“Ce décret est adopté à l’unanimité et au milieu des plus vifs applaudissements.”—Moniteur, April 2, 1794 (13th Germinal, year II.).
[147] Couthon was a cripple. Once (later) in the Convention it was called out to him “Triumvir,” and he glanced at his legs and said, “How could I be a triumvir?” The logical connection between good legs and triumvirates was more apparent to himself than to those whom he caused to be guillotined.
[148] We have the fragments of this “No. VII.,” which was not published. See M. Clarétie’s C. Desmoulins, p. 274 of Mrs. Cashel Hoey’s translation.
[149] Danton would have been thirty-five in October. Desmoulins had been thirty-four in March—not thirty-three, as he said at the trial. I give this on the authority of M. Clarétie, who in his book quotes the birth-certificate, which he himself had seen (March 2, 1760).
[150] March 10, 1793. Exception has been taken to the whole sentiment by Dr. Robinet, but great, or rather unique, as is his authority, I cannot believe that an appeal—especially an exclamatory appeal of this nature—was foreign to his impetuous and merciful temper.
[151] Wallon, Tribunal Révolutionnaire, vol. iii. p. 156.
[152] It is known that Fleuriot and Fouquier were alone when the jury were “chosen by lot.” This appeared at the trial of Fouquier. For the notes of Lebrun, see [Appendix X.]
[153] Wallon, Tribunal Révolutionnaire, vol. iii. p. 155.
[154] See [Appendix X.] The speeches which I have written here are reconstructed from these notes, and I must beg the reader to check the consecutive sentences of the text by reference to the disjointed notes printed in the Appendix.