feed on human flesh, and drink human blood? He has done nothing for us, we will do nothing for him." Such was the language of the populace in the most revolutionary quarter of Paris: the fever of innovation had exhausted itself; even the lowest of the people were horror-struck with the rulers they had chosen for themselves. 81. At midnight the rumour began loudly to spread through the ranks of the insurgents, that the municipality had been declared hors la loi, that the sections had joined the Convention, and that their forces were advancing against the insurgents. To obviate its impression, Payan read aloud in the Council-room the decree of the Con ed down the quays towards the Place | Does he suppose we are cannibals, to de Grève. Every one held his breath as they passed; the intense interest of life or death almost choked respiration. But in more distant quarters the agitation was more open; and a confused sound, like the rolling of distant thunder, was heard in all parts of the city. By degrees the tumult became so violent that at length the sound reached the prisons. The unhappy inmates of the gloomy cells put their ears to the bars of the windows, listened to every sound, and yet trembled lest the agitation should be the prelude to a general massacre of the captives. Soon, however, the downcast looks of the jailers, words whispered to the framers of the lists, and the consternation of these wretches, awoke hope in their despair-vention, and inserted in it the names ing minds. Shortly after it was discovered, by half-suppressed words heard in the streets, that Robespierre was in danger; the relations of the captives placed themselves under the windows, and informed them by signs of what was passing, and then the exhilaration of the prisoners broke out into the most vehement and tumultuous joy. 80. Meanwhile the adherents of Robespierre, consisting almost entirely of the cannoneers, and of the armed force commanded by Henriot, who were composed of the very lowest of the rabble, had assembled in great force at the Hotel de Ville. The Place de Grève, in which it stands, was filled with artillery, bayonets, and pikes; Robespierre had been received with the utmost enthusiasm, and the delivery of Henriot raised to the highest pitch the confidence of the conspirators But as the night advanced, and no columns of the national guard arrived, this confidence gave place to the most sinister presentiments. Even in the Faubourg St Antoine, the centre of all former insurrections, the delegates of the municipality failed in rousing the populace. "What the better have we been," said they, "of all the insurrections? What has Robespierre done for us? Where are the riches, the fields, he promised us? When we are dying of famine, does he expect to satisfy us by the daily spectacle of a hundred aristocrats dying on the scaffold? | of all those of their party whom he observed in the gallery, hoping thereby to attach them from desperation to the cause of Robespierre. But an opposite effect immediately ensued, as they all instantly took to flight, leaving the gallery deserted. Nor did affairs wear a more promising aspect out of doors. There were about two thousand men stationed in the Place de Grève, with a powerful train of artillery. But their resolution was already much shaken by the obvious defection of their fellowcitizens, when the light of the torches showed the heads of the columns of the national guard appearing in all the avenues which led to the square. The moment was terrible: ten pieces of the artillery of the Convention stood in battery, while the canoneers of the municipality, with their lighted matches in their hands, were posted beside their guns on the opposite side. But the authority of the law prevailed; the decree of the legislature was read by torchlight, and the insurgent troops refused to resist it. Some emissaries of the Convention glided into the ranks of the municipality, and raised the cry, "Vive la Convention!" the insurgents were moved by the harangue of Meda, the commander of the national artillery, and in a short time the Place de Grève was deserted, and the whole cannoneers retired to their homes, or ranged themselves on the side of the Assembly. 82. Henriot descended the stair of the Hotel de Ville; but seeing the square deserted, he vented his execrations on his faithless followers, who had for the most part abandoned the king in the same manner on the 10th August, and hastened back to his comrades. The conspirators, finding themselves unsupported, gave way to despair; the national guard rushed rapidly up the stair, headed by Bourdon de l'Oise, with a pistol in each hand and a naked sabre in his teeth, and entered the room where Robespierre and the leaders of the revolt were assembled. Lebas, hearing the tumult approaching, presented a pistol to Robespierre, entreating him to blow out his brains; but he refused. When they entered, they found Robespierre sitting with his elbow on his knees, and his head resting on his hand; Meda discharged his pistol, which broke his under jaw, and he fell under the table. St Just implored Lebas to put an end to his life. "Coward, follow my example !" said he, and blew out his brains. Couthon was seized under a table, feebly attempting to strike with a knife, which he wanted the courage to plunge in his heart; Coffinhal and the younger Robespierre threw themselves from the win dows, and were seized in the inner court of the building. Henriot had been thrown from the window by Coffinhal, before he threw himself out; but, though bruised and mutilated, he contrived to crawl into the entrance of a sewer, from whence he was dragged out by the troops of the Convention.* 83. Robespierre and Couthon, being *Many authors affirm that Robespierre shot himself. That he had a pistol in his hand is certain; but Levasseur de la Sarthe and Meda, the gendarmes who arrested him, agree in stating that his jaw was broken by a shot fired by the last of these parties. See LEVASSEUR, iii. 154; MEDA, 385. Lamartine, in his Histoire des Girondins, gives the same account: "Leonard Bourdon with his right hand laid hold of the arm of the gendarme Meda, who had a pistol, and pointing with his left hand at whom he should aim, he turned the mouth of the pistol to Robespierre, and said to the gendarme, That is he!' The shot is fired-Robespierre falls with his head forward on the table, staining with his blood the proclamation that he had not finished signing."