"My friends," said he, sorrowing more over the misfortunes of the Republic than over his own, "we have killed the tree by pruning it. It was too aged. The soil is too weak to nourish the roots of civic, liberty. This people is too childish to wield its laws without hurting itself. It will return to its kings as babes return to their toys. We were deceived as to the age in which we were born and in which we die for the freedom of the world."
"What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?" asked Ducos. Each answered according to his skepticism or his faith. Vergniaud again spake. "Never," says the Abbé Lambert, "had his look, his gesture, his language, and his voice more profoundly affected his hearers." His discourse was of the immortality of the soul, to which all listened deeply moved, and many wept.
THE GIRONDISTS ON THEIR WAY TO EXECUTION.
A few rays of morning light now began to struggle in at their dungeon windows. The executioners soon entered to cut off their hair and robe them for the scaffold. At ten o'clock they were marched in a column to the gate of the prison, where carts, surrounded by an immense crowd, awaited them. As they entered the carts they all commenced singing in chorus the Marseilles Hymn, and continued the impassioned strains until they reached the scaffold. One after another they ascended the scaffold. Sillery was the first who ascended. He was bound to the plank, but continued in a full, strong voice to join in the song, till the glittering axe glided down the groove and his head dropped into the basket. Each one followed his example. The song grew fainter as head after head fell, till at last one voice only remained. It was that of Vergniaud. As he was bound to the plank he commenced anew the strain,
"Allons, enfans de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé."
The axe fell, and the lips of Vergniaud were silent in death. In thirty-one minutes the executioner had beheaded them all. Their bodies were thrown into one cart, and were cast into a grave by the side of that of Louis XVI.[407]
On the 6th of November the Duke of Orleans was taken from prison and led before the Tribunal. As there was no serious charge to be brought against him, he had not apprehended condemnation. But he was promptly doomed to die. As he was conducted back to his cell to prepare for immediate death, he exclaimed, in the utmost excitement of indignation,
"The wretches! I have given them all—rank, fortune, ambition, honor, the future reputation of my house—and this is the recompense they reserve for me!"