I shall therefore call upon you towards one o'clock.
Have the kindness to receive me, and accord me a moment's
audience. I shall put you in the way of rendering a great service
to France.
"Marie Corday."
Having dispatched that letter to Marat, she sat until late
afternoon waiting vainly for an answer. Despairing at last of
receiving any, she wrote a second note, more peremptory in tone:
"I wrote to you this morning, Marat. Have you received my letter?
May I hope for a moment's audience? If you have received my
letter, I hope you will not refuse me, considering the importance
of the matter. It should suffice for you that I am very
unfortunate to give me the right to your protection."
Having changed into a gray-striped dimity gown--you observe this
further manifestation of a calm so complete that it admits of no
departure from the ordinary habits of life--she goes forth to
deliver in person this second letter, the knife concealed in the
folds of the muslin fichu crossed high upon her breast.
In a mean, brick-paved, ill-lighted, and almost unfurnished room
of that house in the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, the People's
Friend is seated in a bath. It is no instinct of cleanliness he
is obeying, for in all France there is no man more filthy in his
person and his habits than this triumvir.
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