border to meet his--gone to her death by the guillotine that was so soon to embrace both Danton and Robespierre, the men who had inaugurated and popularized it. All Paris went into mourning for Marat--the public buildings were draped with black, and his portrait was displayed in the Pantheon with the great ones gone. A pension for life was bestowed upon his widow, and lavish resolutions of gratitude were laid at her feet in loving token of what she had done in upholding the hands of this strong man. But Paris, the fickle, in two short years repudiated the pension, the portrait of Marat was removed from the Pantheon, and his body taken by night to another resting-place. Simonne the widow, and Albertine the sister, sisters now in sorrow, uniting in a mutual love for the dead, lived but in memory of him.