Pierre-Victorin Vergniaud, the source of much present enthusiasm, the full fountain-head of the Gironde river of eloquence, was already--though but a few months a citizen of Paris--the director of a popular force having an admirable tendency. In him it seemed possible to hail that political architect of the new era who should have the genius to reconcile warring creeds, and shape of men’s profound but formless aspirations an enduring temple of the ideal commonwealth. Poor, yet never conceding a thought to the shame of poverty; simple-minded to the extent that he could not err in justice; hating corruption and loving truth; a moving orator, a large humanitarian, he might have led a world, undissenting, to the worship of the right Liberty, had not his great gifts, his large ideals, been always subject to eclipse by an extreme constitutional indolence. Utterly ingenuous, utterly impressionable; depending upon the moment for inspiration, and so little warped by self-consciousness as never to know the moment to fail him--it was yet often impossible to spur this Vergniaud to necessary action. Madame Roland, the superior being, to whom he was introduced by enthusiastic friends, had no belief in his capacity as a leader; distrusted, and perhaps despised him. Ned--the poor degenerate to a very human type--learned, on the other hand, to love and admire him. For in this mind--as in the mirror of sweet clear water--he found his own chastened theories shaping themselves, taking such form and gentle significance as he had never hitherto but more than conceived to be theirs. Nor this only, or chiefly. He was able to forget something of his own hard unhappiness, of his bitter sense of grievance, in the familiar contemplation of a nature so serene, so noble, so unsolicitous of its self-aggrandisement. From these closing days of darkness, the little friendship that so queerly came to him to tide him opportunely over a period of wretched indecision remained an abiding pathetic memory. Citizen Vergniaud lived in a shabby lodging near the Tivoli Gardens. Thither Ned accompanied him on the morning of their meeting, and thither many times he found his way again. The little beggarly room became a haven of rest to his tormented spirit--a confessional-box wherein he could always leave some part of his great weight of oppression. And, now and again, even, moved to waive his personal interest in that fine spirit, and to repay some part of the healing advice so disinterestedly lavished upon himself, he would play the _père spirituel_ in his turn, and whip his penitent with a cobweb lash of rebuke. “My Peter,” he would complain, “you dwell too long on the overture to your career. It may be rich in all the suggested harmonies, but it is time you set to work on the opera.”