VII.
People pointed out to each other the bend in the left-hand passage, where Robespierre whispered to Clavière's friend Garat that terrible epigram, "Clavière a conspiré partout où il a respiré." In this same bend, well adapted for privacy and suppressed indignation, Fabre d'Églantine quarrelled with Romme, reproaching him for having disfigured his calendar by changing Fervidor into Thermidor. People pointed out the corner where, elbow to elbow, sat the seven representatives of Haute-Garonne, who, being the first called upon to pronounce their verdict upon Louis XVI., had thus answered, one after the other: Mailhe, "death;" Delmas, "death;" Projean, "death;" Calès, "death;" Ayral, "death;" Julien, "death;" Desaby, "death,"—eternal reverberation that fills all history, and since the birth of human justice has continued to send forth a funereal echo from the walls of the tribunal. Amid this stormy sea of faces one man would point out to another the individuals whose tragic votes had caused that fearful din: Paganel, who cried, "Death. A king serves no purpose save by his death." Millaud, who said, "If death had never been known, we must to-day have invented it." Old Raffron du Trouillet, who exclaimed, "A speedy death!" Goupilleau, who cried, "The scaffold, at once. Delay but aggravates the pain of death." Sieyès, who with solemn brevity uttered the single word, "Death." Thuriot, who, rejecting the appeal to the people proposed by Buzot, said, "What! The primary assemblies! forty-four thousand tribunals! an endless trial! The head of Louis XVI. would have time to grow gray before it fell." Augustin-Bon-Robespierre, who exclaimed, after his brother, "I ignore that humanity which massacres the people and pardons despots! Death! The demand for a reprieval means a substitution of the appeal to tyrants for the appeal to the people." Foussedoire, who took the place of Bernardin-de-Saint-Pierre, saying, "The shedding of human blood is abhorrent to me; but the blood of a king is not human blood. Death!" Jean-Bon-Saint-André, who said, "No nation can be free until the tyrant dies." Lavicomterie, who expressed himself in this formula: "So long as the tyrant breathes, liberty is strangled. Death!" Châteauneuf-Randon, who cried, "The death of Louis the Last!" Guyardin, who suggested, "Let him be executed at the Barrière-Renversée." The Barrière-Renversée was the Barrière du Trône. Tellier, who said, "Let us forge a cannon of the calibre of Louis XVI.'s head, to fire upon the enemy." And among those inclined to mercy, Gentil was one, who said, "I vote for imprisonment. He who makes a Charles I. makes a Cromwell likewise." Bancal, who said, "Exile. I should like to see the first king of the earth sentenced to earn his living at a trade." Albouys, who said, "Exile. Let this living spectre wander round among the thrones." Zangiacomi, who said, "I vote for imprisonment; let us keep Capet alive for a scarecrow." Chaillon, who said, "Let him live! I do not approve of killing a man for Rome to canonize." While sentences like these fell one after the other from these severe lips, making their way into history, bedizened women in low-necked dresses sat in the boxes, and with list in hand counted the votes as they were given, pricking each name with a pin.
Where tragedy has entered in, horror and pity remain. To see the Convention, at whatsoever epoch of its reign, was to witness anew the judgment of the last of the Capets; the legend of the 21st of January seemed to be interwoven with all its acts; the formidable Assembly was composed of those men whose fatal breath put out the ancient torch of monarchy, which had burned for eighteen centuries; the decisive trial of all kings in the person of one seemed to be the starting-point of the great war which it waged against the past. At whatsoever session of the Convention one might be present, the shadow cast by the scaffold of Louis XVI. never failed to make itself evident. The spectators told each other about the resignations of Kersaint and Roland, and also about Duchâtel the deputy of the Deux-Sèvres, who, being ill, caused himself to be carried to the Assembly, and on his death-bed voted against the execution of the king,—an act which excited Marat to laughter. People looked for the representative forgotten to-day, who, after a session that had lasted thirty-seven hours, overcome by fatigue, fell asleep on his bench, and being roused by the usher when his turn came to vote, half-opened his eyes, murmured, "Death," and fell asleep again.
At the time when the death-sentence of Louis XVI. was passed, Robespierre had eighteen months to live, Danton fifteen, Vergniaud nine, Marat five months and three weeks, and Lepelletier-Saint-Fargeau one day! Brief and terrible was the breath of life in those days.
VIII.
The people had a window, opening on the Convention in the shape of the public tribunes, and when this window proved inadequate, they opened the door, and the street-population poured in upon the Assembly. The invasions of the crowd into this senate presented one of the most striking spectacles known to history. Generally these irruptions were amicable. The street fraternized with the curule chair. But friendship with a people who had once, in the course of three hours, taken the cannon of the Invalides and forty thousand muskets besides, was a somewhat formidable relationship. At every moment a procession interrupted the session. There were deputations admitted to the bar, petitions, expressions of respect, offerings. The pike of honor of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine was brought in, borne by women. The English offered twenty thousand pairs of shoes for our barefooted soldiers. "Citizen Arnoux," said the "Moniteur," "the curé of Aubignan, in command of the battalion of the Drôme, requests permission to march to the frontier, and begs that his parish may be kept for him." The delegates from the Sections came, bringing in wheelbarrows, dishes, patens, chalices, monstrances, heaps of gold, silver, and gilt, offerings to the country from this ragged crowd, who asked, as a reward, permission to dance the Carmagnole before the Convention.