The business of looking for a wife

My favorite French Revolution couple, Elisabeth Duplay and Philippe LeBas.

Inspired by this passage from Elisabeth's journal:

He asked me if I was not soon going to marry, if I was in love with anyone, if pleasures and the toilette were to my taste, and if, once married and having become a mother, I would like to nurse my children.

I replied that I would follow my good mother’s example and always ask her advice.

Then he told me that I was very good, that he wanted to ask me to find him a woman who was very cheerful, who loved pleasures and the toilette, and who was not thinking of nursing her own children, for that would enslave her and deprive her of the pleasures that a young woman should love.

God! How this kind of language on his part hurt me! What! I said to myself, there is the manner of thinking of a man whom I believed so reasonable and so virtuous!

I wanted to go away then; but he entreated me to stay, saying that he had more to say to me; I told him that if he had nothing else to ask me I would like to retire, that his way of seeing being very different from my own, I could not accept the commission he wanted to give me to find him a wife. I begged him to charge some other person with that care.

I became serious; for never had I felt such chagrin; it was very hard for me to discover such sentiments in a man whom I had adored in secret, whom I believed to be so good by all accounts. I admit that having seen him so full of respect and attentions for me every time I had met him when I was with Charlotte, and that the persistence with which he had insisted on keeping my ring and not recovering his lorgnette—which had been a precious souvenir for me during his illness—I admit that all of that had made me think there was some sympathy between us. My illusions were therefore destroyed.

Also, this conversation made such an impression on me that I was near to feeling ill. I said to myself: “My God! How imprudent I was to think of him! How I would blush, mother, if you knew my weakness! How I would deserve to be scolded by you! But how unhappy your daughter was! I was in love and I wanted to hide it from you.”

I then indeed saw my mistake and I wanted to leave him at once; but he insisted emphatically that I should stay, seeing the ill he had caused me. He said to me: “Good Élisabeth, I have caused you much pain, but forgive me for it. Yes, I admit, I wanted to know your way of thinking. Well then! The one I prayed you to seek for me, dear Élisabeth, is you: yes, my friend, you are the one I have cherished since the day I first saw you. I have found her therefore, the one who I had been seeking everywhere! Yes, my Élisabeth, if you want, I will ask your parents for your hand this evening; I will pray them to make for our happiness right away.” He took my hands then and said to me: “But you do not respond? Do you not feel for me what I feel for you?”

I was so seized with joy that I could not reply; I believed myself dreaming. He was still holding my hand and begging me to respond. God! How happy I was!

Source: revolution-fr.livejournal.com/…

* I should note the exchange took place outside the Jacobins club, not at the Duplay house, but for some reason this is always how I pictured it. …Though I don’t really know how the Duplay kitchen looked…

Mechanical pencils, Micron ink pens, and Prismacolor, Sharpie, Darice Spectrum Noir, Utrecht, and Crayola markers, white ink pen, and finished off in GIMP with a little dark blue vignetting and a touch of yellow highlights. Don't look at the floor too closely, it's crap. XD

If you would like to try coloring this image yourself, here is the lineart: