All these imprudences gave the Convention time to proclaim that Robespierre, the municipality, and their adherents, were decreed out of the protection of the laws, and in circumstances of this nature such a step has usually been decisive—for however odious a government, if it does but seem to act on a presumption of its own strength, it has always an advantage over its enemies; and the timid, the doubtful, or indifferent, for the most part, determine in favour of whatever wears the appearance of established authority. The people, indeed, remained perfectly neuter; but the Jacobins, the Committees of the Sections, and their dependents, might have composed a force more than sufficient to oppose the few guards which surrounded the National Palace, had not the publication of this summary outlawry at once paralyzed all their hopes and efforts.—They had seen multitudes hurried to the Guillotine, because they were "hors de la loi;" and this impression now operated so forcibly, that the cannoneers, the national guard, and those who before were most devoted to the cause, laid down their arms, and precipitately abandoned their chiefs to the fate which awaited them. Robespierre was taken at the Hotel de Ville, after being severely wounded in the face; his brother broke his thigh, in attempting to escape from a window; Henriot was dragged from concealment, deprived of an eye; and Couthon, whom nature had before rendered a cripple, now exhibited a most hideous spectacle, from an ineffectual effort to shoot himself.—Their wounds were dressed to prolong their suffering, and their sentence being contained in the decree that outlawed them, their persons were identified by the same tribunal which had been the instrument of their crimes. —On the night of the tenth they were conveyed to the scaffold, amidst the insults and execrations of a mob, which a few hours before beheld them with trembling and adoration.—Lebas, also a member of the convention, and a principal agent of Robespierre, fell by his own hand; and Couthon, St. Just, and seventeen others, suffered with the two Robespierres.—The municipality of Paris, &c. to the number of seventy-two, were guillotined the succeeding day, and about twelve more the day after.
The fate of these men may be ranked as one of the most dreadful of those examples which history vainly transmits to discourage the pursuits of ambition. The tyrant who perishes amidst the imposing fallaciousness of military glory, mingles admiration with abhorrence, and rescues his memory from contempt, if not from hatred. Even he who expiates his crimes on the scaffold, if he die with fortitude, becomes the object of involuntary compassion, and the award of justice is not often rendered more terrible by popular outrage. But the fall of Robespierre and his accomplices was accompanied by every circumstance that could add poignancy to suffering, or dread to death. The ambitious spirit which had impelled them to tyrannize over a submissive and defenceless people, abandoned them in their last moments. Depressed by anguish, exhausted by fatigue, and without courage, religion, or virtue, to support them, they were dragged through the savage multitude, wounded and helpless, to receive that stroke, from which even the pious and the brave sometimes shrink with dismay.
Robespierre possessed neither the talents nor merits of Nicolas Riezi; but they are both conspicuous instances of the mutability of popular support, and there is a striking similitude in the last events of their history. They both degraded their ambition by cowardice—they were both deserted by the populace, whom they began by flattering, and ended by oppressing; and the death of both was painful and ignominious—borne without dignity, and embittered by reproach and insult.*
* Robespierre lay for some hours in one of the committee-rooms, writhing with the pain of his wound, and abandoned to despair; while many of his colleagues, perhaps those who had been the particular agents and applauders of his crimes, passed and repassed him, glorying and jesting at his sufferings. The reader may compare the death of Robespierre with that of Rienzi; but if the people of Rome revenged the tyranny of the Tribune, they were neither so mean nor so ferocious as the Parisians.
* Robespierre lay for some hours in one of the committee-rooms, writhing with the pain of his wound, and abandoned to despair; while many of his colleagues, perhaps those who had been the particular agents and applauders of his crimes, passed and repassed him, glorying and jesting at his sufferings. The reader may compare the death of Robespierre with that of Rienzi; but if the people of Rome revenged the tyranny of the Tribune, they were neither so mean nor so ferocious as the Parisians.
* Robespierre lay for some hours in one of the committee-rooms, writhing with the pain of his wound, and abandoned to despair; while many of his colleagues, perhaps those who had been the particular agents and applauders of his crimes, passed and repassed him, glorying and jesting at his sufferings. The reader may compare the death of Robespierre with that of Rienzi; but if the people of Rome revenged the tyranny of the Tribune, they were neither so mean nor so ferocious as the Parisians.
* Robespierre lay for some hours in one of the committee-rooms, writhing with the pain of his wound, and abandoned to despair; while many of his colleagues, perhaps those who had been the particular agents and applauders of his crimes, passed and repassed him, glorying and jesting at his sufferings. The reader may compare the death of Robespierre with that of Rienzi; but if the people of Rome revenged the tyranny of the Tribune, they were neither so mean nor so ferocious as the Parisians.
* Robespierre lay for some hours in one of the committee-rooms, writhing with the pain of his wound, and abandoned to despair; while many of his colleagues, perhaps those who had been the particular agents and applauders of his crimes, passed and repassed him, glorying and jesting at his sufferings. The reader may compare the death of Robespierre with that of Rienzi; but if the people of Rome revenged the tyranny of the Tribune, they were neither so mean nor so ferocious as the Parisians.
You will perceive by this summary that the overthrow of Robespierre was chiefly occasioned by the rivalship of his colleagues in the Committee, assisted by the fears of the Convention at large for themselves.—Another circumstance, at which I have already hinted, as having some share in this event, shall be the subject of my next letter.