[530] Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 177.
[531] Fouquier-Tainville made an able defence, which he concluded with saying, "I was but the axe of the Convention, and would you punish an axe?" Mercier says, "while standing before the Tribunal, from which he had condemned so many victims, he kept constantly writing; but, like Argus, all eyes and ears, he lost nothing that was said or done. He affected to sleep during the public accuser's recapitulation, as if to feign tranquillity, while he had hell in his heart. When led to execution, he answered the hisses of the populace by sinister predictions. At the foot of the scaffold he seemed, for the first time, to feel remorse, and trembled as he ascended it." In early life, Fouquier scribbled poetry for the journals. Some verses of his, in praise of Louis XVI., will be found in the notes to Delille's "La Pitié."
[532] Vadier contrived to conceal himself in Paris, and thereby avoided his sentence. He continued to reside in the capital up to the law of the 12th January, 1816, when he was compelled to quit France. He died at Brussels, in 1828, at the age of ninety-three.
[533] Barrère contrived to be left behind, at the isle of Olèron, when his colleagues sailed for Cayenne; upon which Boursault observed, that "it was the first time he had ever failed to sail with the wind." He also remained in France, till the law of January, 1816, compelled him to leave it.
[534] M. Piton, who, in 1797, was himself transported to Cayenne by the Directory gives, in his "Voyage à Cayenne," the following account of the death of Collot d'Herbois:—"He was lying upon the ground, his face exposed to a burning sun, in a raging fever—the negroes, who were appointed to bear him from Kouron to Cayenne, having thrown him down to perish; a surgeon, who found him in this situation, asked him what ailed him, he replied, 'J'ai la fièvre, et une sueur brulante!'—'Je le crois bien, vous suez le crime,' was the bitter rejoinder. He expired, vomiting froth and blood, calling upon that God whom he had so often renounced!" M. Piton describes Collot as not naturally wicked,—"Il avait d'excellentes qualités du coté du cœur, beaucoup de clinquant du coté de l'esprit; un caractère faible et irascible à l'excès; généreux sans bornes, bon ami, et ennemi implacable. La Révolution a fait sa perte."
[535] "After Billaud-Varennes reached Cayenne, his life was a continued scene of romantic adventures. He escaped to Mexico, and entered, under the name of Polycarpus Varennes, the Dominican convent at Porto Ricco. Obliged to flee the continent for the part he took in the disputes between the Spanish colonies and the mother country, Pethion, then president of Hayti, not only afforded him an asylum, but made him his secretary. After Pethion's death, Boyer refusing to employ him, he went to the United States, and died at Philadelphia in 1819."—Biog. Univ.
[536] "They held up to him the bloody head of Ferraud; he turned aside with horror: they again presented it, and he bowed before the remains of the martyr; nor would he quit the chair till compelled by the efforts of his friends; and the insurgents, awed with respect, allowed him to retire unmolested."—Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 221.
[537] Mignet, tom. ii., p. 370; Thiers, tom. vii., p. 371; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 220.
[538] Romme, Bourbotte, Duquesnoy, Duroi, Soubrani, and Goujon. Five out of the six had voted for the death of the King.—See Mignet, tom. ii., p. 373; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 335; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 230.
[539] At the theatres the favourite air "Le Reveil du Peuple," was called for several times in the course of an evening. The law of the maximum, and the prohibitions against Christian worship were repealed; and this was followed by an act restoring to the families of those executed during the Revolution such part of their property as had not been disposed of.—Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 182.