CHAPTER 7.VII.
Constitutum est, ut quisquis eum HOMINEM dixisset fuisse, capitalem penderet poenam.
-- St.Augustine, "Of the God Serapis," l.

18, "de Civ.

Dei," c.

5.
(It was decreed, that whoso should say that he had been a MAN, should suffer the punishment of a capital offence.) Robespierre was reclining languidly in his fauteuil, his cadaverous countenance more jaded and fatigued than usual.

He to whom Catherine Theot assured immortal life, looked, indeed, like a man at death's door.
On the table before him was a dish heaped with oranges, with the juice of which it is said that he could alone assuage the acrid bile that overflowed his system; and an old woman, richly dressed (she had been a Marquise in the old regime) was employed in peeling the Hesperian fruits for the sick Dragon, with delicate fingers covered with jewels.