FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT
By the Reign of Terror, or the "Terror," is meant that period of the first revolution in France during which the ruling faction caused thousands of obnoxious persons to be sent to the guillotine. The Terror is usually considered as beginning in March, 1793, when the Revolutionary Tribunal was established by the National Convention. This tribunal was an extraordinary court empowered to deal with all acts or persons hostile to the Revolution.
In July, 1793, Robespierre became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, and, with Saint-Just, was most prominently connected with the Terror. He secured a decree, known as the decree of the 22d Prairial, "to accelerate the movements of the Committee, and open for them a shorter route to the guillotine," whereby persons marked for death might be executed as soon as recognized. Against this bloody decree it is said that even the "Mountain"—the Red Republican party in the Convention—recoiled. It was nevertheless remorselessly carried out, and "caused torrents of blood to flow."
The climax of the Terror was reached in 1794, and its end came in July of that year, when Robespierre and his associates were overthrown. It was followed by a reaction against the excesses of the revolutionists, the closing of the radical clubs of the Jacobins and others, and the release of those whom the Revolutionary Tribunal had imprisoned on suspicion. The tribunal itself, together with the Committee of Public Safety, who had executed the fierce will of the Convention, was speedily swept away.
It is a hideous spectacle to contemplate the enthusiasm of crime, and see men madly intoxicating themselves with their own atrocities. The Revolutionary Tribunal was in operation from March, 1793; the registry of condemnations had reached the number of five hundred seventy-seven. From 22 Prairial to 9 Thermidor (June 10, to July 27, 1794), two thousand two hundred eighty-five unfortunates perished on the scaffold. Fouquier-Tinville[41] comprehended the thought of Robespierre. For the dock he had substituted benches, upon which he huddled together at one time the crowd of the accused. One day he erected the guillotine in the very hall of the tribunal.
The Committee of Public Safety had a moment of fright. "Thou art wishing then to demoralize punishment!" cried Collot d'Herbois. A hundred sixty accused persons had been brought from the Luxembourg under pretence of a conspiracy in prison. The lower class of prisoners were encouraged to act as spies, thus furnishing pretexts for punishment. The judges sat with pistols ready to hand; the President cast his eyes over the lists for the day and called upon the accused. "Dorival, do you know anything of the conspiracy?" "No!"
"I expected that you would make that reply; but it won't succeed. Bring another."
"Champigny, are you not an ex-noble?"
"Yes."
"Bring another."
"Guidreville, are you a priest?"
"Yes, but I have taken the oath."
"You have no right to say any more. Another."
"Ménil, were you not a domestic of the ex-constitutional Menou?"
"Yes."
"Another."
"Vély, were you not architect for Madame?"
"Yes, but I was disgraced in 1789."
"Another."
"Gondrecourt, is not your father-in-law at the Luxembourg?"
"Yes."
"Another."
"Durfort, were you not in the bodyguard?"
"Yes, but I was dismissed in 1789."
"Another."
So the examination went on. The questions, the answers, the judgment, the condemnation, were all simultaneous. The juries did not leave the hall; they gave their opinions with a word or a look. Sometimes errors were evident in the lists. "I am not accused," exclaimed a prisoner one day.
"No matter; what is thy name? See, it is written now. Another."
M. de Loizerolles perished under the name of his father. Jokes were mingled with the sentences. The Maréchale de Mouchy was old, and did not reply to the questions of President Dumas. "The citoyenne is deaf" (sourde), said the registrar; "Put down that she has conspired secretly" (sourdement), replied Dumas.
It became necessary to forbid Fouquier-Tinville to send more than sixty victims a day to the scaffold. "Things go well, and see the heads fall like slates with my file-firing; the next decade we shall do better still; I shall want at least four hundred fifty." The lists were prepared in the prison itself, by the class of informers known as moutons.[42] The public accuser, like the judges and the jailers, was often ignorant of the names of the human flock crowded in the dungeons. Death recalled them to recollection. In the evening, under the windows of each prison, the list of the victims of the day was shouted out. "These are they who have gained prizes in the lottery of Saint Guillotine." The unfortunates who crowded to the windows thus learned the tidings of the execution of those they loved. The horrors of the unforeseen and unknown were added to the agonies of death and separation. Under the windows of the Conciergerie the names of the Maréchale de Noailles, the Duchesse d'Ayen and the Vicomtesse de Noailles, who died together on the scaffold, were proclaimed. Among the prisoners was Madame la Fayette, herself awaiting death; happily she did not recognize in the coarse accents of the criers the cherished names of her grandmother, mother, and sister. The peasants of the Vendée[43] came to die at Paris, like the Carmelites of Compiègne or the magistrates of Toulouse. It was astonishing that there still remained in the dungeons great lords and noble ladies, bearing the most illustrious names in the history of France; on the 8th and 9th Thermidor the poets Roucher and André Chénier; Baron Trenck, famous for his numerous escapes; the Maréchale d'Armentières, the Princesse de Chimay, the Comtesse de Narbonne, the Duc de Clermont-Tonnerre, the Marquis de Crussol, and the Messieurs de Trudaine, counsellors of the Parliament of Paris, perished upon the scaffold.
