'_Pardie!_' cried out a rough-looking man in a working dress; 'it is hard that we cannot repair him with the strong materials the useless fellows are made of; there are full fifty in the Assembly we could give for one like _him_.'
'You talk of maladies,' broke in a loud, full voice, 'and I tell you that the Citizen Riquetti is dying of poison--ay, start, or murmur if you will--I repeat it, of poison. Do we not all know how his power is feared, and his eloquence dreaded? Are we strangers to those who hate this great and good man?'
'Great and good he is,' murmured another; 'when shall we see his equal?'
'See, here is one who has been lately with him; let us learn his news.'
This speech was uttered by a poorly-clad man, with a red cap on his head, as Gerald was endeavouring to pierce the crowd.
'Who is the citizen who has this privilege of speaking with Gabriel Riquetti?' said Cabrot, an over-dressed man, who stood the centre of a group of talkers.
Without paying any attention to this summons, Gerald tried to pursue his way and pass on; but several already barred the passage, and seemed to insist, as on a right, to hear the last account of the sick man. For a moment a haughty impulse to refuse all information thus demanded seemed to sway Gerald; then, suddenly changing his resolution, he calmly answered that Mirabeau appeared to him so ill as to preclude all hope of recovery, and that his state portended but few hours of life.
'Ask him who he himself is?'--'Why and how he came there?'--'What medicine is Riquetti taking?'--'Who administers it?'--'Let this man give an account of himself!' Such, and such like, were the cries that now resounded on all sides, and Gerald saw himself at once surrounded by a mob, whose demands were uttered in no doubtful tone.
'The Citizen Riquetti is one whose life is dear to the Republic,' broke in Cabrot; 'all Frenchmen have a right to investigate whatever affects that life. Some aver that he is the victim of assassination----'
'I say, and will maintain it, broke in the man who had made this assertion before; 'they have given him some stuff that causes a gradual decay.'
'Let this man declare himself. Who are you, Citizen, and whence?' asked another, confronting Fitzgerald. 'What business came you here to transact with the Citizen Riquetti?'