On July 23, Pichegru, driving
the English before him, seized Antwerp. No Frenchman could longer doubt
that France was delivered, and with that certainty the Terror ended
without a blow. Eventually the end must have come, but it came
instantly, and, according to the old legend, it came through a man's
love for a woman.
John Lambert Tallien, the son of the butler of the Marquis of Bercy, was
born in 1769, and received an education through the generosity of the
marquis, who noticed his intelligence. He became a journeyman printer,
and one day in the studio of Madame Lebrun, dressed in his workman's
blouse, he met Therezia Cabarrus, Marquise de Fontenay, the most
seductive woman of her time, and fell in love with her on the instant.
Nothing, apparently, could have been more hopeless or absurd. But the
Revolution came. Tallien became prominent, was elected to the
Convention, grew to be influential, and in September, 1793, was sent to
Bordeaux, as representative of the Chamber, or as proconsul, as they
called it. There he, the all-powerful despot, found Therezia, trying to
escape to Spain, in prison, humble, poor, shuddering in the shadow of
the guillotine.
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