Robespierre

by Ange Galdemar; Victorien Sardou

Monsieur de Pontivy's refusal, far from humiliating him, gave a spur to his ambition. All his latent self-esteem and pride rose suddenly in one violent outburst. Full of bitterness and wounded vanity he finished his law studies in a sort of rage, and set out for Arras, his native place, which he had left as a child, returning to it a full-fledged lawyer. No sooner was he called to the Bar than he came into public notice, choosing the cases most likely to bring him renown.

But these local triumphs, however flattering, only half-satisfied his ambition. He cared little or nothing for provincial fame. He would be also foremost in the ranks of those who followed with anxious interest the great Revolutionary movement now astir everywhere, in the highways and byways of France, with its train of new ideas and aspirations. Robespierre took part in this cautiously and adroitly, reserving ample margin for retreat in case of future surprises, but already foreseeing the brilliant career that politics would thenceforth offer to ambition.

At the Convocation of the States-General, the young lawyer was sent to Versailles to represent his native town. Success was, at length, within his grasp. He was nearing the Court, and about to plunge into the whirl of public affairs, in which he thought to find an avenue to his ambition.

And yet he did not succeed all at once. Disconcerted, he lost command of himself, became impatient and excited by extreme nervousness. He had developed such tendencies even at Arras, and time seemed only to increase them. In the chamber of the States-General, still ringing with the thunderous eloquence of Mirabeau, the scene of giant contests of men of towering mental stature, Robespierre vainly essayed to speak. He was received with mockery and smiles of ridicule. He appeared puny and grotesque to these colossal champions of Liberty, with his falsetto voice, his petty gestures, his nervous twitches and grimaces, more like a monkey who had lost a nut than a man.

But Robespierre's colleagues would have ceased their raillery perhaps had they gone deeper into the motives and character of the man, and sounded the subtle intricacies of his soul. They would have found in those depths a resolute desire to accomplish his aim, an insatiable pride joined to the confidence of an apostle determined to uphold his own doctrines, and to promote theories of absolute equality, and of a return to the ideal state of nature. They would have perhaps discovered that this ambitious fanatic was capable of anything, even of atrocious crime, to realise his dreams.

The impetuous tribune Mirabeau had said at Versailles: "That man will go far, for he believes in what he says." Mirabeau ought to have said, "He believes in himself, and, as the effect of his mad vanity, he looks upon everything he says as gospel truth." And in this lay his very strength. This was the source of his success, founded on that cult of self, and a confidence in his own powers carried to the point of believing himself infallible. Through all the jolts and jars of party strife, the thunder and lightning contests, the eager enthusiasm or gloomy despondency, the grand and tumultuous outpourings of the revolutionary volcano through all this hideous but sublime conflict, and amid dissensions of parties swarming from the four corners of France, tearing each other to pieces like wild beasts, Robespierre cunningly pursued a stealthy course, sinuously ingratiating himself now with the more advanced, now with the more moderate, always faithful to his original plan and policy.

Words! Rhetoric! these were his arms. Speech was not incriminating, but actions were. Words were forgotten, actions lived as facts, and Robespierre kept as clear of these as possible. During the most startling manifestations of that horrible revolutionary struggle, he was never seen, though the work of his hand could be traced everywhere, for far from retiring he carried fuel to the flames, knowing well that every one would be swallowed up in the fratricidal strife. When the danger was over and victory assured, he would re-appear fierce and agitated, thus creating the illusion that he had taken part in the last battle, and suffered personally in the contest.

Where was he at the insurrection of Paris, the 10th of August, 1792, when the populace invaded the Tuileries, and hastened the fall and imprisonment of the King, whom they sent to the scaffold some months later? Where was he a few days later, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th of September, when armed bands wandered through Paris, forcing the prison doors, and butchering the hostages? Where was he during the riots of February, 1793, when the famished populace prowled about Paris asking for bread? Where was he the evening of the 1st of May, when eighteen thousand Parisians assailed the National Convention to turn out the traitor deputies? Where was he two days after, on the 2nd of June, when the insurrection recommenced?

Hidden, immured, barricaded, walking to and fro like an encaged tiger-cat, excited and agitated, shaken with doubts, cold beads of perspiration standing on his forehead, breathless to hear any news which his agents and detectives might bring him, and only breathing freely again when the result was known.

For this man was a coward. And was this known? No! Not then! All that was known was what he wished to make public; that he was poor, that he was worthy in every respect of the title of "Incorruptible" given to him by a revolutionist in a moment of enthusiasm. And, in truth, he was free from any venal stain, and knew that in this lay the greater part of his strength.