Insulters always surrounded the scaffold, but their number had decreased; the Committee of Public Safety no longer had recourse to the popular manœuvres of its early days. Terror was now sufficient to insure the silence and submission of the victims. Paris grew weary of the horrors of which it was witness; the odor of blood had driven away the residents from the houses adjacent to the Place de la Révolution; a new guillotine had been erected upon the Place du Trône. Upon the route along which ran the fatal carts shops were closed, and passers-by endeavored to avoid meeting the procession. A few rare loungers of the lowest class alone walked in the gardens of the Tuileries and the Champs-Élysées. All was silent, but pity was growing in the minds of men. The distant sound of the horrors that were general throughout France redoubled the terror of Paris.
The provincial sufferings were not uniform, and the fury of the representative commissioners was unequally distributed. Either by a happy chance, or it might be by an instinctive knowledge of the character of the population, the revolutionary scaffold was never set up in Lower Normandy; the Vendée, on the contrary, expiated its long resistance in its blood, and Carrier filled with terror the city of Nantes, always favorable to revolution. He had tried guillotine and grape-shot, but both were too tardy in their action to suit his zeal. He conceived the idea of crowding the condemned into ships with valves, launched upon the Loire: the beautiful river saw these unfortunates struggling in its waters. Henceforth the executioners tied the prisoners together by one hand and one foot; these "Republican Marriages," as they were called, insured the speedy death of the victims. The waters of the Loire became infected; its shores were covered with corpses; the fishes themselves could no longer serve as nourishment for human beings; fever decimated the inhabitants of Nantes. The fury of Carrier bordered on madness: he caused the little Vendean infants, collected by Breton charity, to be cast into the water. "It is necessary," said he, "to slay the wolves' cubs."
The same terror also, and the same atrocities which desolated the West, reigned in the North and the South. In the Department of Vaucluse, Maignet, in the Pas-de-Calais, Joseph Lebon, had obtained the erection of local revolutionary tribunals. "The arrests which I have ordered in the Departments of Vaucluse and the Bouches-du-Rhône amount to twelve or fifteen thousand," wrote Maignet to his friend Couthon. "It would require an army to conduct them to Paris; besides, it is necessary to appal, and the blow is only terrifying when struck in the sight of those who have lived with the guilty." They had felled the tree of liberty in the little town of Bédouin; sixty-three of the inhabitants were executed; the rest fled. "I have wished to give the national vengeance a grand character," wrote Maignet to the Committee of Public Safety, "and I have ordered that the town should be given to the flames. If you think this new measure too rigorous, let me know your wishes, and do not read my letter to the Convention." To the complaints of Rovère, representative of Vaucluse, Robespierre replied, "We are content with Maignet; he knows well how to guillotine." Joseph Lebon established an orchestra close by the guillotine; he caused the Ça ira[44] to be sung during the executions, which he witnessed from his balcony. Formerly a priest and well esteemed, he was moderate at the outburst of the Revolution, but his reason had yielded to the dizziness of despotic power; it was of a veritable madman that Barère said: "Lebon has completely beaten the aristocrats, and he has protected Cambrai against the approaches of the enemy; besides, what is there that is not permitted to the hatred of a republican against the aristocracy? The Revolution and revolutionary measures must only be spoken of with respect. Liberty is a virgin whose veil it is culpable to raise."
