hery, women, and gaming. At the Palais
Royal and the neighbouring quartiers, the scene of every disorder, he
possessed the infamous celebrity of scandal and shame. All the world had
heard of him; his family had procured his incarceration in the Bastille,
from which the 14th of July had freed him. He had sworn to be avenged,
and he kept his oath; a voluntary and indefatigable accomplice of every
faction, he had offered his unpaid services to the Duc d'Orleans,
Mirabeau, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, the Girondists, and Robespierre:
always an adherent of the party who went the greatest lengths; always a
leader of those _emeutes_ that promised the most havoc and ruin. Awake
before daybreak, present at every club, he hastened at the slightest
noise to swell the crowd; at the smallest tumult to stir men up to more
violence. He himself was consumed by the common passion, ere he
comprehended its nature; and his voice, his gestures, the expression of
his features communicated it to others. He vociferated tales of terror;
he disseminated the fever; he electrified the wavering masses; he urged
on the current; he was in himself a sedition.

XI.

After Saint Huruge, marched Theroigne de Mericourt. Theroigne, or
Lambertine de Mericourt, who commanded the third corps of the army of
the faubourgs, was known among the people by the name of _La Belle
Liegoise_. The French Revolution had drawn her to Paris, as the
whirlwind attracts things of no weight. She was the impure Joan of Arc
of the public streets. Outraged love had plunged her into disorder, and
the vice, at which she herself blushed, only made her thirst for
vengeance. In destroying the aristocrats she fancied she purified her
honour, and washed out her shame in blood.

She was born at the village of Mericourt, near Liege, of a family of
wealthy farmers, and had received a finished education. At the age of
seventeen her singular loveliness had attracted the attention of a young
_seigneur_, whose chateau was close to her residence. Beloved, seduced,
and deserted, she had fled from her father's roof and taken refuge in
England, from whence, after a residence of some months, she proceeded to
France. Introduced to Mirabeau, she knew through him Sieyes, Joseph
Chenier, Danton, Ronsin, Brissot, and Camille Desmoulins. Romme, a
mystical republican, infused into her mind the German spirit of
illumination. Youth, love, revenge, and the contact with this furnace of
a revolution, had t