It was five o'clock in the morning when the captives were led to the Tuileries. In the mean time Légendre had marched to the assembly-room of the Jacobins, dispersed them, locked their doors, and brought the keys to the President of the Convention.[429]
Robespierre was laid upon a table in an anteroom, while an interminable crowd pressed in and around to catch a sight of the fallen dictator. The unhappy man was overwhelmed with reproaches and insults, and feigned death to escape this moral torture. The blood was freely flowing from his wound, coagulating in his mouth, and choking him as it trickled down his throat. The morning was intensely hot; not a breath of pure air could the wounded man inhale; insatiable thirst and a burning fever consumed him; and thus he remained for more than an hour, enduring the intensest pangs of bodily and mental anguish. By order of the Convention, he and his confederates were then removed to the Committee of General Safety for examination; from which tribunal they were sent to the Conciergerie, where they were all thrown into the same dungeon to await their trial, which was immediately to take place before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
ROBESPIERRE LYING WOUNDED ON THE TABLE OF THE CITY HALL.
A few hours of pain, anguish, and despair passed away, when at three o'clock in the afternoon the whole party were conveyed to that merciless court which was but the last stepping-stone to death. The trial lasted but a few moments. They were already condemned, and it was only necessary to prove their identity. The Convention was victorious, and no man of the Revolutionary Tribunal dared to resist its will. Had the Commune of Paris conquered in this strife, the obsequious Tribunal, with equal alacrity, would have consigned the Deputies to the guillotine.
At five o'clock the carts of the condemned received the prisoners.[430] The long procession advanced through the Rue St. Honoré to the Place de la Révolution. The fickle crowd thronged the streets, heaping imprecations upon the man to whom they would have shouted hosanna had he been a victor. Robespierre, his brother, Couthon, Henriot, all mangled, bleeding, and with broken bones, were thrown into the first cart with the corpse of Lebas. As the cart jolted over the pavement shrieks of anguish were extorted from the victims. At six o'clock they reached the steps of the guillotine. Robespierre ascended the scaffold with a firm step; but, as the executioner brutally tore the bandage from his inflamed wound, he uttered a shriek of torture which pierced every ear. The dull sullen sound of the falling axe was heard, and the head of Robespierre fell ghastly into the basket. For a moment there was silence, and then the crowd raised a shout as if a great victory had been achieved and the long-sought blessings of the Revolution attained.[431]
ROBESPIERRE AND HIS COMPANIONS LED TO EXECUTION.