For some time Robespierre had appeared but rarely at the Committee of Public Safety; he reserved himself for the department of general police, that is to say, the direction of the "Terror" throughout France. Underhand dissensions and jealousies began to creep in among these criminals, secretly disquieted by projects of which they were reciprocally suspicious. Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois dreaded Robespierre and began to conspire against him. Robespierre established himself with the Jacobins, as in an impregnable fortress. The President and Vice-President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the commandant of the armed forces, Henriot, awaited his orders. They pressed him to take action against the enemies whom he had himself denounced to the Jacobins. "Formerly," said he, "on the 13th Messidor [July 1st], the underhand faction that has sprung from the remnant of the followers of Danton and Camille Desmoulins attacked the committees en masse; now they prefer to attack a few members in particular; in order to succeed in breaking the bundle, they attribute to a single individual that which appertains to the whole Government. They dare not say that the Revolutionary Tribunal has been instituted in order to swallow up the National Convention; they have spoken of a dictator, and named him; it is I who have been thus designated, and you would tremble if I told you in what place."
A dictatorship had, in fact, been spoken of, but it was Saint-Just, on returning from the army, who had uttered this terrible word, in a conference of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security expressly convoked by Robespierre. The latter had proposed the institution of four great revolutionary tribunals, in order to forge new weapons for himself; but the conference refused. Robespierre went out irritated and gloomy. "Misfortune has reached a climax," cried Saint-Just. "You are in a state of anarchy. The Convention is inundating France with laws inoperative and often impracticable. The representatives accompanying the armies dispose at their will of the public fortune and our military destinies; the representatives sent as Commissioners to the Provinces usurp all power and amass gold for which they substitute assignats. How can such political and legislative disorder be regulated? I declare upon my honor and my conscience, I see only one means of safety; and that is the concentration of power in the hands of one man who has enough genius, force, patriotism, and generosity to become the embodiment of public authority. It is necessary, above all, to have a man endowed with long practical knowledge of the Revolution, its principles, its phases, its modes of action, and its agents. Finally, he must be a man who has the general good-will and confidence of the people in his favor, and who is at once a virtuous and inflexible as well as an incorruptible citizen. That man is Robespierre; it is he only who can save the State. I ask that he be invested with the dictatorship, and that the committees make a proposition to this effect at the Convention to-morrow."
The imprudence of the speech equalled the audacity of the act. The members of the two councils looked at each other, hesitating to accept the declaration of war. A few of them contended for their lives against the vengeance of Robespierre and his friends. "This Robespierre is insatiable," said Barère, with anger. "Let him ask for Tallien, Bourdon de l'Oise, Thuriot, Guffroy, Rovère, Lecointre, Panis, Barras, Fréron, Legendre, Monestier, Dubois Crancé, Fouché, Cambon, and all the Dantonist remnant, well and good; but to Duval, Audouin, Léonard Bourdon, Vadier, Vauland, it is impossible to consent."
The two parties waited face to face, shrinking from the blows they were about to exchange, counting on the impatience or temerity of their adversaries. The boldest among the opposition ventured on a circuitous attack by denouncing the sect of mystic dreamers led by a demented woman, Catherine Théot, styled by her followers, Mother of God. Her principal disciple was Gerle, formerly prior of the Chartreuse, and a member of the Constituent Assembly. When the papers of this handful of maniacs were seized, the copy of a letter to Robespierre was found; he was to have been the Messiah of the sect. Vadier denounced at the Convention this elementary school of fanaticism, discovered on a third floor in the Rue Contrescarpe, and who were connected, he said, with the machinations of Pitt; but he dared not speak of the letter to Robespierre. The latter undoubtedly took some interest in Catherine Théot, for he did not allow the affair to be followed up; the prophetess died in prison soon after.
Robespierre had said to a deputation from Aisne: "In the situation in which it now is, gangrened by corruption, and without power to remedy it, the Convention can no longer save the Republic: both will perish together. The proscription of patriots is the order of the day. For myself, I have already one foot in the tomb, in a few days I shall place the other there; the rest is in the hands of Providence."
Nevertheless he began the attack, urged forward by men who had attached their fortunes to his own, and by the disquietudes which agitated his sour and dissatisfied spirit. He could no longer put up with advice even from his most faithful friends, and the inflexible Saint-Just told him to calm himself; "Empire is for the phlegmatic." A menacing petition from the Jacobins preceded by a few hours a grand discourse from the dictator. He always reckoned on the effect of his discourses, and all the committees, one after another, had suffered from the asperity of his attacks. "The accusations are all concentrated upon me," said he; "if anyone casts patriots into prison in place of shutting up the aristocrats there, it is said that Robespierre wills it. If the numerous agents of the Committee of General Security extend their vexations and rapine in all directions, it is said that Robespierre has sent them; if a new law irritates the property-holders, it is Robespierre who is ruining them; and meanwhile, in what hands are your finances? In the hands of feuillants, of known cheats, of the Cambons, Mallarmés and Ramels. Survey the field of victory, look at Belgium; dissensions have been sown among our generals, the military aristocracy is protected, faithful generals are persecuted, the military administration is enveloped with a suspicious authority; they talk to you of war with academic lightness, as if it cost neither blood nor labor. The truths that I bring you are surely equal to epigrams.
