He now erased the passage, and wrote in its stead, "even with Eleanor Duplay I have some reserve, and I feel that I cannot throw it off with safety!" and having done this, he, laboriously copied, for the second time, the long letter which he had written.
When he had finished his task, he left his own chamber, and went down into a room below, in which the family were in the habit of assembling in the evening, and meeting such of Robespierre's friends as he wished to have admitted.

The cabinet-maker, and his wife and daughters, together with his son and nephew, who assisted him in his workshop, were always there; and few evenings passed without the attendance of some of his more intimate friends.

They were, at first, merely in the habit of returning with him from the Jacobins' club, but after a while their private meetings became so necessary to them, that they assembled at Duplay's on those nights also on which the Jacobins did not meet.
When Robespierre entered the humble salon, Lebas, St.Just, and Couthon were there; three men who were constant to him to the last, and died with him when he died.

As far as we can judge of their characters, they were none of them naturally bad men.

They were not men prone to lust or plunder; they betrayed no friends; they sought in their political views no private ends; they even frequently used the power with which they were invested to save the lives of multitudes for whose blood the infuriate mob were eager.