With this he re-entered the room where his colleagues were assembled. But such an extraordinary scene of animation presented itself when he opened the door that he forgot the object of his visit. This Committee-room, like the others next to it, formed part of a suite of apartments recently belonging to the King. It offered a strange spectacle, with its mixture of elegance and vulgarity, which said more than words for the ravages of the Revolution. Over the five doors, two of which opened on to a long corridor, the royal arms surmounted by a crown had been roughly erased. The walls and panels of the doors were covered with printed decrees of the Convention, and tricolour placards were pasted up everywhere. This array of Revolutionary literature struck the observer as at once ominous and pathetic, in the midst of all the grace and beauty of that white and gold reception-room, decorated in the purest Louis XV. style, with its daintily carved cornices and painted ceiling, where Nymphs and Cupids sported in the glowing spring-tide among flowers. The contrast was even more apparent in the furniture. Gilded armchairs covered with rare tapestry, now all torn, stood side by side with plain deal seats, some of which were very rickety. A sideboard laden with eatables and wine-bottles completed the installation of the Terror in the palace of the Tuileries. Billaud-Varennes was still standing there on the threshold. Collot d'Herbois, surrounded by Barère, Carnot, Prieur, and Elie Lacoste, was violently addressing Saint-Just, Robespierre's friend, who was seated at the table, engaged in writing the speech he was to deliver before the Convention on the morrow. Saint-Just, calm and contemptuous, replied to their insults by a shrug of the shoulders. This disdain exasperated Collot d'Herbois beyond measure, and Saint-Just aggravated him still more by ironical inquiries about the Jacobins' meeting. "You are nothing more than a traitor!" cried Collot; "it is our indictment you are drawing up there, I suppose?" "Yes, traitor! threefold traitor!" exclaimed Elie Lacoste. "Traitor and perjurer, you form with Robespierre and Couthon a triumvirate of calumny, falsehood, and betrayal." Saint-Just, without losing self-possession a moment, stopped in his writing, and coldly offered to read them his speech. Barère disdainfully refused to listen. "We fear neither you nor your accomplices! You are but a child, Couthon a miserable cripple, and as to Robespierre..." At this moment an usher brought in a letter to Barère. He looked uneasy after he had read it, and signed to his colleagues to follow, leaving Saint-Just free to continue his work. In the lobby Barère told them it was a letter from Lecointre announcing the approaching attack upon the Committee by the troops of the Commune, and offering the battalion of his section for their defence.