"There exists a conspiracy against public liberty; it owes its force to a criminal coalition which intrigues in the very bosom of the Convention. That coalition has its accomplices in the Committee of General Security, and in the bureaux, which they control. Some members of the Committee of Public Safety are implicated in this plot; the coalition thus formed seeks to ruin patriots and the country. What is the remedy for this evil? To punish the traitors, to purify the Committee of General Security, and subordinate it to the Committee of Public Safety; to purify this committee itself, and constitute it the Government under the authority of the National Convention, which is the centre of authority and the chief judicial power. Thus would all the factions be crushed by raising on their ruins the power of justice and liberty. If it is impossible to advocate these principles without being set down as ambitious, I shall conclude that tyranny reigns among us, but not that I ought to hold my tongue; for what can be objected to a man who is right, and who knows how to die for his country? I am put here in order to combat crime, not to govern it. The time has not yet come when good men can serve their country with impunity."
They listened in silence; no applause, no complaint had interrupted the orator. For a long time the Convention had been unaccustomed to see the masters of their fortunes and their lives making appeal to their supreme authority. Their rôle had long been limited to taking part in oratorical tournaments and voting decrees. They did not yield, however, to the seduction, and their faces remained grave and sombre. No one rose to speak, but they began to exchange a few remarks, and a murmur ran from bench to bench. The glove was thrown down, but as yet no champion advanced to take it up. At length, and as if the courage of all was reanimated at once by the same resolution, Vadier, Cambon, and Billaud-Varennes rose together to mount the tribune. Cambon had been wounded in his just pride as a financier and an honest man; he could scarcely wait his turn.
"It is time," cried he, "to speak the entire truth. Is it I who need to be accused of making myself master in any respect? The man who has made himself master of everything, the man who paralyzes our will, is he who has just spoken—Robespierre." At the same moment and from all lips came the same cries. "It is Robespierre," said Billaud-Varennes. "It is Robespierre," repeated Panis and Vadier. "Let him give an account of the crimes of the deputies whose death he demanded from the Jacobins." And as he hesitated, troubled by the vehemence of the attacks, "You who pretend to have the courage of virtue, have the courage of truth," cried Charlier to him; "name, name the individuals." In the midst of a growing confusion the Assembly revoked the order to print the discourse of Robespierre. It was to the two committees, filled with his enemies, that the denunciation of the dictator was referred.
Robespierre took refuge with the Jacobins; he was troubled by the opposition he had encountered, without being able to draw from it new forces for the struggle. He redelivered his discourse, this time welcomed with loud applause. "My friends," said he, "that which you have just heard is my dying testament. I have seen to-day that the league of the wicked is too strong for me to hope to escape it. I am ready to drink the hemlock."
"I will drink it with thee," cried David. The men of action were less resigned. Henriot spoke of marching on the Convention, but Robespierre still wished to speak; it was the course of May 31st that he wanted to follow. The hall was crowded; people entered without tickets.
"Name thy enemies," they shouted to Robespierre; "name them; we will deliver them to thee." Collot d'Herbois arrived, attempting a few protestations of devotion; he was hooted and constrained to retire. Hesitation and doubt still troubled every spirit and paralyzed every hand. Collot and Billaud-Varennes returned to the Committee of Public Safety. There they found Saint-Just, who had to read a report, but he had not brought it with him. The two new-comers apostrophized him with violence. "Thou art the accomplice of Robespierre; the project of your infamous triumvirate is to assassinate us all, but if we succumb you will not long enjoy the fruit of your crimes—the people will tear you in pieces; thy pockets are full of denunciations against us; produce thy lists." They advanced menacingly; Saint-Just shrank back, very pale. As he went out he promised to read his report next day. Neither of the two parties had as yet taken any effectual measure; they had contracted the habit of being very prodigal of words. Tallien had endeavored to gain over all that remained of the Left; three times he was repulsed by Boissy d'Anglas and his friends. As he returned once more to the charge, "Yes," they at length replied, with an ingenuousness almost cynical, "yes, if you are the strongest." Tallien was intrusted to direct the attack in the Convention.
