Historic Bubbles

by Frederic Leake

To be imprisoned was to be condemned to die. No trial, no examination; but every evening the Committee of Public Safety went over the list, and marked off chiefly at random, as many as could be guillotined on the morrow; and this fatal roll was read aloud each morning, in the different prisons.

One day the name of Thoiras was called. He bade farewell to Hoche, and drew from his pocket a watch which he begged him to keep for his sake. That watch is still in the family of Hoche. That is to say, the last I know of it, it belonged to the Marchioness of Roye, Hoche’s daughter; but that lady was born about a century ago.

Among other interesting prisoners whose acquaintance Hoche made in the Concièrgerie, were two young and charming widows whose fate proved different from what was then threatened. One of them, instead of having her head cut off by the guillotine, was to have it encircled by a diadem. It was Josephine de Beauharnais. The other was already a passive agent in a plot for the overthrow of the Terror. We shall say more about her presently.

As fast as prisoners were led out to execution others were brought in to take their places; and who might be the new comers was a daily subject of mournful curiosity to those already incarcerated. One day there were ushered into the Concièrgerie three men who caused great amazement. Two were recognized as Saint Just and Couthon. The third had his face bound up with a bloody napkin, but it was soon whispered about that it was none other than the terrible Robespierre himself.

The tale has been told a thousand times: perhaps you will listen to it the thousand and first time. One of the youngest and ablest members of the Convention was Jean Lambert Tallien. He was not a good man: his hand was as blood-stained as the rest. He had clamored for the death of the king, and for the death of his co-republicans the Girondists. He had seconded Danton in the massacres of September. He had recently been sent to Bordeaux to see that the Terror was duly administered there, and that an adequate number of heads fell daily in the market-place, and he had fulfilled his mission with diabolical fidelity.

There lived in Bordeaux at that time one Madame de Fontenay whose beauty Balzac says was one of Nature’s masterpieces. This was the second of the two young widows whom Hoche had met in prison. I have called her a widow but she was not quite that: she was a divorced woman. Her husband who was a nobleman and a royalist had emigrated, that is, had fled from the guillotine and from such fellows as Tallien. The republic had decreed that a wife who was patriotic enough to stay behind under such circumstances, should be entitled to a divorce; and Madame de Fontenay who loved her country better than she loved her husband, had availed herself of this law, and was now free. But her name was aristocratic and her friends respectable, and in the daily increasing barbarity of the Terror she was in great danger. As fearless and capable as she was beautiful she resolved to meet the peril half way. She paid a visit to Tallien and pleaded her cause so eloquently that he assured her of his protection. He went back to Paris, but he could not get out of his head the vision of that appealing, resistless woman. He wrote to her and she wrote back. He urged her to come to Paris so that he might befriend her more effectually, and she came.

This virtuous passion seemed to work a change in that bad man. He determined to shed no more blood; he began to hang back in the hellish path of the Convention. Robespierre looked askance at him and soon became an unfriend. Thinking to provoke Tallien to some rash act that would afford a pretext for sending him to the guillotine, Robespierre seized Madame de Fontenay and threw her in prison. Well, it did provoke Tallien to a rash act, but it was not he who went to the guillotine. He became the chief of a conspiracy for the destruction of the triumvirate. He was urged forward by two of the strongest of motives: to save his own life and to save the life of the woman he loved. The plot spread, for every member of the Convention who differed in opinion even unwittingly from Robespierre, was in danger of the scaffold.

On the evening of the 8th. Thermidor a month that embraced a part of July and August, the conspirators held council. It was resolved that in the session of the morrow Tallien should lead the attack on Robespierre; and the rest swore by all they held sacred which was not much, to back him to the death.

The ninth Thermidor—day big with fate—epoch in the history of the revolution—dawned. The Convention assembled. Tallien gained the tribune. He was an impressive speaker, and when he had fixed the attention of the assembly he proceeded first to comment on the acts of the triumvirate, then to criticise, then to call in question, then to condemn, then to denounce. It was now his life or theirs and he hurled defiance at them.

When he had done, Robespierre rose. He was evidently taken aback by this unexpected arraignment. He made a feeble reply in which he dilated on his own devotion to the public cause and on the heinousness of the traitors who were turning against him. He then looked around for the usual response: Vive la République! Vive Robespierre! Not a word. There was dead silence. Presently a voice was heard: A bas les tyrans, down with the tyrants! The cry was echoed and reëchoed. Tallien saw the hour was come. He ordered the guards to arrest Robespierre, Saint Just and Couthon. The soldiers seeing the triumvirs still calmly seated could not believe that three men just now all powerful could be condemned, and they hesitated. The order was repeated not only by Tallien but by an outcry of his backers who were now a multitude; and the guards led them forth. They took them first to the palace of the Luxembourg where Robespierre seeing that all was lost, drew a pistol and attempted to kill himself, but he took aim so badly that the ball merely broke his jaw and went out at the opposite cheek. Hence the bloody napkin.