Loud and repeated Applauses.
I marvel not, that, with such fearless front,
He braved our vengeance, and with angry eye
Scowl'd round the hall defiance. He relied
On Henriot's aid the Commune's villain friendship,
And Henriot's boughten succours. Ye have heard
How Henriot rescued him how with open arms
The Commune welcomed in the rebel tyrant
How Fleuriot aided, and seditious Vivier
Stirr'd up the Jacobins. All had been lost
The representatives of France had perish'd
Freedom had sunk beneath the tyrant arm
Of this foul parricide, but that her spirit
Inspired the men of Paris. Henriot call'd
"To arms" in vain, whilst Bourdon's patriot voice
Breathed eloquence, and o'er the Jacobins
Legendre frown'd dismay. The tyrants fled
They reach'd the Hotel. We gather'd round we call'd
For vengeance! Long time, obstinate in despair,
With knives they hack'd around them. Till foreboding
The sentence of the law, the clamorous cry
Of joyful thousands hailing their destruction,
Each sought by suicide to escape the dread
Of death. Lebas succeeded. From the window
Leap'd the younger Robespierre; but his fractur'd limb
Forbade to escape. The self-will'd dictator
Plung'd often the keen knife in his dark breast,
Yet impotent to die. He lives, all mangled
By his own tremulous hand! All gash'd and gored,
He lives to taste the bitterness of death.
Even now they meet their doom. The bloody Couthon,
The fierce St. Just, even now attend their tyrant
To fall beneath the axe. I saw the torches
Flash on their visages a dreadful light
I saw them whilst the black blood roll'd adown
Each stern face, even then with dauntless eye
Scowl round contemptuous, dying as they lived,
Fearless of fate!
Loud and repeated Applauses.
BARRERE
mounts the Tribune.
For ever hallow'd be this glorious day,
When Freedom, bursting her oppressive chain,
Tramples on the oppressor. When the tyrant,
Hurl'd from his blood-cemented throne by the arm
Of the almighty people, meets the death
He plann'd for thousands. Oh! my sickening heart
Has sunk within me, when the various woes
Of my brave country crowded o'er my brain
In ghastly numbers when assembled hordes,
Dragg'd from their hovels by despotic power,
Rush'd o'er her frontiers, plunder'd her fair hamlets,
And sack'd her populous towns, and drench'd with blood
The reeking fields of Flanders. When within,
Upon her vitals prey'd the rankling tooth
Of treason; and oppression, giant form,
Trampling on freedom, left the alternative
Of slavery, or of death. Even from that day,
When, on the guilty Capet, I pronounced
The doom of injured France, has faction rear'd
Her hated head amongst us. Roland preach'd
Of mercy the uxorious, dotard Roland,
The woman-govern'd Roland durst aspire
To govern France; and Petion talk'd of virtue,
And Vergniaud's eloquence, like the honey'd tongue
Of some soft Syren wooed us to destruction.
We triumph'd over these. On the same scaffold
Where the last Louis pour'd his guilty blood,
Fell Brissot's head, the womb of darksome treasons,
And Orleans, villain kinsman of the Capet,
And Hebert's atheist crew, whose maddening hand
Hurl'd down the altars of the living God,
With all the infidel's intolerance.
The last worst traitor triumph'd triumph'd long,
Secured by matchless villany. By turns
Defending and deserting each accomplice
As interest prompted. In the goodly soil
Of Freedom, the foul tree of treason struck
Its deep-fix'd roots, and dropt the dews of death
On all who slumber'd in its specious shade.
He wove the web of treachery. He caught
The listening crowd by his wild eloquence,
His cool ferocity that persuaded murder,
Even whilst it spake of mercy! never, never
Shall this regenerated country wear
The despot yoke. Though myriads round assail,
And with worse fury urge this new crusade
Than savages have known; though the leagued despots
Depopulate all Europe, so to pour
The accumulated mass upon our coasts,
Sublime amid the storm shall France arise,
And like the rock amid surrounding waves
Repel the rushing ocean. She shall wield
The thunder-bolt of vengeance she shall blast
The despot's pride, and liberate the world!
Footnote 1
: The origin and authorship of
The Fall of Robespierre