(President rising.) The National Convention have decreed
The arrest of Maximilien Robespierre.
Robes. (to St. Just.) The day is theirs—with wrath and with despair
My utterance is chok'd. Oh, were my breath
A pestilential gale to sting their lives!
(to the President.) Order me to be slain where now I stand,
Or grant me liberty of speech.
(President.) Thy name is Robespierre—it is enough,
And speaks for thee far more than thou wilt tell us.
Robes. (to St. Just.) Come thou with me—I see an opening yet
To victory, or a funeral pile—whose light
Shall dazzle France and terrify the world.
(Robespierre, St. Just and others taken out by the guards.2)
2 It may be well to recall to the reader's recollection, that Robespierre subsequently escaped from his guards to the Hotel de Ville. But such partisans as rallied around him speedily deserted, when a proclamation of outlawry from the Convention was issued against him, and enforced by pointing cannon against the building. After an ineffectual attempt at suicide he was conveyed in a cart to the guillotine, July 28th, 1794.
The language put into his mouth in the following pages, is of course inconsistent with historical probability, as he had wounded himself with a pistol ball in the lower part of his face.
SCENE V.
ROBESPIERRE AND ST. JUST IN A CART CONDUCTED BY GUARDS TOWARDS THE PLACE DE GRÊVE.
St. Just.—So here ends our part in a tragic farce,
Hiss'd off the stage, my friend—ha, ha!
(laughing.)
I am content—I mean I am resigned—
As well die now as later. Does your wound
Pain you severely that you look so gravely?
Cheer thee, my comrade, we shall quickly learn
The last dread secret of our frail existence,
Few moments more will cut our barks adrift
Upon an ocean, boundless and unknown,
Even to ourselves who have despatched so many
To explore for us its dark and fathomless depths.
Give me some wine. (they give him wine.) Here's to a merry voyage!
What in the fiend's name art thou musing on!