Herault de Sechelles was the first to alight from the cart. He turned to embrace Danton, when the executioner pulled him away.
“Brute!” said Danton; “but you cannot prevent our lips touching in the basket.”
Camille Desmoulins was the last but one of the four. He was quite resigned. He looked at the knife, then turning to the people, he said, “Look on at the end of the first apostle of liberty! He who murders me will not survive me long!”
“Send this lock of hair to my mother,” he said to the executioner.
They were his last words.
Danton ascended last. He never looked more haughty and defiant. For one moment he broke down. “Wife!” he screamed.
Then he added, “Come, come, Danton; no weakness. Executioner, show my head to the people; it is worth looking at!”
The executioner caught the head as it was falling, and carried it round the scaffold.
The mob applauded. Such is the end of favorites.
Eight thousand people were awaiting death in the prisons of Paris alone, within a month of Danton’s death.