One of the last evenings in the month of January, Danton, Souberbielle, one of the members of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and Camille Desmoulins came from the Palace of Justice together. It was a cold gloomy winter's night. It had been a day of blood. Fifteen heads had fallen upon the guillotine and twenty-seven were condemned to die on the morrow. These three men were all appalled by the progress of events, and for some time walked along in silence. On reaching Pont Neuf, Danton turned suddenly round to Souberbielle and said,
"Do you know that, at the pace we are now going, there will speedily be no safety for any person? The best patriots are confounded with traitors. Generals who have shed their blood for the Republic perish on the scaffold. I am weary of living. Look there; the very river seems to flow with blood."
"True," replied Souberbielle, "the sky is red, and there are many showers of blood behind those clouds. Those who were to be judges have become but executioners. When I refuse an innocent head to their knife I am accused of sympathy with traitors. What can I do? I am but an obscure patriot. Ah, if I were Danton!"
"All this," replied Danton, "excites horror in me. But be silent. Danton sleeps; he will awake at the right moment. I am a man of revolution, but not a man of slaughter. But you," he added, addressing Camille Desmoulins, "why do you keep silence?"
"I am weary of silence," was Desmoulins's reply. "My hand weighs heavily, and I have sometimes the impulse to sharpen my pen into a dagger and stab these scoundrels. Let them beware. My ink is more indelible than their blood. It stains for immortality."
"Bravo!" cried Danton. "Begin to-morrow. You began the Revolution; be it you who shall now most thoroughly urge it. Be assured this hand shall aid you. You know whether or not it be strong."
The three friends separated at Danton's door. The doom of the miserable Hebert and his party was now sealed. Robespierre, Danton, and Camille Desmoulins were against him. They could wield resistless influences. The next day Camille Desmoulins commenced a series of papers called the Vieux Cordelier. He took the first number to Danton and then to Robespierre. They both approved, and the warfare against Hebert and his party was commenced. The conflict was short and desperate; each party knew that the guillotine was the doom of the vanquished.[415] Robespierre and Danton were victors. Hebert, Cloots, and their friends, nineteen in number, were arrested and condemned to death. On the 24th of March, 1794, five carts laden with the Hebertists proceeded from the Conciergerie to the guillotine. Cloots died firmly. Hebert was in a paroxysm of terror, which excited the contempt and derision of the mob.
The bold invectives against the Reign of Terror in the Vieux Cordelier, written by Desmoulins, began to alarm the Committee of Public Safety. Danton and Robespierre were implicated. They were accused of favoring moderate measures, and of being opposed to those acts of bloody rigor which were deemed necessary to crush the aristocrats. Danton and Desmoulins were in favor of a return to mercy. Robespierre, though opposed to cruelty and to needless carnage, was sternly for death as the doom of every one not warmly co-operating with the Revolution. To save himself from suspicion he became the accuser of his two friends. And now it came the turn of Danton and Desmoulins to tremble. For five years Danton and Robespierre had fought together to overthrow royalty and found the Republic. But Danton was disgusted with carnage, and had withdrawn from the Committee of Public Safety.
"Danton, do you know," said Eglantine to him one day, "of what you are accused? They say that you have only launched the car of the Revolution to enrich yourself, while Robespierre has remained poor in the midst of the monarchical treasures thrown at his feet."