Robespierre : $b the story of Victorien Sardou's play adapted and novelized under his authoritySardou, Victorien
General
Robespierre : $b the story of Victorien Sardou's play adapted and novelized under his authority
Sardou, Victorien
Robespierre, Maximilien, 1758-1794 -- Fiction
With closed eyes, still repeating that unanswered "Why?" he fell into
a half sleep. Little by little the image of a cell in the prison of
La Bourbe rose before him; Clarisse was there. She appeared to him,
as he had seen her in her youth, at the Rue des Lions, with her sweet
pale face, large blue eyes, fair silken hair, so fair ... so fair....
He began to wonder that one so young and frail should have a son so
big as Olivier! His dream-thoughts became more confused.... She was
now Olivier's _fiancée_.... He was promising her to marry them in
London, through the intervention of Vaughan ... of Fox.... Fox was
all powerful in England, as he, Robespierre, was in France.... His
head gradually sunk on his shoulder, and he fell asleep at last.
The lamp, turned very low, shed upon him a flickering light, pale and
subdued as the glow of a sanctuary lamp, softening as if in pity the
stern lines of his troubled countenance, which even in sleep did not
relax the painful contraction of its features. He had fallen asleep,
dressed as he was, his head aslant, his arms hanging by his sides
listlessly. Now and then, his whole frame would twitch and quiver
nervously, and vague, incoherent words escaped his lips at intervals;
harsh, guttural sounds fell from him suddenly in that silent
apartment, whose curtains and drapery in the subdued light assumed
the soft and delicate tints of a young girl's chamber.
Its hangings were really of damask, with designs of white flowers on
a blue ground, cut out of an old dress by Madame Duplay. This was
the one obvious attempt at ornament. The Incorruptible's room was
otherwise very modestly furnished, containing only the armchair in
which he had fallen asleep, a few cane chairs, a very simple desk, a
plain deal bookcase overladen with books and fastened to the wall,
and a bed of walnut-wood.
The room was situated, as already said, in a wing which connected the
main building occupied by the Duplay family with an outhouse opening
on the Rue Saint-Honoré. It also communicated with little Maurice's
room, to whom the Incorruptible in his leisure hours gave lessons in
history, and on the duties of a citizen. The child, who had been
sent early to bed on the arrival of the police-agents with Olivier,
now slept soundly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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