First was carried Robespierre, on a litter, his face tied up in a handkerchief; then came his brother, insensible, in the arms of two men; then followed the dead body of Lebas, over which they had thrown a table-cover.
Couthon, who had rolled in the mud, followed; and the procession was closed by St. Just, walking bare-headed.
“The recreant Robespierre is here!” said the President of the Convention, a man just chosen. “Shall he be brought in?”
“No, no!” cried the Conventionists. “The corpse of a tyrant can carry nothing but contagion along with it. To the scaffold!”
Robespierre was put aside in a room, and hundreds of people pushed in to assure themselves the tyrant was dead.
He heard and saw all; but could not speak.
At three, he and his friends were tried. At six, they were being conveyed in carts to execution.
There was no lack of people to see Robespierre die; women dressed as for a ball, believing that with Robespierre the Reign of Terror was at an end.
Children huddled around the carts—orphans of his victims—crying, “Kill him! kill him!”
His procession to the scaffold was a line of loud-spoken imprecations.