It appears from Robespierre’s papers, that not only Tallien, but Legendre, Bourdon de l’Oise, Thuriot, and others, were incessantly watched by the spies of the Committee.  The profession must have improved wonderfully under the auspices of the republic, for I doubt if Mons. le Noir’s Mouchards [The spies of the old police, so called in derision.—­ Brissot, in this act of accusation, is described as having been an agent of the Police under the monarchy.—­I cannot decide on the certainty of this, or whether his occupation was immediately that of a spy, but I have respectable authority for saying, that antecedent to the revolution, his character was very slightly estimated, and himself considered as “hanging loose on society.”] were as able as Robespierre’s.—­The reader may judge from the following specimens: 

“The 6th instant, the deputy Thuriot, on quitting the Convention, went to No. 35, Rue Jaques, section of the Pantheon, to the house of a pocket-book maker, where he staid talking with a female about ten minutes.  He then went to No. 1220, Rue Fosse St. Bernard, section of the Sans-Culottes, and dined there at a quarter past two.  At a quarter past seven he left the last place, and meeting a citizen on the Quay de l’Ecole, section of the Museum, near le Cafe Manoury, they went in there together, and drank a bottle of beer.  From thence he proceeded to la Maison Memblee de la Providence, No. 16, Rue d’Orleans Honore, section de la Halle au Bled, whence, after staying about five-and-twenty minutes, he came out with a citoyenne, who had on a puce Levite, a great bordered shawl of Japan cotton, and on her head a white handkerchief, made to look like a cap.  They went together to No. 163, Place Egalite, where after stopping an instant, they took a turn in the galleries, and then returned to sup.—­They went in at half past nine, and were still there at eleven o’clock, when we came away, not being certain if they would come out again.

     “Bourdon de l’Oise, on entering the Assembly, shook hands with four
     or five Deputies.  He was observed to gape while good news was
     announcing.”

Tallien was already popular among the Jacobins of Paris; and his connexion with a beautiful woman, who might enable him to keep a domestic establishment, and to display any wealth he had acquired, without endangering his reputation, was a circumstance not to be overlooked; for Robespierre well knew the efficacy of female intrigue, and dinners,* in gaining partizans among the subordinate members of the Convention.