the friendly gendarme, she was able, however, to reach the presence of Robespierre in safety. The room in which she found him was full of an excited crowd of men, women, and children, all emulously shrieking, "Vive la Nation!"
The Swedish Ambassadress was just beginning to protest officially against the treatment she had met with, when Manuel arrived on the scene. Never was any apparition more opportune. Greatly astonished to see his late illustrious visitor in such a position, he promptly undertook to answer for her until the Commune had made up its mind what to do with her; and conveying her and her maid to his own house, shut them up in the same cabinet where Madame de Staël had pleaded for Jaucourt.
There they remained for six hours, "dying of hunger, thirst, and fear." The windows of the room looked out upon the Place de Grève, and consequently offered the spectacle of bands of yelling murderers returning from the prisons "with bare and bleeding arms."
Madame de Staël's travelling carriage had remained in the middle of the square. She expected to see it pillaged; but a man in the uniform of the National Guard came to the rescue, and passed two hours in successfully defending the luggage.
This individual turned out to be the redoubtable Santerre. He introduced himself later in the day to Madame de Staël, and took credit for his conduct on the ground of the respect with which M. Necker had inspired him when distributing corn to the starving population of Paris.
In the evening Manuel, pallid with horror at the events of that awful day, took Madame de Staël back
