The soldier who escorted her was in the heyday of youth. A brazen helmet decorated with a panther skin and the crest set off with a crimson cock's-comb shaded his fresh young face and displayed a long and terrific mane that swept his back. His red jacket was cut short and square, barely reaching to the waist, the better to show off his elegant figure. In his girdle he carried an enormous sabre, the hilt of which was a glittering eagle's beak. A pair of flapped breeches of sky blue moulded the fine muscles of his legs and was braided in rich arabesques of a darker blue on the thighs. He might have been a dancer dressed for some warlike and dashing rôle, in _Achilles at Scyros_ or _Alexander's Wedding-feast_, in a costume designed by a pupil of David with the one idea of accentuating every line of the shape.
Gamelin had a vague recollection of having seen him before. He was, in fact, the same young soldier he had come upon a fortnight previously haranguing the people from the arcades of the Théâtre de la Nation.
The _citoyenne_ Rochemaure introduced him by name:
"The _citoyen_ Henry, Member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Section of the Rights of Man."
She had him always at her heels,--a mirror of gallantry and a living and walking guarantee of patriotism.
The _citoyenne_ complimented Gamelin on his talents and asked him if he would be willing to design a card for a protégée of hers, a fashionable milliner. He would, of course, choose an appropriate _motif_,--a woman trying on a scarf before a cheval glass, for instance, or a young workwoman carrying a band-box on her arm.
She had heard several artists mentioned as competent to execute a little matter of the sort,--Fragonard _fils_, young Ducis, as well as a certain Prudhomme; but she would rather apply to the _citoyen_ Évariste Gamelin. However, she made no definite proposal on this head and it was evident she had mentioned the commission merely by way of starting the conversation. In truth she had come for something quite different. She wanted the _citoyen_ Gamelin to do her a favour; knowing he was a friend of the _citoyen_ Marat, she had come to ask him to introduce her to the Friend of the People, with whom she desired an interview.