[504] Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 86.
[505] Thuriot, whom Robespierre had repeatedly threatened with death.
[506] Garnier de l'Aube.
[507] Thiers, tom. vi., p. 344; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 94; Mignet, tom. ii., p. 339; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 382; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 249.
[508] "Young Robespierre had but recently returned from the army of Italy, whither he had been sent by the Convention on a mission. He earnestly pressed Buonaparte to accompany him to Paris. 'Had I followed young Robespierre,' said Napoleon, 'how different might have been my career. On what trivial circumstances does human fate depend!'"—Las Cases, vol. i., p. 348.
[509] Baron Méda, then a simple gendarme, states, in his "Précis Historique," that it was the discharge of his pistol that broke Robespierre's jaw.—See Collection des Mémoires Rév., tom. xlii., p. 384.
[510] Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 390; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 257; Thiers, tom. vi., p. 360; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 117.
[511] It did not escape the minute observers of this scene, that he still held in his hand the bag which had contained the fatal pistol, and which was inscribed with the words Au grand Monarque, alluding to the sign, doubtless, of the gunsmith who sold the weapon, but singularly applicable to the high pretensions of the purchaser.—S.—See Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 257.
[512] The horsemen who escorted him showed him to the spectators with the point of their sabres. The mob stopped him before the house in which he lived; some women danced before the cart, and one of them cried out to him, "Murderer of all my kindred, thy agony fills me with joy; descend to hell, with the curses of all wives, mothers, and children!"—Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 119; Biog. Mod., vol. i., p. 179.
[513] The fate of no tyrant in story was so hideous at the conclusion, excepting perhaps that of Jugurtha.—S.