He left Aline's room and rushed out into the street, wandering aimlessly for over an hour. She had rejected him. He couldn't quite take it in. Ever since childhood he had loved her, he realised that now. Only his fear of being turned down had forced such a protracted denial of the truth; but Mme de Plougastel had given him hope... false hope, as it turned out, but hope nonetheless. He had opened his heart to Aline and she had torn it out for her own amusement. He wasn't angry with her. It had always been her way... the thoughtless little girl who loved to tease her cousin Andre, who always got her own way because she was so adorably pretty, who couldn't conceive the depth of the wound she had just unintentionally inflicted. Moreau was angry, but not with Aline... he could never be angry with her... so he would be angry with Mme de Plougastel instead. That bizarre woman who for no apparent reason kept showing up in his life, taking too close an interest in him, meddling in his affairs and then vanishing as suddenly as she'd come. Why couldn't she leave him alone?

Moreau kicked the stone balustrade of the bridge and stalked on. No, he mustn't be angry with Mme de Plougastel, because he had been fool enough to believe her... fool enough to believe the words he had secretly wish to hear all these years... he was to blame, he, Andre-Louis Moreau. Scaramouche had been made of fool of... how ironic! Unfortunately admitting the truth only made him feel worse, not better. Half way through the Cordelier's District Moreau was challenged by a thug of a soldier who obviously thought that patriots should wear butcher's blades not fine swords. Oh, how Moreau wanted to skewer the man for his impertinence, but he curbed the desire and brandished his Committee pass instead. Maybe it was the paper, maybe it was the look in Moreau's eye, but the soldier became humility itself as he recognised the so-called Palladin of the Third Estate, offering him both an apology and an escort. "I don't need your protection, sergeant, or anyone else's!" snarled Moreau, pushing passed the soldier.

A short while later he arrived at the Jacobin Club. He hadn't intended to end up there, but the anger had peaked and now he was beginning to feel the soreness in his feet caused by the long, fretful walk. The room was badly lit, but he gazed around for a friendly face. The young man orating at the front was new, from the provinces, and stumbling hopelessly over his words. A glance at the back of the hall told Moreau why. There sat Robespierre, patiently waiting for the lad to slip up. Bastard, thought Moreau! Then he heard his name called from somewhere to the right...

The speaker paused briefly and glanced at the door with an expression which asked: what more can plague my debut? Moreau sauntered over to Isaac's table and slumped down in a chair, lifting one tired hand to call for wine. "So where's this little firebrand from?" he asked his friend, motioning towards the speaker who was soldiering on despite everything. "Anxious to please, is he? Another worshipper of the great god Maximillien," the heavy sarcasm was very spoken low, "Long may he reign!" he tipped his glass at the snake in the corner, who scowled and turned away. A fleeting smile crossed Moreau's face, but was banished a second later. He was depressed tonight, so instead of laughing he downed his wine and poured another.

"No, it is not d'Azyr this time... well not directly." he replied ruefully. "It's... well... I mean, ah..." Moreau didn't quite know how to begin, how to explain, so he downed another glass of wine. After a brief silence he burst out suddenly, "Why must women always interfere in business which does not concern them?"

"Yes, Isaac I have and I've made an utter fool of myself in front of her. A total and utter, damned stupid fool! I lost my head and asked her to marry me. Yes, I know, the very thought of it is absurd. Why in the world would she want to?" He looked up from his glass with a wan smile, "Go ahead, laugh at me... I deserve it."

"You forget, Isaac, I grew up with Aline. She's not like that, she's... different. I know she is." but he wasn't quite convinced. Certainly the Aline he'd played with as a child had had no improper sense of superiority, but ever since she had returned from that expensive Parisian finishing school she'd been a little more aloof than usual... suddenly somehow unattainable. Of course she had still teased him as she always had done, but the Aline he knew would never have entertained d'Azyr, not for one second, not even to make him (Andre) mad with jealousy. Oh why had his god-father sent her to that school? And why had Mme de Plougastel made him believe that Aline could ever be more than a friend? Now he had probably lost her friendship as well as her respect. The thought made him down another glass of wine. How many was that? Moreau didn't care!

"None. Just that she was surprised by it. She berates me for not being open with her and when I am..." the rest went unsaid.