Saint-Just had just entered; he had not appeared at the Committee of Public Safety. "You have blighted my heart," he wrote to his colleagues, "I am about to open it at the National Assembly." He presented himself, however, as reporter of the Committee. In seeing him pass, Tallien, occupied in assembling his forces, said loudly, "It is the moment; let us enter." Saint-Just commenced: "I am not of any faction; I fight against all. The course of events has brought it about that this tribune should be perhaps the Tarpeian rock to him who shall come to tell you that the members of the Government—" Tallien did not leave him time to finish; he demanded leave to speak upon a motion of order. "Nor I either; I am not of any faction; I only belong to myself and to liberty. It is I who will make you hear the truth: no good citizen can restrain his tears over the unfortunate condition of public affairs. Yesterday a member of the Government was here alone and denounced his colleagues: to-day another comes to do as much by him; these dissensions aggravate the evils of our country. I demand that the veil be torn away." Applause echoed from all parts of the hall.
Saint-Just wished to continue his speech. "Thou art not reporter," shouted the members. He remained motionless in the tribune, while Billaud-Varennes came and stood beside him. He cast his eyes over the hall. "I see here," said he, "one of the men who yesterday, at the Jacobins, promised the massacre of the National Convention; let him be arrested." The officers obeyed. "The Assembly is at the present time in danger of massacre on every hand," continued Billaud; "it will perish if it is feeble." The contagion of courage spread from man to man; all the deputies stood up waving their hats. "Be tranquil," they cried to the orator; "we will not give way." "You will tremble when you see in what hands you are," continued Billaud; "the armed force is confided to parricidal hands. The chief of the National Guard is an infamous conspirator, the accomplice of Hébert; Lavalette was a noble, driven out of the Army of the North and saved by Robespierre, whom he obeys. The Revolutionary Tribunal is in his hands; everywhere he has made his will supreme, and has sought to render himself absolute master; he has dismissed the best Revolutionary Committee of Paris, he has ceased to frequent the Committee of Public Safety since the day after the decree of the 22d Prairial, which has been so disastrous to patriots. He excites the Jacobins against the Assembly." A few feeble protestations were now heard. "There is some murmuring, I think," said the speaker, insolently.
He was about to continue the course of his accusations; but beside him in the tribune Robespierre had replaced Saint-Just. His natural pallor had become livid, rage sparkled in his glance. "I demand liberty to speak," he cried. A single shout echoed through the hall. "Down with the tyrant! Down with the tyrant!" "I demand liberty to speak," Robespierre violently repeated. Tallien dashed into the tribune. "I demand that the veil be torn away immediately," he cried; "the work is accomplished, the conspirators are unmasked. Yesterday, at the Jacobins, I saw the army of the new Cromwell formed, and I have come here armed with a poignard to pierce his heart if the Assembly has not the courage to decree his accusation. I demand the arrest of Henriot and his staff. There will be no May 31st, no proscription; national justice alone will strike the miscreants."
"I demand that Dumas be arrested," added Billaud-Varennes, "as well as Boulanger [formerly lieutenant of Ronsin in the Vendée]; he was the most ardent yesterday night at the Jacobins."
Meanwhile Robespierre was still in the tribune. Several times he strove to begin speaking, but the same cry drowned his voice, "Down with the tyrant!" The little group of those who were faithful to him, close pressed together, followed him with their eyes without speaking, without seconding his efforts; the mass of the Assembly, so docile a few days before, was agitated with a violence that became more and more hostile. Barère hesitated no longer. It is said that he had prepared two statements; one favorable to and the other hostile to Robespierre. He proposed to abolish the grade of commandant-general, and to call to the bar the mayor Fleuriot and the National agent Payan, to answer there for public tranquillity. The decree was voted; on all sides arose accusations against Robespierre, everyone hastening to denounce him. "I demand liberty to speak, to bring back this discussion to its true end and aim," said Tallien. Robespierre raised his head; "I shall know well how to bring it there," said he, in those imperious accents which formerly cowed the Assembly. Tallien continued without noticing the interruption. "The conspiracy is quite complete in the discourse read and reread yesterday. It is there that I find arms to strike down this man, whose virtue and patriotism have been so much vaunted; this man, who appeared three days only after August 10th; this man, who has abandoned his post at the Committee of Public Safety, in order to come and calumniate his colleagues. It is not necessary to discuss in any particular detail of the tyrant's career; his whole life condemns him."
