Louison Brisot possessed all the crafty and unscrupulous qualities that made leaders in those horrible times. Like most of her compeers, who were not blindly led, she seized upon the evil passions of others to work out her own desires and crude ambition. With a sharp intellect and depraved heart, she had flung herself at the feet of Mirabeau, partly in homage to his undoubted genius, and partly because he was the brightest power in that Assembly of demagogues. But the count had never even pretended to give her, in return for her adoration, anything like respect. Sometimes he deigned to accept her as the instrument of his ambition, as he always used the talent of others for his own advancement, whenever it came in his way; but for all she could do for him he gave no return, save that careless acceptance which exasperated while it enthralled her. So long as Mirabeau loved no other woman, Louison contented herself with an ostentatious exhibition of her fancied power over him. This won her the notoriety which so many women coveted; but when she knew that the queen, a woman she hated more than any other in France had cast the charm of her high position and personal loveliness over this powerful man; when she saw the tender reverence with which his lips touched that white hand, the passion of her love blazed into fury. She saw herself hurled down from the position which had been assumed till it was recognized as one of power, and laughed to scorn by the person whose very contempt was more valuable to her than the purest love of a meaner man. Louison gave no sign of the agitation that had at first overwhelmed her, but watched and waited with feline patience for any movement that might bring the haughty man she both loved and hated, within the grasp of her vengeance. There was no social rule by which the agitators of France governed themselves in those days, and there was no association so debased that these men dared not glory in it. With them there was nothing to conceal, because there was no shame; they worshiped excess in a goddess called Liberty; they crowned her with roses; and while defying all decency, called on the whole world to witness their orgies and share in them. In a state of society like this, it is not strange that a woman like Louison could find access anywhere, or that she had made herself almost an inmate of Mirabeau’s house, and entered it at any time that suited her pleasure. One evening Louison called at Mirabeau’s residence; but it was closed, and she was told that on the day before Mirabeau had left his lodgings, and taken a house in the Chaussée d’Anton, which he was fitting up with great splendor. Louison turned away from the lodgings, which had been deemed far too sumptuous for a friend of the people, with a heart on fire again, and the bitterest word she knew of escaped through her clenched teeth.