"I am surprised," said Ramel, "that an old comrade, who should know me better, could consent to bring me an order which I cannot obey without dishonoring myself."
"Do as you please," replied Poinçot; "but I warn you that all resistance will be useless. Eight hundred of your grenadiers have already been covered by four cannon."
"I receive no orders save from the Corps Legislatif," exclaimed Ramel.
And hastening from his house he started on a run to the Tuileries. An alarm-gun sounded so near him that he thought it was a signal for attack. On his way he met two of his chiefs of battalion, Ponsard and Fléchard, both excellent officers in whom he had every confidence.
He hastened to the committee-room again, where he found Generals Pichegru and Villot. He at once sent notices to General Mathieu Dumas and the presidents of the two Councils, Laffon-Ladébat, president of the Council of the Ancients, and Siméon, president of the Five Hundred. He also went to warn the deputies whose lodgings were known to him to be near the Tuileries.
At that moment, they having forced the iron gates of the swing-bridge, the divisions of Augereau and Lemoine were enabled to unite. The soldiers of the two armies filled the garden; a battery was directed against the Hall of the Ancients, all the avenues were closed, and all the posts doubled and covered by superior forces.
We have told how the door opened, how a throng of soldiers entered the hall of the committee, with Augereau at its head, and how, when no one else had dared lay a hand on Pichegru, Augereau himself had committed that sacrilege, and had thrown down and bound the man who had been his general; and finally how, after Pichegru was mastered, the other deputies offered no farther resistance, and the order was given to take the prisoners to the Temple.
The three directors were waiting, together with the minister of police, who, once his placards were posted, had returned to them. The minister of police advised that the prisoners should be instantly shot in the courtyard of the Luxembourg under pretext that they had been taken with arms in their hands. Rewbell agreed with him; the gentle La Reveillière-Lepaux, the man of peace, who had always advised merciful measures, was ready to give the fatal order, saying, like Cicero of Lentullus and Cethegus: "They have lived!"
Barras alone, it is but justice to say, opposed this measure with all his might, saying that, unless they put him in prison during the execution, he should throw himself between the bullets and the prisoners. Finally a deputy named Guillemardet, who had made himself a friend of the directors by joining their faction, proposed that the prisoners be banished to Cayenne "to be done with it." This amendment was put to the vote and enthusiastically carried.