After a short pause he resumed, "We are sacrificed to the ambition of a few dastardly brigands. But they will not long enjoy the fruit of their villainy. I drag Robespierre after me. Robespierre follows me to the grave." At four o'clock the executioners entered the Conciergerie to bind their hands and cut off their hair.
"It will be very amusing," said Danton, "to the fools who will gape at us in the streets, but we shall appear otherwise in the eyes of posterity."
When the executioners laid hold of Camille Desmoulins, he struggled in the most desperate resistance. But he was speedily thrown upon the floor and bound, while the prison resounded with his shrieks and imprecations. The whole fourteen Dantonists were placed in one cart. Desmoulins seemed frantic with terror. He looked imploringly upon the crowd, and incessantly cried,
"Save me, generous people! I am Camille Desmoulins. It was I who called you to arms on the 14th of July. It was I who gave you the national cockade."
He so writhed and twisted in the convulsions of his agony that his clothes were nearly torn from his back. Danton stood in moody silence, occasionally endeavoring to appease the turbulence of Desmoulins.
Herault de Séchelles first ascended the scaffold. As he alighted from the cart he endeavored to embrace Danton. The brutal executioner interposed.
"Wretch," said Danton, "you will not, at least, prevent our heads from kissing presently in the basket."
Desmoulins followed next. In his hand he held a lock of his wife's hair. For an instant he gazed upon the blade, streaming with the blood of his friend, and then said, turning to the populace,
"Look at the end of the first apostle of liberty. The monsters who murder me will not survive me long."