[104] (cantique)."
General laughter; Robespierre keeps silent and bleeds internally: two
or three such mishaps nettle such a man from head to foot. It is not
that his stupid remarks seem silly to him; no pedant taken in the act
and hissed would avow that he deserved such treatment; on the
contrary, he is content to have spoken as becomes a philosophic and
moral legislator, and so much the worse for the narrow minds and
corrupt hearts unable to comprehend him.- Thrown back upon himself,
his wounded vanity seeks inward nourishment and takes what it can find
in the sterile uniformity of his bourgeois moderation. Robespierre,
unlike Danton, has no cravings. He is sober; he is not tormented by
his senses; if he gives way to them, it is only no further than he can
help, and with a bad grace. In the rue Saintonge in Paris, "for seven
months," says his secretary,[105] "I knew of but one woman that he
kept company with, and he did not treat her very well. . . very
often he would not let her enter his room": when busy, he must not be
disturbed. He is naturally steady, hard-working, studious and fond of
seclusion, at college a model pupil, at home in his province an
attentive advocate, a punctual deputy in the Assembly, everywhere free
of temptation and incapable of going astray.
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