We Have Done With Tears and Treasons

And yet Paris makes a pretence of being gay and of enjoying itself. We go to the theatre and the opera, and we dance, as it were, red, wet-shod to the hideous strains of the Carmagnole. It is indeed a dance of death. The other night we were at a reception given by Madame Talma to the victorious General Dumouriez. All the Brissot party were there. Your father will remember Brissot de Warville very well. He was greatly petted by Mrs. Jay and the aristocracy of New York and Philadelphia. Jefferson made a friend of him, and even Washington talked with him about his book on our country. Then he passed himself off as a noble, but he is really the son of an innkeeper. I had so often heard of him, that I regarded with interest his pale face and grave, melancholy manner. He was accompanied by Camille Desmoulins, and by Danton; the latter a man almost terrible in his ugliness. David, the painter of Socrates, was there; he had his hair frizzed, and was dressed splendidly; and with him was Chenier, more tragic looking than any of his plays. The salons were filled with flowers and beautiful women; among them the majestic Madame Vestris, and the lovely Mademoiselle Candeille, who was singing a song when there arose a sudden indescribable noise, growing louder and louder, and then the cry of MARAT! MARAT! and the "Friend of the People" entered. Now I shall spare a few minutes to tell you, that no one has made frightful enough his large bony face, his thin lips and his livid complexion. He wore an old carmagnole, a dirty handkerchief twisted about his neck, leather breeches, shoes without stockings, and a piece of red cotton round his head, from which there hung a few locks of greasy hair. A nervous twitching keeps him constantly moving, and he has the leprosy:--this is well known. He walked straight to Dumouriez, who said disdainfully, "Ah! are you the man they call Marat?" Marat immediately demanded from him an account of military measures he had taken. They had some sharp conversation which I did not hear, and Marat finally went away uttering the most insulting threats, and leaving every one in a state of mortal terror. The next day the newsboys were shouting "the discovery of a great plot by Marat, the Friend of the People! Great meeting of Aristocrats at Talmas, etc."