g with excitement as the
world was--every day, every hour, brimful of events--it was impossible
to sit calmly on the beach, and watch the great, foaming current of
human passions, without longing to be in the stream. Had I been a man at
that time, I should have become a furious orator of the Mountain--an
impassioned leader of the people. The impulse to stand foremost, to take
a bold and prominent position, would have carried me to any lengths. I
had caught up enough of the horrid fanaticism of the time, to think that
there was something grand and heroic in contempt for human suffering;
that a man rose proudly above all the weakness of his nature, when, in
the pursuit of some great object, he stifled within his breast every
throb of affection--every sentiment of kindness and mercy. Such were the
teachings rife at the time--such the first lessons that boyhood learned;
and oh! what a terrible hour had that been for humanity if the
generation then born had grown up to manhood, unchastened and
unconverted!

But to return to my daily life. As I perceived that a week had now
elapsed, and the Citizen Robespierre had not revisited the "restaurant,"
nor taken any interest in my fate or fortunes, I began to fear lest
Boivin should master his terror regarding me, and take heart to put me
out of doors--an event which, in my present incertitude, would have been
sorely inconvenient. I resolved, therefore, to practice a petty
deception on my host, to sustain the influence of terror over him. This
was, to absent myself every day at a certain hour, under the pretense of
visiting my patron--letting fall, from time to time, certain indications
to show in what part of the city I had been, and occasionally, as if in
an unguarded moment, condescending to relate some piece of popular
gossip. None ventured to inquire the source of my information--not one
dared to impugn its veracity. Whatever their misgivings in secret, to
myself they displayed the most credulous faith. Nor was their trust so
much misplaced, for I had, in reality, become a perfect chronicle of all
that went forward in Paris--never missing a debate in the Convention,
where my retentive memory could carry away almost verbally all that I
heard--ever present at every public fete or procession, whether the
occasions were some insulting desecration of their former faith, or some
tasteless mockery of heathen ceremonial.

My powers of mimicry, too, enabled me to imitate all the famous