Part X (Éléonore continued)

[montagnarde1793]

Page 582

            As they proceeded along the Rue St. Honore they passed the shop of Duplay, the furniture-dealer, where Robespierre had lodged. The tricolour flags were still there, the wreaths were twisted about them, but in the early dawn the place looked deserted. No Tappedurs there now! Only from the window appeared a blanched face. It was that of a woman, the daughter of Duplay, himself a member of the Committee-General, to whom some said Robespierre was secretly married. To her he is said to have been kind and patient. Perhaps she loved. Surely there is no one, however terrible, who has not a soft place in his heart; and this Maximilien, calm, selfish, self-concentrated, may have turned to that one being for the affection necessary to even the sternest. As Tamplin passed the house he said, ‘There lived the idol of the idol of the people yesterday; to-day, there will be no calumny too outrageous not to be believed. I know the people,’ he added as he gravely shook his head.

            Mademoiselle Duplay gazed wistfully after them. She had not the heart to ask for news, nor did they care to tell her that Maximilien Robespierre would come home no more.

The Journal of a Spy in Paris During the Reign of Terror: January-July 1794 (hoax—published as the real journal of Raoul Hesdin, a fictional personage)

Charles Robert Leslie Fletcher

1895

 

Page 87

            […] M. Duplay has a daughter who commonly passes for his [Robespierre’s] mistress. I don’t, however, believe he has a mistress. ‘Tis said, his name was whispered as a loose liver in ’89, but now his room contain nothing but portraits of himself, and that he lets himself rather be adored by women than enjoy them. The wits, however, call this young lady Cornelia, and many grosser names.