I asked M. Duplay where they were going. He told me that there was, under the church, a smaller hall—a sort of crypt—where the workmen and their wives held a club—the workmen attending in the day, their wives at night. They there explained to each other the constitution. Two ushers kept guard on each side of the door. One, small and fat, with a bass voice, was the famous singer, Lais, whom the _habitués_ of the Opera applauded up to 1825. The other, a handsome young man with wavy hair, undisfigured by powder, and a generally aristocratic air, was a pupil of Madame de Genlis, the son of the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Chartres, the conqueror of Jemappes, and the future King of France. By his side was his young brother, the Duke of Montpensier, for whom, with great trouble, he had obtained admittance, notwithstanding his extreme youth. On entering, at sight of the orator, who occupied the tribune, I cried out, “Ah! there is M. Robespierre.” In fact, after the portrait M. Duplay had given me, it was impossible not to recognize him. The impression he produced upon me was profound. Yes, it was he, although his face had not yet assumed the grim and fantastic appearance that it did later on. There he was, with that primly-brushed olive-colored coat, and that waistcoat of snowy whiteness, with his hair powdered, and thrown back from his brow, the skin of which, in its hideous wrinkles, reminded one of the parchment on a death’s head. It was that wrinkled face, sullen and acute; that eye, with its tawny yellow pupil, which shot between its retracted lids a glance replete with malice, that seemed to wound aught it fell upon; it was that mouth, broad and stern, with its compressed lips; it was that voice, harsh in all its notes, and resembling the laugh of a hyena, or the scream of a jackal; it was the whole figure of the man, quivering with a nervous spasm, which caused his fingers to be continually drumming on the ledge of the rostrum, like a pianist on the keys of a spinnet; it was, in short, the revolution incarnate with his implacable good faith, his freshness of blood, his mind determined, bloodthirsty, and cruel. As we entered, he finished his speech, and descended amid shouts of applause. I followed him with my eyes, in spite of myself, into the midst of the crowd, through which, small and thin as he was, he easily passed. Not a hand but was stretched out to grasp his, not a voice that did not address him. One man, dressed in black, stopped him, as he passed the desk, and said one word to him. He started, his face expressed hatred and disgust, and he passed on without replying. “Who was that sombre-looking man who spoke to M. de Robespierre?” said I, to M. Duplay. He smiled. “It is a customer of mine, to whose intervention with the Duke of Orleans I owe the right of coming here. His name is M. de Laclos, and he has written a very bad book.” “What book?” asked I. “‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses.’” “Well, what then? Speak lower.”