Moreau nodded glumly, perhaps all Aline did need was a little time to get used to the idea... he didn't know. What he did know was that he wanted another drink. He up-ended the bottle, but it was virtually empty. "Merde!" he swore softly. On the podium the young fire-brand had finished his speech and received applause from those who'd been listening. Now Robespierre was making his way to the front. "Damn, that's all we need," remarked Andre "another sermon from the gospel according to saint Max! Come on, let's get out of here before he starts."

The chill night air reminded Moreau of how much he'd drunk in so short a space of time. Fortunately fencers, like dancers, have excellent balance and though his head swam, his legs remained firmer than they'd any right to. "Oh yes, he likes to think he's a martyr, that one. Perhaps one day someone will make him a proper martyr, but it's too much to hope it will be any time soon!" They were heading towards the river. Suddenly Moreau skipped ahead and turned to face Isaac so that he was walking backwards. "Do you know what Aline really objects to?" he asked, in the slightly louder than necessary tone that the half-cut adopt, "This." He took out his Committee pass and waved it at his friend. "Not the fact that I fought d'Azyr. No, I could have killed him for all she cared! She objects to this... this silly piece of paper and my job with the new Committee of Public Safety."

"Oh, Aline dislikes to politics, full stop, revolutionary or reactionary. I think she hoped I'd give up after the duel with d'Azyr, but how can I?" He was suddenly grinning as he said this and clapped Isaac on either shoulder from the front, then skipped backwards again so that he was a few steps ahead. Andre's commitment to whatever he set his mind to was amazing. He never did anything by halves. If Aline had been disappointed at his taking a post in the Committee, she surely could not have been surprised by it. "When we've only just begun!"

"I hear they want Robespierre, but he won't agree to be on it. I sincerely hope that's one belief he'll never waiver from!" They had reached the river and before Isaac could stop him, Moreau had leapt onto the stone wall of one of Paris ' many bridges and was wandering back and forth, balancing somewhat unsteadily. "I don't really know who else has joined. Someone mentioned Chauvelin. Never met him, but he sounds like a bore. Still, I doubt I shall see much of him."

Moreau made a series of fencing lunges, balancing like a tightrope walker on the the bridge as, thirty feet below, the Seine glided quietly along. "Well you've always been a fine judge of character, so I shall certainly be wary of him," He jumped nimbly down off the bridge, but the road seemed to be a little nearer than expected and he had to take a pace forward to steady himself. "If we meet."

"Very little. She's a friend of my god-father. Every now and then she swans into my life, turns it upside down and then I don't see her for years!" Suddenly melancholy again, he twisted slightly out of Isaac's grasp. "I don't know why she takes such an interest in me and Aline, but I wish she wouldn't. If it weren't for her interference..." His voice tailed off and he gazed out at the river.

Her husband was a royalist spy. "I didn't know." He said glumly, "I've never met him. Mme de Plougastel is acting as Aline's chaperone in Paris . But for that I would gladly have nothing to do with the woman. She encourages dreams... my dreams... fool that I am I believed her when she said Aline loved me. I wish she'd go to the devil and leave me in peace."

"I wish I could get her away, but will she listen to me now? She ought to return to uncle Quentin at Gavrillac, but she won't... not of her own accord." He turned to face Isaac with worry for Aline's safety in his eyes, "Aline loves Paris and Mme de Plougastel is her chosen guardian. My godfather alone could order her to leave, but he and I are no longer on speaking terms." Moreau was getting fatalist now. "When I think they might attack Aline to get at me! Thank God I've done nothing to give them cause to want to attack... not that snakes like Robespierre need much of a reason."

"You're a good friend to me, Isaac. I wish there were more in the Convention like you." He turned to lean his back against the stone balustrade of the bridge. "Perhaps," he mused thoughtfully, "I should try to talk to my godfather. He might listen, if it concerns Aline... and at worst all he can do is order me thrown out of his house."

"Better alive and resenting me, than dead because I couldn't be bothered to try to help." He was looking at Isaac with the expression of one who's mind was, if not entirely sober, certainly made up. Moreau would go to Gavrillac and try to speak with his godfather.

At first he opened his mouth to protest, but then realized the wisdom of his friend's words. Nodding silently, Moreau allowed Isaac to guide him homewards.