He has won a reputation for austerity approaching sanctity.

He jumps up on a bench and talks about God and Providence.

He styles himself the friend of the poor; he attracts around him a crowd of women and 'the poor in spirit, and gravely accepts their homage and worship....

Robespierre is a priest and never will be anything else." Among Robespierre's devotees Madame de Chalabre must be mentioned, (Hamel, I., 525), a young widow (Hamel, III., 524), who offers him her hand with an income of forty thousand francs.

"Thou art my supreme deity," she writes to him, "and I know no other on this earth! I regard thee as my guardian angel, and would live only under thy laws."] [Footnote 31114: Fievee, "Correspondance," (introduction).] [Footnote 31115: Report of Courtois on the papers found in Robespierre's domicile.