Mad. de Fontenay, was, therefore, on her arrival at Paris, whither she
had followed Tallien, (probably in order to procure a divorce and marry
him,) arrested, and conveyed to prison.
An injury of this kind was not to be forgiven; and Robespierre seems to
have acted on the presumption that it could not. He beset Tallien with
spies, menaced him in the Convention, and made Mad. de Fontenay an offer
of liberty, if she would produce a substantial charge against him, which
he imagined her knowledge of his conduct at Bourdeaux might furnish her
grounds for doing. A refusal must doubtless have irritated the tyrant;
and Tallien had every reason to fear she would soon be included in one of
the lists of victims who were daily sacrificed as conspirators in the
prisons. He was himself in continual expectation of being arrested; and
it was generally believed Robespierre would soon openly accuse him.--Thus
situated, he eagerly embraced the opportunity which the schism in the
Committee presented of attacking his adversary, and we certainly must
allow him the merit of being the first who dared to move for the arrest
of Robespierre.--I need not add, that la belle was one of the first whose
prison doors were opened; and I understand that, being divorced from
Mons. de Fontenay, she is either married, or on the point of being so, to
Tallien.
This conclusion spoils my story as a moral one; and had I been the
disposer of events, the Septembriser, the regicide, and the cold assassin
of the Toulonais, should have found other rewards than affluence, and a
wife who might represent one of Mahomet's Houris.
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