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What was most amazing was that Maurice laughed too. Happiness had made him facile when it came to matters of wit. And that was not all.

“Here,” he said, cutting off a branch of an orange tree covered in blossom. “My compliments to Artemisia, worthy widow of Mausolus.”5

“About time!” cried Lorin. “We could use a bit of chivalry! Looks like I’ll have to forgive you. And then it seems to me you really are in love, and I’ve always had the greatest respect for terrible misfortune.”

“Yes! I am in love!” cried Maurice, whose heart was bursting with joy. “I am in love and now I can admit it, because she loves me; for she’s asking me to come back—that means she loves me, doesn’t it, Lorin?”

“No doubt,” answered the worshiper of the Goddess of Reason rather casually. “But watch out, Maurice. The way you’re going about it worries me.…

“Often love of a Muse

Leads you to choose

Her over tyrant Cupid.

Next to the best, you lose your head

So love as I do Reason

And you won’t do anything stupid.”

“Bravo! Bravo!” cried Maurice, clapping his hands.

On that note, he bolted down the stairs four at a time with his knees up around his neck, ran to the quay, and flew off in the oh-so-familiar direction of the old rue Saint-Jacques.

“I think he applauded me, didn’t he, Agesilaus?” said Lorin.

“He certainly did, citizen, and there’s nothing surprising about that: that was very nice, what you said just then.”

“He’s sicker than I thought,” said Lorin.

And he descended the stairs too, though a little more calmly. Artemisia was not Geneviève, after all.

Scarcely had Lorin reached the rue Saint-Honoré, he and his orange blossom with him, than a mob of young citizens, to whom he was in the habit of distributing either centimes or kicks from under his carmagnole according to his frame of mind, trotted along respectfully behind him, no doubt taking him for one of those virtuous men Saint-Just6 recommended be offered white apparel and bouquets of orange blossom.

The cortege grew and grew, so rare was it to see a virtuous man, even in those days, till there were at least several thousand young citizens by the time the bouquet was offered to Artemisia—a tribute that made several other Reasons, who had lined up, so sick they came down with migraines.

It was that very evening that the famous cantata spread throughout Paris:

Long live the Goddess of Reason!

Pure flame, gentle light.

And since it has come down to us without the name of its author, something that has certainly taxed revolutionary archaeologists, we might be so bold as to assert that it was written for the beautiful Artemisia by our friend Hyacinthe Lorin.

16

THE PRODIGAL SON

Maurice could not have gone any faster if he’d had wings. The streets were full of people, but Maurice only noticed the crowd at all because it hampered his progress. People were saying that the Convention was under siege, that the sovereignty of the people had been attacked along with its representatives, that no one was allowed to leave.… And all this was more than likely, for you could hear the clamoring of tocsins and the thundering of cannon fire sounding the alarm.

But what did cannon fire and tocsins matter to Maurice at this point in time? What was it to him whether the deputies could or could not leave the Convention, since the prohibition didn’t extend to him? He just ran.

And as he ran, he imagined Geneviève waiting for him at her little window, gazing across the garden, ready to flash him her most charming smile the second she laid eyes on him in the distance.

Dixmer, too, had no doubt been alerted about this happy return and he would hold out his good old fat hand, so frank and so loyal in its handshake. He loved Dixmer that day; he loved everyone, even Morand, with his black hair and his green goggles behind which, till now, he’d always felt he could see a sly eye gleaming.

Maurice loved creation in its entirety, for he was happy; he would gladly have showered everyone