"All divisions are forgotten, all patriots are united. The National Assembly—that is our guide; the Constitution—that is our rallying cry."
It would be difficult to express the surprise, the disfavor, I had almost said the sorrow, which were produced in the audience by the reading of this opiate-laden manifesto, accepted by the majority of the members of the club.
But unexpectedly Camille Desmoulins appeared on the scene. He strode toward the tribunal and demanded of the president the floor for a communication he had to make to the Jacobins. Though still a young man, Desmoulins was an influential member of the Club of the Cordeliers. His physiognomy was expressive, ironical, and finely cut. He leaped to the platform, and in his incisive voice, while sober in gesture and bearing, he let loose his biting sarcasm:
"Citizens, while the National Assembly decrees—and decrees and decrees and never lets up decreeing—as much good as bad, and more bad than good—the people is acting admirably as police; and, showing itself no less a friend of provisional rule than the Assembly, it has decreed that all pillagers shall be provisionally—hanged to the lamp-post. Crossing Voltaire Quay just now, I saw Lafayette preparing to review the batallions of the blue-bonnets, drawn up on the quay. Convinced of the need of uniting on one leader, I yielded to an attraction which drew me over to the famous white horse. 'Monsieur Lafayette,' I called to him, 'I have indeed said some evil of you during the year, and thought no less. Now is the time to convict me of false testimony in safeguarding public affairs!' 'I have always known you for a good citizen,' gallantly replied the General, holding out his hand to me; 'the common danger has united all parties. There is no longer in the Assembly but one single spirit!'—'One single spirit! That is very few for so numerous and illustrious an assembly,' quoth I to the General. 'But why does this single soul of the Assembly affect to speak in its decrees of the carrying off of the King, when the Executive writes to the Assembly that no one is carrying him off at all, that he is going himself? I can pardon the lie of a servant who lies in the fear of losing his place if he tells the truth,' continued I, 'but the Assembly is not, to my knowledge, the servant of the Executive, whether present or in flight. The Assembly has three million pikes and bayonets at its service. Whence, then, comes the baseness, or the treason, which dictated to it such a vile falsehood!' 'The carrying off of the King! The Assembly will correct that mistake in wording,' the General answered me. And he added several times, 'The conduct of the King is indeed infamous.'"
Camille Desmoulins stopped. He had seen Robespierre enter the hall, and prepared to descend from the tribunal, saying with cordial deference:
"Here is my friend and master. I yield him the floor."
Had it not been for the certainty of hearing Robespierre, the audience would undoubtedly have insisted on the completion of the lively oration just begun. But Robespierre was one of the most esteemed orators of the Jacobin Club, a high appreciation which he merited by his great talent, his tireless energy, the loftiness of his character, his integrity, the austerity of his morals, and his devotion to the revolutionary cause. Unhappily, that medal had a reverse: Robespierre carried his mistrust of men to an extreme; he showed himself always cold, harsh, and suspicious, to the point of committing acts of injustice towards citizens as devoted as himself to the public cause, but who had the pretension to serve it by means different from his.
The deep silence in the hall was re-established. The scattering conversation ceased. Robespierre was on the platform. His features, ordinarily impassible as a mask of marble, were now marked with a bitter irony, and he uttered his words in a voice that was at once curt, sonorous and metallic:
"It is not to me, citizens, that the flight of the first functionary of the State comes as a disastrous event. This day could be the finest day of the Revolution. It can still become so! The recovery of the forty millions which the entertainment of this royal individual costs would be the least of its blessings. But for that, citizens, other measures must be taken than those adopted by the National Assembly. And I seized the moment when the session was suspended to come here to speak to you of these measures, which there they do not allow me to propose. In deserting now his post, the King has chosen the very moment when the priests are trying to raise up against the Constitution all the idiots and blind-men who have survived the light of philosophy in the whole eighty-three departments of France; the moment when the Emperor of Austria and the King of Sweden are at Brussells to receive this perjured and deserting King. That does not alarm me a bit. Oh, no! Let Europe league herself against us—the Revolution will conquer Europe!
"No, I fear not the coalition of Kings," continued Robespierre, in a tone of proud disdain. "But do you know, fellow citizens, what frightens me? It is to hear our enemies hold the same language as we, it is to hear them exclaim like us, that we must rally to the defense of the Constitution. Louis XVI does not count alone on the assistance of foreign forces to re-enter his kingdom in triumph; he counts as well on the support of a party within, which to-day wears the mask of patriotism; of that party the National Assembly is the accomplice."