Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/90

70 heart, or you are destined to be the husband of Mademoiselle ——, if you manage properly, and if she remains here three months. Constancy and generosity can do anything with an honest and tender heart which is unpledged." Bancal, destined to become a Catholic mystic, proposed on Christmas Eve 1791 the prohibition of all public religious ceremonies, as also of all reference in schools to a future state. Helen persuaded him to vote for saving the King's life; and his was no fleeting fancy, for in 1796, on his release from Austrian dungeons, he got Bishop Grégoire to repeat his offer of marriage; but by that time Helen had found her elective affinity in John Hurford Stone. The Williams's Sunday-evening receptions were attended by the leading Girondins. Vergniaud there rehearsed his parliamentary speeches, and Barère shed tears—probably sincere at the time—over dissensions and excesses which made him sigh for his provincial quietude. Their upper story in the Rue de Bac gave them a partial view of the attack on the Tuileries, and they with difficulty persuaded their porter to admit a wounded Swiss, who implored a glass of water, drank it, and expired. An idle story that Helen callously walked among the bodies of the victims gained currency in England, and induced Boswell to expunge in the second