undertaken to see the latter on the subject of certain papers
relating to the affairs of a nun of Caen, an old convent friend
of her own, and she was in haste to discharge this errand, so as
to be free for the great task upon which she was come.

From inquiries that she made, she learnt at once that Marat was
ill, and confined to his house. This rendered necessary a change
of plans, and the relinquishing of her project of affording him a
spectacular death in the crowded hall of the Convention.

The next day, which was Friday, she devoted to furthering the
business of her friend the nun. On Saturday morning she rose
early, and by six o'clock she was walking in the cool gardens of
the Palais Royal, considering with that almost unnatural calm of
hers the ways and means of accomplishing her purpose in the
unexpected conditions that she found.

Towards eight o'clock, when Paris was awakening to the business
of the day and taking down its shutters, she entered a cutler's
shop in the Palais Royal, and bought for two francs a stout
kitchen knife in a shagreen case. She then returned to her hotel
to breakfast, and afterwards, dressed in her brown travelling-
gown and conical hat, she went forth again, and, hailing a
hackney carnage, drove to Marat's house in the Rue de l'Ecole de
Medecine.

But admittance to that squalid dwelling was denied her. The
Citizen Marat was ill, she was told, and could receive no
visitors. It was Simonne Everard, the triumvir's mistress--later
to be known as the Widow Marat--who barred her ingress with this