Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/259

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Napoleon's Chief Detractor.
243

in the yard the daughter of the carpenter Duplay, the owner of the house. This girl allowed no one to take her place in ministering to Robespierre's needs. As women of this class in those days freely espoused the political ideas then prevalent, and as in her case they were of a most pronounced nature, Danton had surnamed Cornélie Copeau 'the Cornelia who is not the mother of the Gracchi.' Cornélie seemed to be finishing spreading linen to dry in the yard; in her hand were a pair of striped cotton stockings, in fashion at the time, and which were certainly similar to those we daily saw encasing the legs of Robespierre on his visits to the Convention. Opposite her sat Mother Duplay between a pail and a salad-basket, busily engaged in picking salad-herbs."

IV.

A MEMORABLE INTERVIEW.

But I must hurry on to the interview:

"Robespierre was standing, wrapped in a sort of chemise peignoir; he had just left the hands of his hairdresser, who had finished combing and powdering his hair; he was without the spectacles he usually wore in public, and piercing through the powder covering that face, already so white in its natural pallor, we could see a pair of eyes whose dimness the glasses had until then screened from us. These eyes fastened