ONE:CHAPTER IXHis was the leading salon of Paris at that time, and Mme. Tallien was the presiding genius there. Music, dancing, and gambling were again the rage, the women called themselves by mythological names and wore costumes so scanty and transparent that they were scarcely any use either for warmth or decency; marriages, celebrated by a civic functionary, were not considered binding, and were frequently and quickly followed by divorce. Society, if such it could be called, was a wild revel of disorder, licence, debauchery, and corruption; while over all hung, like a cloud, the gloomy figures of Billaud-Varennes, Collot dHerbois, Barre, and their Jacobin followers, ready at any moment to bring back the Terror.
FORE:Come, Monsieur, said the police official, I see there is some mistake. What is your name?
FORE:The rest of her life was spent in peace amongst her family, by whom she was adored, in the practices [265] of charity and devotion, which had always made her happiness.