Robespierre clutched at the tribune with both hands. He no longer sought aid from the "Mountain," henceforth roused against him; he turned his face toward the "Plain." "It is to you pure and virtuous men that I address myself; I don't talk with scoundrels." "Down with the tyrant!" responded the "Plain." Thuriot, who presided, rang his bell. "President of assassins," cried Robespierre, "yet once more I demand liberty to speak." His voice grew feebler. "The blood of Danton is choking him," cried Gamier de l'Aude. "Will this man long remain master of the Convention?" asked Charles Duval. "Let us make an end! A decree, a decree!" shouted Lasseau, at length. "A tyrant is hard to strike down," said Fréron, in a loud voice. Robespierre remained in the tribune, turning in his hands an open knife, alone, exposed to the vengeful anger of them all. "Send me to death!" he cried to his enemies. And the voices replied: "Thou hast merited it a thousand times. Down with the tyrant!"
The decree was voted in the midst of tumult. "I ask to share the lot of my brother," cried the younger Robespierre. "It is understood," said Lanchet, "that we have voted the arrest of the two Robespierres, of Couthon, and Saint-Just." "I ask to be comprised in the decree," protested Lebas, faithfully devoted to Saint-Just. "The triumvirate of Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just," said Fréron, "recalls the proscriptions of Sylla. Couthon is a tiger thirsting for the blood of the National representatives; he has dared to speak at the Jacobins of five or six heads of the Convention; our corpses were to be the steps for him to mount the throne!" The paralytic made a gesture of bitter disdain. "I mount the throne!" said he.
Thuriot proclaimed the decree; the acclamations that re-echoed were furious, intoxicated with the joy of triumph. "Long live liberty! Long live the Republic! Down with the tyrants; to the bar with the accused." The officers, still bewildered with such an abrupt and sudden change, had not dared to lay a hand upon the fallen dictator; rage broke forth in the ranks of the Assembly. Robespierre and his brother, Saint-Just, Lebas, descended slowly to the place lately reserved for their enemies. Couthon had just placed himself there. The decree of arrest dispersed them in different prisons; they had set out when the Assembly suspended its sitting for an instant. "Let us go out together," said Robespierre. The crowd, like the Assembly, gazed on them without acclamations and without manifesting any sympathy for them; their army was re-forming elsewhere.
The Commune of Paris and the club of the Jacobins had not laid down their arms. An officer was sent to the Hôtel de Ville to announce the decree, which dismissed Henriot and summoned the Mayor to appear at the bar. He naively demanded a receipt for his message. "On a day like this we don't give receipts," replied the Mayor. "Tell Robespierre to have no fear, for we are here."
The Commune, in fact, was active, while the Committees of the Convention, stupefied at their own victories, were letting precious time slip past. Already Henriot, half drunk, galloping along the streets, stirred up the people, crying out that their faithful representatives were being massacred, delivering over to insults Merlin de Thionville, and sending to death the convoy of victims for the day. These the inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Antoine set about delivering, from compassion and from a vague instinct that the arrest of Robespierre necessarily brought about a cessation of executions. The General Council had sent to the jailers of the prisons an order to refuse to aid in the incarceration of the accused. Robespierre and his friends were successively brought to the Mairie. They found themselves again free at the head of an insurrection precipitately got up, but directed by desperate men, who felt their lives in danger if power escaped from them. Henriot, arrested for a moment, and conducted to the Committee of General Security, had been delivered by Coffinhal at the head of a handful of men. He was again on horseback, and was menacing in the hall of their sittings the Assembly, which had again come together.
The tocsin rang forth a full peal; the gates of Paris were closed. The rising tumult of the insurrection reached the ears of the deputies; each minute some inauspicious news arrived. It was said that the gunners of the National Guard, seduced by Henriot, were coming to direct their artillery against the palace. Collot d'Herbois mounted slowly to the chair and seated himself there. "Representatives," said he, with a firm voice, "the moment has come for us to die at our posts; miscreants have invaded the National palace." All had taken their places; while the spectators fled from the galleries with uproar and confusion. "I propose," said Élie Lacoste with a loud voice, "that Henriot be outlawed." At the same moment the dismissed commandant ordered his men to fire.
