When empty, with its amphitheatre, its presidential stand, its tribune, the room had the aspect of an ordinary debating hall. When full, it was a tribunal of inquisition, the headquarters of terror and of fear.
Robespierre had become the ruling spirit of the Club. He was their lord-paramount, whose word was absolute, and he was greeted on his appearance by a thunder of applause. The hall was filled with an enthusiastic crowd, exasperated at the partial defeat of their idol at the Tuileries. Robespierre, deeply touched, returned their salutations gratefully, and re-read his speech prepared for the Convention, interrupted at every point by loud approval. In order to stir their minds to the necessary pitch of excitement, he spoke of this as his last testament, and so induced another outburst of extravagant sympathy.
"I will die with you, Robespierre!" called out one deputy.
"Your enemies are the enemies of the whole nation!" cried another. "Say the word, and they shall no longer exist!"
Robespierre looked at them with eyes full of gratitude. He was hoping that some one would commence an attack, that he might retaliate there and then, and so accentuate his triumph. He had perceived among the crowd his adversaries, Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois. They tried to speak, and were hissed; they persisted, and were greeted with cries of "To death with them!" Daggers even were drawn, and they had scarcely time to escape.
The name of Robespierre was in every mouth in that vast hall, acclaimed with cries of wild approval that re-echoed to the very Tuileries.
The Duplay family, as may be imagined, beside themselves with joy, waited for Robespierre outside, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was in vain they inquired of every likely passer-by. He had completely disappeared.
Leaving the Assembly-room among the first he had slipped out under cover of night, taking a short cut to the Tuileries, whose dark mass aided his further flight. For he was flying from his glorification, escaping from his rabid admirers, who would have borne him in triumph through the streets of sleeping Paris, making them ring with thunderous shouts of triumph. Creeping along the side of the walls, his face muffled in his collar, he hastened his steps to the Conciergerie, and as he walked his thoughts reverted to the subject of his reception. The Jacobins' enthusiasm must have resounded to the chamber of the Committee of Public Safety, and fallen like a thunderbolt among the traitors in the very midst of their dark plots! The effect must have been terrible! He already pictured the Convention appealing to him with servile supplication, delivering the Committee into his hands, and asking the names of his enemies, that they might pass sentence on them all. He smiled triumphantly as he crossed the Pont-Neuf, without casting a glance at the splendid spectacle which lay at his feet on either side of the bridge; for it was July, and all the glory of a summer sky studded with stars was mirrored in the stream.
He walked on quickly, wrapt in his own thoughts. Ah! not only did they wish to ruin him, but they would have sent Olivier to his death! He had forestalled them, however. The very next day they should take his son's vacant place in that same Conciergerie, the antechamber of the guillotine!
Robespierre had reached the quay, and was now at the foot of the Silver Tower, whose pointed spire stood out in the moonlight like a gigantic finger raised to heaven. It was in that tower that Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal—death's henchman—lived. Robespierre scanned the windows. All lights were out. Fouquier slept, then? What brute insensibility! But he would sleep also, he told himself. Ah, yes! the terrors of the scaffold would soon be over! No more butchery, no more guillotine! He had promised it to the mother of his son, and he would keep his word ... he would, within three days.