"Herault, Fabre thinks: and his mind drifts back--as it tends to, these days-- to the Cafe du Foy. He'd been giving readings from his latest--Augusta was dying the death at the Italiens--and in came this huge, rough-looking boy, shoe-horned into a lawyer's black suit, whom he'd made a sketch of in the street, ten years before. The boy had developed this upper-class drawl, and he'd talked about Herault--"his looks are impeccable, he's well traveled, he's pursued by all the ladies at Court"--and beside Danton had been this fey wide-eyed egotist who had turned out to be half the city's extramarital interest. The years pass ... plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose ..."