Fearful and troubled, the gunners still hesitated. A group of representatives went forth from the hall and cried, "What are you doing, soldiers? That man is a rebel, who has just been outlawed." The gunners had already lowered their matches, while Henriot fled at full gallop. Barras had just been named commandant of the forces in his place; seven representatives accompanied him. "Outlaw all those who shall take arms against the Convention or who shall oppose its decrees," said Barère; "as well as those who are eluding a decree of accusation or arrest." The decree was voted; an officer of the Convention boldly accepted the duty of bearing it to the Commune. The National agent, Payan, seized it from him, and for bravado read it with a loud voice before the crowd that was thronging in the hall of the Hôtel de Ville. He added these words which were not in the decree, "and all those found at this moment in the galleries." The spectators disappeared as if struck with terror at the name of the law. Times were changed. The mobile waves of public opinion no longer upheld the tyrants overthrown by the accomplices who had now become their enemies.
It was, without saying it, and possibly without knowing it, the feeling of this public abandonment and reprobation which paralyzed the energy of the five accused. Robespierre had arrived pale and trembling in all his limbs; he had been tranquillized with difficulty. When Couthon, who alone was retained for a time in the prison of La Bourbe, was at last brought to the Hôtel de Ville, he found the Council solely occupied with the attack on the Convention, without making any efforts for rousing the populace or for the vigorous resumption of power. "Have the armies been written to?" he asked. "In the name of whom?" said Robespierre, disheartened but calm. "Of the Convention which exists wherever we are; the rest are but a handful of factious men, who are about to be dispersed by armed force." Robespierre reflected; he shook his head. "We must write in the name of the French people," said he. The words "Au nom du peuple" were found in his handwriting on a sheet of paper.
It was also in the name of the people that Barras and his companions reunited the battalions of the sections which slowly assembled; some had recalled their men from the Hôtel de Ville. The new military school, the École de Mars, had not appeared well disposed toward Lebas, who had written to the Commandant Labretèche to hinder his pupils from ranging themselves under the banners of the Convention; the young men marched willingly at the request of Barras. The gunners collected on the Place de Grève permitted Léonard Bourdon to approach. "Go!" said Tallien to him, "and let the sun when it rises find no more traitors living." The crowd dispersed on hearing the proclamation which outlawed the Commune of Paris. The gunners abandoned their pieces; a few hours later they came to seek them to protect the Convention. "Is it possible," cried Henriot, as he came forth from the Hôtel de Ville, "that these scoundrels of gunners have abandoned me? Presently they will be delivering me to the Tuileries!" He ran to announce the desertion to the assembled Council-General. Coffinhal, indignant at his cowardice, seized him by the shoulder and pushed him out by the window. The agents of the police arrested him in a sewer.
Meanwhile the section of the Gravilliers had put itself in marching order, commanded by Léonard Bourdon and by a gendarme named Méda, intelligent and devoted, and who had acquired an ascendency over those around him. He advanced toward the Hôtel de Ville without encountering any obstacle. Méda cried, in mounting the flight of steps, "Long live Robespierre!" He penetrated into the hall, obstructed by the crowd; the club of the Jacobins was deserted, Legendre had had the door closed; all the leaders of the Revolution were assembled round the proscribed representatives. They were discussing and vociferating, without ardor, however, and without any true hope. Robespierre was seated at a table, his head on his left hand, his elbow supported by his knee.
Méda advanced toward him, pistols in hand. "Surrender, traitor!" he cried. Robespierre raised his head. "It is thou who art a traitor," he said, "and I will have thee shot." At the same instant the gendarme fired, fracturing the lower jaw of Robespierre. As he fell, his brother opened the window, and, passing along the cornice, leaped out upon the Place. He was dying when they came to pick him up.
Saint-Just, leaning over toward Lebas, said, "Kill me." Lebas, looking him in the face, replied: "I have something better to do," pressing the trigger of his pistol. He was dead when a fresh report resounded from the staircase; Méda, who pursued Henriot, had just drawn on Couthon; his bearer fell grievously wounded. The prisoners, formerly all-powerful, now dying or condemned, were collected in the same room; thither Robespierre and Couthon had been brought; the corpse of Lebas lay on the floor; the crowd who besieged the gates wanted to throw the wounded into the river. Couthon had great difficulty in making it understood that he was not dead; Robespierre could not speak, and was carried on a chair to the door of the Convention. A feeling of horror manifested itself in the Assembly, "No, not here! not here!" was the cry. A surgeon came to attend to the wounded man in the hall of the Committee of Public Safety; he recovered from his swoon, and walked alone toward his chair; until then he had been extended upon a table, a little deal box supporting his wounded head. The blood flowed slowly from his mouth, and at times he made a movement to wipe it away; his clothes and his face were smeared with it. Robespierre appeared insensible to the injuries of those who surrounded him; he made no complaint, inaccessible and alone in death as in life. They carried him to the Conciergerie, where Saint-Just and Couthon had just arrived. All had been outlawed; no procedure, no delay, retarded their execution. Saint-Just, looking at a table of the Rights of Man hanging in the hall, said, "It is I, however, who have done that."
