That very peaceful, contemplative life she had led in the convent, only served to enhance her feeling of the solemnity of her mission.
It was true, it was inevitable, because it was so hard.
To the few who, throughout those troublous times, had kept a feeling of veneration for their religion, this religion had become one of abnegation and martyrdom.
A spirit of uncompromising Jansenism seemed to call forth sacrifices and renunciation, whereas the happy-go-lucky Catholicism of the past century had only suggested an easy, flowered path, to a comfortable, well-upholstered heaven.
The harder the task seemed with was set before her, the more real it became to Juliette.

God, she firmly believed, had at last, after ten years, shown her the way to wreak vengeance upon her brother's murderer.
He had brought her to this house, caused her to see and hear part of the conversation between Blakeney and Deroulede, and this at the moment of all others, when even the semblance of a conspiracy against the Republic would bring the one inevitable result in its train: disgrace first, the hasty mock trial, the hall of justice, and the guillotine.
She tried not to hate Deroulede.

She wished to judge him coldly and impartially, or rather to indict him before the throne of God, and to punish him for the crime he had commited ten years ago.

Her personal feelings must remain out of the question.
Had Charlotte Corday considered her own sensibilities, when with her own hand she put an end to Marat?
Juliette remained on her knees for hours.

She heard Anne Mie come home, and Deroulede's voice of welcome on the landing.