At the beginning of the revolution Robespierre was recognized as one of the most moderate and humane of men. In the National Assembly he advocated the abolition of the death penalty. Describing his advent to leadership, Paine's biographer says: "Mirabeau was on his deathbed, and Paine witnessed that historic procession, four miles long, which bore the orator to his shrine.... With others he strained his eyes to see the coming man; with others he sees formidable Danton glaring at Lafayette; and presently sees advancing softly between them the sentimental, philanthropic—Robespierre."
M. Danton: "What thou hast done for the happiness and liberty of thy country I have in vain attempted to do for mine. They are sending us to the scaffold."
"It was a strange scene; these two constitution makers, Paine and Danton, and for the last time in the prison of the Luxembourg, both equally destined for the scaffold."—Hon. E. B. Washburne.
Danton was taken to the guillotine; Paine, by mistake, was left.
The manner of Paine's escape, as related by Carlyle, was as follows: "The tumbrils move on. But in this set of tumbrils there are two other things notable: one notable person; and one want of a notable person. The notable person is Lieu-tenant-General Loiserelles, a nobleman by birth and by nature; laying down his life for his son. In the prison of Saint-Lazare, the night before last, hurrying to the grate to hear the death-list read, he caught the name of his son. The son was asleep at the moment. 'I am Loiserelles,' cried the old man.... The want of the notable person, again, is that of Deputy Paine! Paine has set in the Luxembourg since January; and seemed forgotten; but Fouquier had pricked him at last. The turnkey, list in hand, is marking with chalk the outer doors of to-morrow's fournee. Paine's outer door happened to be open, turned back on the wall; the turnkey marked it on the side next him, and hurried on; another turnkey came and shut it; no chalkmark now visible, the fournee went without Paine. Paine's life lay not there."
In a letter to Washington, Paine thus narrates the inhuman slaughter of his fellow-prisoners, from whose fate he so narrowly escaped: "The state of things in the prisons [for over four months] was a continued scene of horror. No man could count upon life for twenty-four hours. To such a pitch of rage and suspicion were Robespierre and his committee arrived, that it seemed as if they feared to leave a man to live. Scarcely a night passed in which ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more were not taken out of the prison, carried before a pretended tribunal in the morning, and guillotined before night. One hundred and sixty-nine were taken out of the Luxembourg one night in July, and one hundred and sixty of them guillotined, of whom I know I was to have been one. A list of two hundred more, according to the report in the prison, was preparing a few days before Robespierre fell. In this last list I have good reason to believe I was included."
Concerning this reign of terror Guizot says: "Two thousand four hundred prisoners were registered in Paris on the books of the prison, at the moment of the deaths of the Girondins; three [four] months later, on the 1st of March, 1794, the number reached six thousand; on the 2d of May, eight thousand unfortunate persons waited for death. From June 10th to July 27th, two thousand, two hundred and eighty-five perished on the scaffold." (History of France, Vol. VI, pp. 178, 196.) Menzies says: "The queen, Marie Antoinette, her sister, Madame Elizabeth, Bailly, the Girondin chiefs, the Duke of Orleans, General Custine, Madame Roland, Lavoisier, Malesherbes, and a thousand other illustrious heads fell by the guillotine."
"The light of burning rafters flashed luridly over scenes of blood; soon all that is grotesque, or terrible, or loathsome in murder, was enacted in the streets of Paris. The lantern posts bore their ghastly fruit; the streets flowed with crimson rivers, the life-blood of ten thousand hearts, down even to the waters of the Seine. Lafayette and Paine and all the heroes were gone from the councils of France, but in their place, aye, in the place of poetry, enthusiasm and eloquence, spoke a mighty orator—King Guillotine."—George Lippard.
With Danton died another of Paine's cherished friends—Hérault de Sechelles. Hérault, president of the National Assembly, and, for a time, president of the National Convention, was the first to welcome Paine to Paris when he came to take his seat in the convention. He was physically and intellectually one of France's most magnificent men. He was a ripe scholar and a superb orator. He possessed great wealth and a most fascinating address. He and Paine and Danton had from the first been members of the Convention; they had served together on the Committee of the Constitution, Hérault as Paine's suppliant, and they had occupied the same prison, the prison set apart for the most illustrious victims of the Revolution. I quote from Washburne. I desire to present one of the ten thousand tragic and pathetic scenes which compose this mighty and immortal drama. "Tragedy walks hand in hand with History and the eyes of Glory are wet with tears:"
"More victims were now demanded, and, at this time, the oldest children of the Revolution were claimed. They were the 'Dantonists,' among whom was included Hérault.... Hérault was unmarried. When imprisoned at the Luxembourg awaiting his trial he appeared sad and preoccupied. On arriving at the guillotine, on the Place de la Revolution on the day of his execution, all his looks were turned toward the hotel of the Garde-Meuble, hoping evidently to exchange glances with one with whom were all his thoughts at that supreme moment. Behind the shutters, half closed, was a beautiful woman who sent to the condemned a last adieu and waved a last sigh of tenderness to the dying man: Je t'aime (I love thee). It was a beautiful day of the springtime, and the crowd that had assembled to witness the execution of Danton, the great Apostle of the Revolution, and his associates was enormous. The splendid figure of Hérault de Sechelles seemed to take new life, and the serenity of courage replaced the inquietude and sadness which had settled upon him. The first one to mount the scaffold, he showed himself calm, resolute and unmoved. As he was about to lay his head under the knife, he wished to present his cheek to the cheek of Danton [their hands were bound], as a last farewell. The aids of Samson, the executioner, prevented it. 'Imbeciles!' indignantly exclaimed Danton, 'it will be but a moment before our heads will meet in the basket in spite of you.'"