What was also known was that he was temperate and chaste. His private life, from the time he left Versailles with the States-General to come to Paris and install himself in a humble lodging in the Rue de Saintonge, would bear the closest scrutiny. He lived there frugally and modestly, his only resource being the deputy's fees of eighteen francs a day, part of which he ostentatiously sent to his sister at Arras. Then suddenly he established himself in the house of Duplay the carpenter, in the Rue Saint-Honoré, a few steps from his club, the Jacobin Club; or, more properly speaking, he was established there by force, by the carpenter himself, an ardent admirer of his, who took advantage of a chance hospitality during the riots to press him to remain indefinitely. He occupied a room under their roof where he had now lived a year, surrounded by the jealous care of the whole family, in republican simplicity, after the true patriarchal manner. All this was well known, or if it had not been Robespierre would have proclaimed it, for from this Spartan setting an atmosphere of democratic virtue enveloped him, and raised him in solitary state above his fellows. Yes, he was above them! Others gave themselves away, but he never! Others had revealed their characters in unguarded moments, and laid bare to the world their frailties and their virtues. He had never betrayed himself, for he never acted on impulse. The others were well known to be made of flesh and blood, of idealism, and dust, but who knew the real Robespierre? The very mystery and doubt in which his true character was wrapped had lent credence to the common rumour which attributed to him supernatural qualities. He was compared to the pure source, high among virgin snows, from which the Revolution sprung. He stood alone on his pedestal, inaccessible, unassailable. All the great leaders of the Revolution, his predecessors or his rivals, had disappeared, carried off in the whirlwind, victims of their exaggerated enthusiasm, as Mirabeau and Marat, or of Robespierre's treachery, as Danton and Camille Desmoulins, ground in the sanguinary mill of the Revolutionary Tribunal, on his sole accusation. Thus when his path was cleared of those who stood most in his way, he anticipated the time when he should hold the destiny of France in his hand, aided by the Convention now subdued to his will, and the whole armed force grovelling at his feet. Yet one obstacle remained to be surmounted: the Committee of Public Safety to whom the Convention had transferred its authority, and of which he was a member, but where he felt a terrible undercurrent of animosity directed against him.