This new affirmation, so clear, so precise, of the culpable conduct of the Assembly excited afresh the murmurs of the Jacobins and the applause of the people. Every ear was strained to catch, with anxious impatience, the measures which Robespierre was about to announce as necessary to make this the most splendid day of the Revolution.
"What I have just said to you is the exact truth," proceeded Robespierre solemnly. "But could I make the National Assembly listen to the truth? No! I was not heard. Ah, I know, this denunciation is dangerous for me. What does that matter—it is useful for the public good. This denunciation will sharpen for me a thousand poniards! I shall become an object of hatred to my colleagues of the Assembly, who are nearly all counter-revolutionists—some through ignorance, others through fear, some through private reasons, others through blind confidence, others through corruption. I devote myself to hate—to death. I know it!" added Robespierre, with stoical tranquility.
"Ah! when, still unknown, I sat in the Assembly, I had already made the sacrifice of my life to truth, to the country. But to-day, when I owe so much to the recognition, to the love of my friends, I accept death as a blessing. It will prevent me from witnessing inevitable evils."
Then, overcoming his passing emotion and returning to his natural inflexibility of bearing, he added in a voice short and firm:
"I have just held trial over the Assembly; now let it hold trial over me!"
The conclusion of this discourse produced an extraordinary effect upon the audience, and when Robespierre left the platform, the Jacobins rose with one spontaneous motion. Camille Desmoulins ran to the orator, and, his face moist with tears, said to Robespierre as he clasped him in a fraternal embrace:
"We shall die with you!"
One of the striking characteristics of Robespierre's policy was never to venture a motion when its success was problematical. Hence the apparent contradiction between the beginning and the end of the address he had just delivered. He had evidently intended to advise prompt and decisive measures against the royal power and against the Assembly; but, feeling the ground, and becoming assured that the measures he had to propose would meet with opposition among the Jacobins, Robespierre considered it wiser, more politic, to temporize, and to confine himself to casting suspicion upon the National Assembly.
Almost as soon as Robespierre left the tribunal, there were seen to enter the hall first Danton, a man of energy and action, and then Lafayette.
The presence of these two men, personifying respectively action and reaction, revolution and counter-revolution, drew forth from the meeting an obstreperous manifestation, part acclamation, part hisses. The exteriors of these two men offered a contrast in keeping with that of their opinions.