In one of those crystalline moments of pure recall of which poets speak so lyrically, he remembered, literally, everything. Now, lying on the pavement before the Assembly, in a hot splash of August sun, he knew that the warm liquid drenching his body was his own blood, knew further that the dismembered limb lying to one side was his own right arm. He knew all this and looked up with glazed eyes at the crowd which pushed around him, and saw nothing save an image of himself, earlier that morning, sitting excitedly in his room at White's Hotel, having coffee, his portmanteau packed, passage booked on the next day's packet crossing the channel. His excitement doubled as he thought of his secret meeting with Citizen Paine, now in ill-health from fever and temporarily released from Luxembourg Prison on behalf of the generous intervention of the American minister, James Monroe. Then, following the completion of his business with Paine, he planned a hasty exit out of the bloodbath that was Paris, heading toward the channel and the packet that would take him back to England, to the red brick house on Great Russell Street, and the woman who had occupied his thoughts since his departure over a year ago, with a fever amounting almost to an obsession.
