Post a Comment. I had never had more than a passing glimpse of Robespierre, either on the benches or in the hall- ways of the Convention; we had never had any personal intercourse. His frigid attitude, his scorn of courtesies, had imposed on me the maintenance of a reserve which my self-pride dictated to me opposite an equal. I think it no longer exists nowadays, owing to the opening made to create the Rue Duphot just at that spot.
This house was occupied and owned by a carpenter, by name Duplay. This carpenter, a member of the Society of Jacobins, had met Robespierre at its meetings; with the whole of his household he had become an enthusiastic worshipper at the shrine of the popular orator, and had obtained for himself the honour of securing him both as boarder and lodger.
In his leisure moments Robespierre was wont to comment on the Emile of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and explain it to the children of the carpenter, just as a good village parish priest expounds the Gospel to his flock.
Touched and grateful for this evangelistic solicitude, the children and apprentices of the worthy artisan would not suffer his guest, the object of their hero-worship, to go into the street without escorting him to the door of the National Convention, for the purpose of watching over his precious life, which his innate cowardice and the flattery of his courtiers were beginning to make him believe threatened in every possible way by the aristocracy, who were seeking to destroy the incorruptible tribune of the people.
It was necessary, in order to reach the eminent guest deigning to inhabit this humble little hole of a place, to pass through a long alley flanked with planks stacked there, the owner's stock-in-trade. This alley led to a little yard from seven to eight feet square, likewise full of planks. A little wooden staircase led to a room on the first floor. Prior to ascending it we perceived in the yard the daughter of the carpenter Duplay, the owner of the house.
