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In Deroulede's fine little poem, "Bon gite", a famished, foot-sore soldier returning home is generously entreated by a poor housewife. When she sets about preparing a bed for him, he remonstrates "Good dame, what means that new-made bed, Those sheets so finely spun? On heaped-up straw in cattle-shed, I'd snore till rise of sun."
He turned, and there in the doorway, holding back the heavy portiere, stood Juliette, graceful, smiling, a little pale, this no doubt owing to the flickering light of the unsnuffed candles. So young and girlish did she look in her soft, white muslin frock that at sight of her the tension in Deroulede's face seemed to relax.
Then suddenly the eyes of one little mite a poor, tiny midget not yet in her teens alight on Paul Deroulede's face, on the opposite side of the rooms. "Tiens!
The slightest suggestion of relief on Deroulede's part, a sigh of satisfaction, would have been sufficient at this moment, to convince him and the Committee of Public Safety that the Citizen-Deputy was guilty after all. But Deroulede never moved. He was sufficiently master of himself not to express either surprise or satisfaction.
Juliette would have replied at once; her mouth had already framed the No with which she meant to answer. But now at last had come Deroulede's hour. For this he had been silent, had suffered and had held his peace, whilst twice twenty-four hours had dragged their weary lengths along, since the arrest of the woman he loved.
He was rather short, but broad-shouldered and well knit, with an expressive hand, which looked slender and delicate below the fine lace ruffle. Charlotte Corday was condemned. All Deroulede's eloquence could not save her. Juliette left the court in a state of mad exultation.
Juliette felt impelled by duty, and duty at best is not so prompt a counsellor as love or hate. Her adventure outside Deroulede's house had not been premeditated. Impulse and coincidence had worked their will with her.
A veritable chorus of enthusiasm greeted the end of his long peroration. The Machiavelian scheme, almost devilish in its cunning, in its subtle knowledge of human nature and of the heart-strings of a noble organisation like Deroulede's, commended itself to these patriots, who were thirsting for the downfall of a superior enemy.
She felt that, were Paul Deroulede's eyes upon her at this moment, he would wish her to remain calm and outwardly serene. The foremost man he with the tricolour scarf had already crossed the hall, and was standing outside the study door. It was his word of command which first roused Deroulede from his dream: "In the name of the Republic!"
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