They are fraternal suppers! Do not, in the name of Liberty and Equality, let us forget that. And the whole of it was Robespierre's idea. He conceived and carried it through, commanded the voices in the Convention that voted the money required for the tables, the benches, the tallow candles. He lives close by, in this very street, humbly, quietly, like a true son of the people, sharing house and board with citizen Duplay, the cabinet-maker, and with his family. A great man, Robespierre! The only man! Men speak of him with bated breath, young girls with glowing eyes. He is the fetich, the idol, the demigod. No benefactor of mankind, no saint, no hero-martyr was ever worshipped more devotedly than this death-dealing monster by his votaries. Even the shade of Danton is reviled in order to exalt the virtues of his successful rival. "Danton was gorged with riches: his pockets full, his stomach satisfied! But look at Robespierre!" "Almost a wraith!--so thin, so white!" "An ascetic!" "Consumed by the fire of his own patriotism." "His eloquence!" "His selflessness!" "You have heard him speak, citizen?" A girl, still in her 'teens, her elbows resting on the table, her hands supporting her rounded chin, asks the question with bated breath. Her large grey eyes, hollow and glowing, are fixed upon her vis-à-vis, a tall, ungainly creature, who sprawls over the table, vainly trying to dispose of his long limbs in a manner comfortable to himself. His hair is lank and matted with grease, his face covered in coal-dust; a sennight's growth of beard, stubby and dusty, accentuates the squareness of his jaw even whilst it fails to conceal altogether the cruel, sarcastic curves of his mouth. But for the moment, in the rapt eyes of the young enthusiast, he is a prophet, a seer, a human marvel: he has heard Robespierre speak. "Was it in the Club, citizen Rateau?" another woman asks--a young matron with a poor little starveling at her breast. The man gives a loud guffaw, displays in the feeble, flickering light of the nearest torch a row of hideous uneven teeth, scored with gaps and stained with tobacco juice. "In the Club?" he says with a curse, and spits in a convenient direction to show his contempt for that or any other institution. "I don't belong to any Club. There's no money in my pocket. And the Jacobins and the Cordeliers like to see a man with a decent coat on his back."