Thermidor

The Sandman stories named after months are connected, with distinctive cover illustrations, as "Distant Mirrors." Like all art, they should reflect life but why at a distance?

Three one-word titles each represent a different calender:

August, Roman Imperial;
Thermidor, French Revolutionary;
Ramadan, Muslim.

The remaining "Distant Mirror", "Three Septembers And A January", refers to two Roman months - September was the seventh and January is the door (ianua) to the year, associated with the god of doorways, Janus.

Each "Mirror" features a ruler:

Augustus Caesar;
Robespierre;
Haroun Al Raschid;
Joshua Norton, self-styled Emperor of the United States.

Thermidor features three historical figures:

Louis de Saint-Just;
Thomas Paine;
Robespierre;

- refers to two:

Sir Frances Dashwood;
the Chevalier d'Eon;

- features one mythical figure:

Orpheus;

- and seamlessly inserts its fictional heroine, Lady Johanna Constantine, ancestress of Alan Moore's John Constantine, into this milieu so that she is possibly Dashwood's daughter, certainly Saint Just's lover, d'Eon's protege, Robespierre's prisoner and Orpheus' rescuer, working on behalf of Orpheus' father, Morpheus, of course.