"Well, then, thou shouldst depart."
"Depart!" he repeated, curling his lip disdainfully, "Depart! Can we carry your country away on the sole of our shoe?"
On Germinal 10, as the revolutionary calendar went (March 31, 1796), he was informed that his arrest was being discussed in the Committee of Public Safety. His arrest gave rise to general excitement, to a sombre anxiety. Danton and the rest of the accused were brought before the revolutionary tribunal. They displayed an audacity of speech and a contempt of their judges wholly unusual. They were taken to the Conciergerie, and thence to the scaffold.
They went to death with the intrepidity usual at that epoch. There were many troops under arms, and their escort was numerous. The crowd, generally loud in its applause, was silent. Danton stood erect, and looked proudly and calmly around. At the foot of the scaffold he betrayed a momentary emotion. "Oh, my best beloved--my wife!" he cried. "I shall not see thee again!" Then suddenly interrupting himself: "No weakness, Danton!"
Thus perished the last defender of humanity and moderation; the last who sought to promote peace among the conquerors of the revolution and pity for the conquered. For a long time no voice was raised against the dictatorship of terror. During the four months following the fall of the Danton party, the committee exercised their authority without opposition or restraint. Death became the only means of governing, and the republic was given up to daily and systematic executions.
Robespierre, who was considered the founder of a moral democracy, now attained the highest degree of elevation and of power. He became the object of the general flattery of his party; he was the great man of the republic. At the Jacobins and in the Convention his preservation was attributed to "the good genius of the republic" and to the Supreme Being, Whose existence he had decreed on Floréal 18, the celebration of the new religion being fixed for Prairial 20.
But the end of this system drew near. The committees opposed Robespierre in their own way. They secretly strove to bring about his fall by accusing him of tyranny.
Naturally sad, suspicious, and timid, he became more melancholy and mistrustful than ever. He even rose against the committee itself. On Thermidor 8 (July 25, 1794), he entered the Convention at an early hour. He ascended the tribunal, and denounced the committee in a most skilful speech. Not a murmur, not a mark of applause welcomed this declaration of war.
The members of the two committees thus attacked, who had hitherto remained silent, seeing the Mountain thwarted and the majority undecided, thought it time to speak. Vadier first opposed Robespierre's speech and then Robespierre himself. Cambon went further. The committees had also spent the night in deliberation. In this state of affairs the sitting of Thermidor 9 (July 27) began.
Robespierre, after attempting to speak several times, while his voice was drowned by cries of "Down with the tyrant!" and the bell which the president, Thuriot, continued ringing, now made a last effort to be heard. "President of assassins," he cried, "for the last time, will you let me speak?"