The Conciergerie slowly filled; with Dumas, Fleuriot, Payan, Lavalette, a large proportion of the members of the Council-General had been arrested. The prisoners already retained here were pressing to the bars of their windows, curious as to the noise that reached their ears, and the vague rumors which had already excited mortal fears among the informers. Before the room where were imprisoned Madame de Beauharnais and Madame de Fontenay (afterward Madame Tallien), a woman appeared, who, in a marked manner, held up a stone (pierre), enveloped it in her dress (robe), and then made a gesture of beheading. The prisoners comprehended, a thrill of joy pervaded their gloomy abode; all the oppressed believed themselves already delivered.
It was five o'clock, and the carts had just drawn up as usual at the gate of the prison, but this time they waited for the executioners. The procession defiled before a dense crowd; all the windows were full of spectators, all the shops were open, and joy sparkled in every countenance. Robespierre and his friends had wearied with executions the people of Paris; the sanguinary emotions to which they had been so long accustomed regained their first relish; it was Robespierre that they were about to see die. He was half stretched out in the cart, livid, and with a blood-stained cloth round his face. When the executioner snatched it from him on the scaffold, a terrible cry was heard, the first sign of suffering the condemned had given. To this shriek cries of joy responded from all around, which were repeated at each stroke from the fatal axe. In two days a hundred three executions violently sealed the vengeance of the Convocation. The justice of God and that of history bide their time.
Robespierre had successively vanquished all his enemies; clever and bold, protected and served by his reputation for virtue, seconded by the growing terror which his name inspired, he had usurped the entire power, and confiscated the Revolution for the profit of despotism. He succumbed under the blows of those who had constantly pushed him to the front; wearied or frightened by the tyranny whose vengeance they themselves dreaded. The hands which overthrew the terrible dictator were not pure hands, and revolutionary passions continued to animate many minds, but the public instincts did not err for an instant. The conquerors of the 9th Thermidor could in their turn seize upon power, and the greater number of them had had no other intention; but they might no longer spill blood at their pleasure without hindrance and without control. The culminating point of sufferings and crimes had been attained. Without wishing it and without knowing it, from envy or from fear, the "Thermidoriens," as they began to be called, in striking down the triumvirate had changed the course of the Revolution. The nation, always prompt to concentrate upon the name of one man its affections or its hatreds, panting and lacerated as it was, began to breathe; the prisoners ceased to expect death daily; their friends already hoped for their liberty; timid people ventured forth from their hiding-places; the bold loudly manifested their joy. People dared to wear mourning for those who had died on the scaffold; widows came forth from houses in which they had kept themselves shut up; absent ones reappeared in the bosom of their families. Robespierre was no more.
The Convention had revolted almost unanimously against the tyrant; scarcely was he struck down, when it found itself again a prey to divisions. Public demonstrations of joy and relief were manifested everywhere, and this disquieted some of the leaders of the conspiracy formerly directed against Robespierre; they had thought to overthrow him in order themselves to occupy his place, and already they perceived that two tendencies were manifesting themselves in the country. The one, feeble as yet in the Convention, and with no other point of support than the remnant of the Right, disposed to retrace the course of events, and even to visit upon their authors the iniquities committed; the other, disquieted and gloomy, determined to defend the Revolution at any hazard, even though it might be at the price of new sacrifices. The small party of the Thermidorians, Tallien at their head, began to form themselves between these two irreconcilable parties. The reaction as yet bore no definite name, it did not and could not exercise any power; desired or dreaded, it was at the bottom of every thought, it influenced all decisions, often rendering them apparently contrary. The terrible glory of Robespierre, and the crushing weight that rests upon his memory, are due to the sudden transformation effected by his death. In outward semblance, and for some time longer, the customary terms were employed, but the character of the situation was radically changed.