260 BLANCHE DE BEAULIEU. 
wife ?” Marceau briefly explained. ‘ Madman! young fool that 
thou art!” cried Robespierre furiously, “ shouldest thou—.” Mar- 
ceau interrupted him: “I do not ask reproaches nor advice, Robes- 
pierre; I ask only her pardon. Will you grant it me?” ‘ Mar- 
ceau, will the tie of relationship, the influence of love, never induce 
you to betray the republic?” “Never!” “If thou shouldest meet 
the Marquis de Beaulieu himself in battle, face to face?” ‘I will 
fight him as I have done before.” ‘‘ And if he should fall into thy 
hands?” Marceau reflected an instant, and then replied, “ I will 
bring him here, and yourself shall be his judge.” ‘ You swear 
this?” ‘On my honour.” Robespierre again took up the pen. 
“* Marceau,” said he, “ you have acquired, and deservedly, a high 
reputation ; you have been fortunate enough to gain the goodwill 
of men. I have long and anxiously desired to know you.” Per- 
ceiving the General’s impatience, he wrote a few letters, then paus- 
ed again. “ Listen,” he said, looking fixedly at Marceau; “grant 
me, in my turn, a hearing of five minutes. I give you a whole life 
for them; surely they are well paid.’ Marceau made a sign for 
him to proceed, and Robespierre continued.” ‘1 know I have been 
calumniated fo you and by you, Marceau, and nevertheless you are 
one of the few men by whom I would wish to be known and under- 
stood ; for what does the opinion of those whose judgment I scorn 
avail me? During the last three years three factions have, in their 
turn, agitated the destinies of France ; the power of each was dele- 
gated to a single man, and each has accomplished the mission with 
which it was charged. The “ Constituante,” represented by Mira- 
beau, shook the throne ; the “ Legislative,’ headed by Danton, has 
overthrown it. The task of the present convention is immense ; for 
it must not only finish the work of destruction, but remodel and 
rebuild the structure: and ¢his glorious task it is my ambition to 
accomplish. If the Supreme Being but grants me time to perform 
it, my name will be above every name: I shall have done for my 
countrymen more than Lycurgus among the Greeks, Numa among 
the Romans, or Washington in America. If I fall before the time, 
having accomplished but half my work, I leave a stain upon my 
name which the other half would have effaced. The revolution 
will fall with me, and both be alike calumniated. This is what I 
desired to say to thee, Marceau ; for I would wish, in all cases, by 
some few, at least, to have been understood, that all should not look 
on my memory with equal horror and detestation: and thon art one 
of them.” 
These, and such as these, were the arguments continually em- 
