The trial lasted three days. Danton, in his defense, struggled like a lion in the toils. An immense crowd filled the court and crowded the surrounding streets. The windows were open, and the thunders of his voice were frequently heard even to the other side of the Seine. The people in the streets, whom he doubtless meant to influence, caught up his words and transmitted them from one to another. Some indications of popular sympathy alarmed the Tribunal, and it was voted that the accused were wanting in respect to the court, and should no longer be heard in their defense. They were immediately condemned to die.
They were reconducted to their dungeon to prepare for the guillotine. The fortitude of Camille Desmoulins was weakened by the strength of his domestic attachments. "Oh, my dear Lucile! Oh, my Horace! what will become of them!" he incessantly cried, while tears flooded his eyes. Seizing a pen, he hastily wrote a few last words to Lucile, which remain one of the most touching memorials of grief.
DANTON'S DEFENSE.
"I have dreamed," he wrote, "of a republic which all the world would have adored. I could not have believed that men were so cruel and unjust. I do not dissimulate that I die a victim to my friendship for Danton. I thank my assassins for allowing me to die with Philippeaux. Pardon, my dear friend, my true life which I lost from the moment they separated us. I occupy myself with my memory. I ought much rather to cause you to forget it, my Lucile. I conjure you do not call to me by your cries. They would rend my heart in the depths of the tomb. Live for our child; talk to him of me; you may tell him what he can not understand, that I should have loved him much. Despite my execution, I believe there is a God. My blood will wash out my sins, the weakness of my humanity; and whatever I have possessed of good, my virtues and my love of liberty, God will recompense it. I shall see you again one day.
"O my Lucile, sensitive as I was, the death which delivers me from the sight of so much crime, is it so great a misfortune? Adieu, my life, my soul, my divinity upon earth! Adieu, Lucile! my Lucile! my dear Lucile! Adieu, Horace! Annette! Adèle! Adieu, my father! I feel the shore of life fly before me. I still see Lucile! I see her, my best beloved! my Lucile! My bound hands embrace you, and my severed head rests still upon you its dying eyes."
As Danton re-entered the gloomy corridor of the prison he said, "It was just a year ago that I was instrumental in instituting the Revolutionary Tribunal. I beg pardon of God and men. I intended it as a measure of humanity, to prevent the renewal of the September massacres, and that no man should suffer without trial. I did not mean that it should prove the scourge of humanity."
Then, pressing his capacious brow between his hands, he said, "They think that they can do without me. They deceive themselves. I was the statesman of Europe. They do not suspect the void which this head leaves."
"As to me," he continued, in cynical terms, "I have enjoyed my moments of existence well. I have made plenty of noise upon earth. I have tasted well of life. Let us go to sleep," and he made a gesture with head and arms as if about to repose his head upon a pillow.