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
message.
Checked, she drove back to the Providence Inn and wrote a letter
to the triumvir:
"Paris, 13th July, Year 2 of the Republic.
"Citizen,--I have arrived from Caen. Your love for your country
leads me to assume that you will be anxious to hear of the
unfortunate events which are taking place in that part of the
Republic.
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