give away in good time that which, undoubtedly, would have been taken
away from him later on.

But when he gave willingly, at a time when France needed it most, and
before she had learned how to help herself to what she wanted.

And somehow, in this instance, France had not forgotten: an invisible
fortress seemed to surround Citizen Deroulede and keep his enemies at
bay. They were few, but they existed. The National Convention trusted
him. "He was not dangerous" to them. The people looked upon him as one
of themselves, who gave whilst he had something to give. Who can gauge
that most elusive of all things: _Popularity?_

He lived a quiet life, and had never yielded to the omni-prevalent
temptation of writing pamphlets, but lived alone with his mother and
Anne Mie, the little orphaned cousin whom old Madame Deroulede had
taken care of, ever since the child could toddle.

Everyone knew his house in the Rue Ecole de Medecine, not far from the
one wherein Marat lived and died, the only solid, stone house in the
midst of a row of hovels, evil-smelling and squalid.

The street was narrow then, as it is now, and whilst Paris was cutting
off the heads of her children for the sake of Liberty and Fraternity,
she had no time to bother about cleanliness and sanitation.

Rue Ecole de Medecine did little credit to the school after which it
was named, and it was a most unattractive crowd that usually thronged
its uneven, muddy pavements.