But still so firm to the eyes, even of profounder politicians than Jean Nicot, appeared the sullen power of the incorruptible Maximilien; so timorous was the movement against him,—­that Nicot, in common with many others, placed his hopes rather in the dagger of the assassin than the revolt of the multitude.  But Nicot, though not actually a coward, shrunk himself from braving the fate of the martyr; he had sense enough to see that, though all parties might rejoice in the assassination, all parties would probably concur in beheading the assassin.  He had not the virtue to become a Brutus.  His object was to inspire a proxy-Brutus; and in the centre of that inflammable population this was no improbable hope.

Amongst those loudest and sternest against the reign of blood; amongst those most disenchanted of the Revolution; amongst those most appalled by its excesses,—­was, as might be expected, the Englishman, Clarence Glyndon.  The wit and accomplishments, the uncertain virtues that had lighted with fitful gleams the mind of Camille Desmoulins, had fascinated Glyndon more than the qualities of any other agent in the Revolution.  And when (for Camille Desmoulins had a heart, which seemed dead or dormant in most of his contemporaries) that vivid child of genius and of error, shocked at the massacre of the Girondins, and repentant of his own efforts against them, began to rouse the serpent malice of Robespierre by new doctrines of mercy and toleration, Glyndon espoused his views with his whole strength and soul.  Camille Desmoulins perished, and Glyndon, hopeless at once of his own life and the cause of humanity, from that time sought only the occasion of flight from the devouring Golgotha.  He had two lives to heed besides his own; for them he trembled, and for them he schemed and plotted the means of escape.  Though Glyndon hated the principles, the party (None were more opposed to the Hebertists than Camille Desmoulins and his friends.  It is curious and amusing to see these leaders of the mob, calling the mob “the people” one day, and the “canaille” the next, according as it suits them.  “I know,” says Camille, “that they (the Hebertists) have all the canaille with them.”—­(Ils ont toute la canaille pour eux.)), and the vices of Nicot, he yet extended to the painter’s penury the means of subsistence; and Jean Nicot, in return, designed to exalt Glyndon to that very immortality of a Brutus from which he modestly recoiled himself.  He founded his designs on the physical courage, on the wild and unsettled fancies of the English artist, and on the vehement hate and indignant loathing with which he openly regarded the government of Maximilien.

At the same hour, on the same day in July, in which Robespierre conferred (as we have seen) with his allies, two persons were seated in a small room in one of the streets leading out of the Rue St. Honore; the one, a man, appeared listening impatiently, and with a sullen brow, to his companion, a woman of singular beauty, but with a bold and reckless expression, and her face as she spoke was animated by the passions of a half-savage and vehement nature.