All this splendor Louison took in at a glance, which filled her soul with fiery indignation. Who were these women whom Mirabeau had invited to his new home without consulting her? By the immodest splendor of their dresses they might belong to the court or the theatre. Her lips curved and her eyes flashed as she regarded them. She stood unobserved, with one foot advanced on the Gobelin carpet, searching the group with indignant curiosity. Growing calmer, she recognised some of the men as among the most talented and dissolute of Mirabeau’s companions. They were arrayed in court dresses, and disguised by wigs of long, curling hair, that floated in love-locks over the glowing velvet of their coats; while the women had combined the loose scantiness affected even then by the Jacobins, with rich materials hitherto known only to the nobility. The brilliant crimson of their rouged cheeks, the black patches scattered on forehead and chin, masses of hair, piled roll upon roll, and curl upon curl, would have deceived any person not born of the court, into believing them of noble birth and breeding. CHAPTER LXXXI. THE MIDNIGHT REVEL. One by one, Louison made these people out, even before she heard their voices. In the first she saw her great political rival, Theroigne de Mericourt, of Liege, one of the most influential, audacious, and beautiful women of the revolution. Louison recognized this woman with a pang of bitter jealousy. What right had the Queen of the Cordeliers in the house of Count Mirabeau? Another woman lifted her face from the goblet she was wreathing, and demanded more flowers for her garland. Two or three eager hands were outstretched to a vase, and some one flung her a handful of lilies, among them was a purple _fleur de lis_. The woman turned pale through her rouge when she saw the flower; gave a quick, half-frightened glance at the man who flung it at her, then cast it upon the floor, and trampled it into the carpet with well simulated indignation. “I wonder that you dare give me a flower that has become hateful to all France?” she said, stamping once more on the poor broken blossom. “Nay, I marvel that it can be found under the roof of so true a patriot as we all know the count to be. Give me roses, heart’s-ease, anything that will take this perfume of royalty from the air.” Louison knew this woman also. She was Madame Du Berry, who, once lifted from the dregs of the people by the favoritism of a bad king, had gone back to her original element, taking a certain queenly air even in her fallen state, which lingered around her as she trod that poor emblem of royalty under her feet. “Ah, madame! that is ungrateful in one who owes so much to the protection of that poor flower.” “But I owe more to France, and I belong to the people. Do not make me blush that I ever left them!” cried the hypocrite, busying herself with the pansies and roses that lay upon the table before her.