GEORGES DANTON
The hand of Charlotte Corday had sent Marat to his own place; Danton and Camille Desmoulins, beginning to have some slight glimmerings of mercy and humanity, had been denounced and executed; Robespierre was still triumphant, with his friends and satellites, Couthon, St.-Just and David. With them and Foulquièr-Tinville, Paris was like hell upon earth. Long lists of victims, numbers of whom were women, went every day to the guillotine; the populace were getting weary of blood and slaughter. Again Tallien made an attempt to get the release of Térèzia, even suggesting that it was time to stop the murder of women. Even David agreed; but Robespierre was inexorable.
On the morning of the 4th Thermidor a dagger had been mysteriously sent to Tallien, without a word of explanation. No one knew who had brought it; there it was upon his table. But he knew the dagger, and what it meant. It was a Spanish poignard which belonged to Térèzia. It was then that he went and made his last and useless appeal to Robespierre. Térèzia had again been removed to La Force, and on the 7th Thermidor he received a letter from her.
“La citoyenne Fontenay to the citoyen Tallien, rue de la Perle, 17.
“The administrateur de police has just left; he has been to tell me that to-morrow I go to the tribunal, which means to the scaffold. It is indeed unlike the dream I had last night, that Robespierre was dead and the prisons open; but thanks to your incredible cowardice, there will soon be nobody left in France capable of realising it.”
He answered immediately—
“Have as much prudence as I will have courage, but calm your head.”
Then he went to find Barras and Fréron.
But Térèzia had nearly lost all hope. She had waited and waited, always expecting help—for Tallien was powerful among the leaders of the government. But when she was taken from the Carmes back to La Force, she knew that her time had come, and now the gaoler had told her that it was not worth while to make her bed, as it was to be given to another.