Sneers and hisses reach Robespierre, repeated up to the very steps of the tribune, below which he stands.
"This honourable citizen, who poses before the Committee of Public Safety as champion of the oppressed, goes home, and in the secrecy of his own house draws up the death-lists which have stained the altar of new-born Liberty with so much blood!"
Renewed cheers and cries of "Hear! hear!" rise from nearly every seat in the hall.
"But his dark designs are unveiled!" continues Tallien. "We shall crush the tyrant before he has succeeded in swelling the river of blood with which France is already inundated. His long and successful career of crime has made him forget his habitual prudence. He has betrayed himself at the very moment of triumph, when nothing is wanting to him but the name of king! ... I also was at the Jacobins' yesterday, and I trembled for the Republic when I saw the vast army that flocked to the standard of this new Cromwell. I invoked the shade of Brutus, and if the Convention will not have recourse to the sword of justice to crush this tyrant, I am armed with a dagger that shall pierce his heart!"
Tallien makes a movement as if to rush on Robespierre dagger in hand; but he is arrested by a burst of unanimous applause. A hundred deputies have risen and are calling out: "Bravo, Tallien! Bravo!"
The orator, in an attitude of defiance, gazes steadily at Robespierre, who, grasping convulsively at the railings of the tribune, screams himself hoarse, challenging Tallien and the deputies around, while they answer him with abuse, shaking their fists in his face. It is a veritable Babel of cries, appeals, and insults. The President, now upstanding, vainly tries to restore order with his bell.
At last there is a lull, of which Robespierre attempts to take advantage.
"Vile wretches!" he cries, "would you condemn me unheard?"
But he is answered by a telling home-thrust—
"It is your own Prairial law we are putting into force!"