Louison from her concealment, saw that two persons in the company lifted their goblets, but tasted no drop of the wine. Mirabeau touched his lips to the flowers, but dashed the wine over his shoulder; and while the rest were drinking, it sunk with a broad, red stain, into the snowy ground of the carpet. Du Berry lifted her goblet also, but turned so deadly white that the rouge upon her face stood out frightfully from its general pallor. Dropping the glass, she put her hand to her throat, as if a spasm of pain had seized her, and would have left the table but for a commanding look from Mirabeau, which warned her of danger. “They understand each other,” thought Louison; “this is not simply a carouse. Du Berry and Mirabeau share secrets together; and these idiots, swaggering in the cast-off garments of some cowardly nobleman, cannot see it.” She was mistaken. Theroigne de Mericourt was quick-sighted as herself. Du Berry had affiliated herself with the revolutionists—but the extremists always held her in distrust. She was still a beautiful woman, and a certain prestige lingered in her history, which would have been a recommendation to the powers that were rising on the waves of the national revolt, had it not been connected with the old king, whose memory was hated. “Turn down your goblets,” said the young amazon, shaking the last drops from her glass, and tossing the flowers into the face of her _vis-a-vis_ at the table. “I hold the man or woman who has not drained every drop as an enemy to France.” Before Du Berry could reach forth her hand, Mirabeau had pushed his empty goblet toward her, and seized upon hers. “If I did not drain my glass at once, it was because admiration is sometimes more powerful than the love of liberty. Having drank to the death of royalty, let me pour out a libation to the goddess, who knows so well how to teach Frenchmen their duty.” Here Mirabeau poured the contents of his glass into a malachite vase that stood near him, half choked up with flowers. Theroigne’s dark eyes flashed. She had brought half the leading patriots of the clubs to her feet; but Mirabeau, up to this time, had kept aloof from her influence, and she felt her power incomplete without his subjugation. It was a great step that he had invited her to his house; but other women were equally honored. Du Berry sat at his right hand—was there a preference in this? Du Berry took Mirabeau’s lead and sprang to her feet. “The women of France are the soul of her revolutions,” she said; “and Theroigne is their leader. Fill up once more to the first woman of France.” “To Mirabeau alone belongs the pleasure of proposing this homage to the great spirit of the revolution,” answered the host. Amid the confusion and riot that followed, Du Berry escaped further notice of her imprudence in refusing to drink to the death of a man and a woman who had been forbearing and most kind to her when she had deserved so little consideration at their hands.