Thus died Robespierre, in the thirty-fifth year of his age. His character will probably ever remain a mystery. "His death was the date and not the cause of the cessation of terror. Deaths would have ceased by his triumphs, as they did by his death. Thus did Divine justice dishonor his repentance, and cast misfortune on his good intentions, making of his tomb a gulf filled up. It has made of his memory an enigma of which history trembles to pronounce the solution, fearing to do him injustice if she brand it as a crime, or to create horror if she should term it a virtue. This man was, and must ever remain, shadowy and undefined."[432]
Twenty-two were beheaded with Robespierre. The next day seventy who were arrested at the Hôtel de Ville were sent to the guillotine. The following day twelve more bled upon the scaffold. In three days one hundred and fourteen perished, untried, by that tyranny which had supplanted the tyranny of Robespierre.[433]
FOOTNOTES:
[419] "Mr. Alison gives currency to an atrocious slander against Robespierre, for which he has adduced no authority, and which is contradicted by the whole evidence of Robespierre's life. 'He (Philippe Egalité) was detained,' says Alison, 'above a quarter of an hour in front of the Palais Royal, by order of Robespierre, who had asked in vain for the hand of his daughter in marriage, and had promised, if he would relent in that extremity, to excite a tumult which would save his life.'"—Life of Robespierre, by G.H. Lewes, p. 265.
[420] "Danton regarded the austere principles of Robespierre as folly. He thought that the Republicans could not maintain their power but by surrounding themselves with the consideration which wealth confers, and he consequently thought it necessary to close their eyes against the sudden acquisition of wealth of certain Revolutionists. Robespierre, on the contrary, flattered himself that he could establish a republic in France based on virtue, and when he was thoroughly persuaded that Danton was an obstacle to that system he abandoned him."—Biographie Universelle.
[421] Du Broca.
[422] "Robespierre had a prodigious force at his disposal. The lowest orders, who saw the Revolution in his person, supported him as the best representative of its doctrines and interests; the armed force of Paris, commanded by Henriot, was at his command. He had entire sway over the Jacobins, whom he admitted and ejected at pleasure; all important posts were occupied by his creatures; he had formed the Revolutionary Tribunal and the new committee himself."—Mignet, p. 256.
[423] Thiers, vol. iii., p. 68, note from Quarterly Review.
[424] Prudhomme, a Republican, who wrote during this period of excitement, has left six volumes of the details of the Reign of Terror. Two of these contain an alphabetical list of all the persons put to death by the Revolutionary Tribunals. He gives the following appalling statement of the victims:
| Nobles | 1,278 | |
| Noble women | 750 | |
| Wives of laborers and artisans | 1,467 | |
| Nuns | 350 | |
| Priests | 1,135 | |
| Men not noble | 13,623 | |
| ——— | ||
| Total sent to the guillotine | 18,603 | 18,603 |
| Women who died of premature delivery | 3,400 | |
| Women who died in childbirth from grief | 348 | |
| Women killed in La Vendée | 15,000 | |
| Children killed in La Vendée | 22,000 | |
| Men slain in La Vendée | 900,000 | |
| Victims under Carrier at Nantes | 32,000 | |
| Victims at Lyons | 31,000 | |
| ———— | ||
| Total | 1,022,351 |