- LAMARTINE, Histoire des Girondins, viii. 364, 365. supposed to be dead, were dragged by the heels to the Quai Pelletier, where it was proposed to throw them into the river; but it being discovered, when light was brought, that they still breathed, they were stretched on a board, and carried to the Convention between one and two o'clock in the morning. The members having refused to admit them, they were conveyed to the Committee of General Safety, where Robespierre lay for nine hours stretched on a table in the Salle d'Audience, with his broken jaw still bleeding, and suffering alike under bodily pain, and the execrations and insults of those around him. During the whole time that this cruel torture lasted, he evinced a stoical apathy. Foam merely issued from his mouth, which the humanity of some around him led them to wipe off; but he grasped with convulsive energy the pistol which he had not had sufficient time, or wanted courage, to discharge. His face retained its habitual bilious tint, but mingled with the ashen hue of death. At six in the morning a surgeon was sent for, who found the left jaw broken: he took out two or three teeth which were crushed by the shot, bandaged the jaw, and placed beside him a glass of water, with which he occasionally washed away the blood which filled his mouth. As he lay extended on the table, numbers reviled and spat upon him; and, to their eternal disgrace, some of his former colleagues in the committees insulted him, while the clerks of the office pricked him with their penknives.† At length he arose and sat down on a chair; he then gazed around him, fixing his eyes chiefly on the clerks in the office, whom he recognised. But he exhibited great fortitude, especially in the dressing of the wound, which occasioned acute pain. Shortly after, he was sent to the Conciergerie, where he was confined in the same cell which had been occupied by Danton, Hébert, and Chaumette. From thence he was brought, with all his associates, to the Revolutionary Tri * "Ses collègues des comités vinrent l'insulter, le frapper, lui cracher au visage; des commis de bureau le piquèrent de leurs canifs."-Derniers Momens de Robespierre; Hist. Parl. xxxiv. 94. spite the earliness of the hour, were thronged to excess; every window was filled; even the roofs of the houses, like the manned yards of a ship, were crowded with spectators. The joy was universal; it almost approached to delirium. The blood from Robespierre's jaw burst through the bandage, and overflowed his dress; his face was ghastly pale. He kept his eyes shut, when he saw the general feeling, during the time the procession lasted, but could not close his ears against the im breaking from the crowd, exclaimed, "Murderer of all my kindred! your agony fills me with joy : descend to hell covered with the curses of every mother in France!" He ascended the scaffold with a firm step, and was laid down near the axe. Twenty of his comrades were executed before him; during the time they were suffering, he lay on the scaffold with his eyes shut, never uttering a word. When lifted up to be tied to the fatal plank, the executioner tore the bandage from his face; the lower jaw fell upon his breast, and he uttered a yell which filled every heart with horror. For some minutes the frightful figure was held up, fixed to the board, to the multitude; he was then placed under the axe, and the last sounds which reached his ears were the exulting shouts, which were prolonged for some minutes after his death. bunal, and, as soon as the identity of their persons was established, they were condemned. St Just and Dumas were taken direct to the Audience Hall, at the office of the Committee of Public Salvation, and thence to the same prison. The former gazed at the great picture of the Rights of Man placed there, and said, "It is I, nevertheless, who did that." In entering the Conciergerie, St Just met General Hoche, who had been confined there for some weeks by St Just himself. Instead of insulting his fallen enemy, Hoche press-precations of the multitude. A woman, ed his hand, and stood aside to let him pass. The really heroic are never on great occasions unworthy of themselves. 84. At four in the morning of the 29th July, all Paris was in motion to witness the death of the tyrant. He was placed on the chariot, between Henriot and Couthon, whose persons were as mutilated as his own, the last in the vehicle, in order that, with the usual barbarity of the period, which he himself had been instrumental in introducing, he should see all his friends perish before him. They were bound by ropes to the benches of the car in which they were seated; and the rolling of the vehicle during the long passage, which was through the most populous quarters of Paris, produced such pain in their wounds that they at times screamed aloud. The gendarmes rode with their sabres presented to the people, who clapped their hands, as they 85. Along with Robespierre were exhad done when Danton was led to executed Henriot, Couthon, St Just, Duecution. Robespierre's forehead, one eye, and part of the cheek, were alone seen above the bandage which bound up the broken jaw. St Just evinced throughout the most unconquerable fortitude. Robespierre cast his eyes on the crowd, turned them aside, and shrugged his shoulders. The multitude, which for long had ceased to attend the executions, manifested the utmost joy at their fate. They were conducted to the Place de la Révolution; the scaffold was placed on the spot where Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had suffered. The statue of Liberty still surmounted the scene. Never had such a crowd been witnessed on any former occasion: the streets, de mas, Coffinhal, Simon, and all the leaders of the revolt. Of these St Just alone displayed the firmness which had so often been witnessed among the victims whom they had sent to the scaffold. Couthon wept with terror: the others died uttering blasphemies, which were drowned by the cheers of the people. The spectators shed tears for joy, they embraced each other in transport, they crowded round the scaffold to behold the bloody remains of the tyrants. "Yes, Robespierre, there is a God !" said a poor man, as he approached the lifeless body of one so lately the object of dread. His fall was felt by all present as an immediate manifestation of the Divinity. Seventy-three of his party were executed next day, com- | the dignity of rank, the splendour of prising all the leaders of the revolt at the talent, and the graces of beauty. All municipality; but Barère, Billaud Va- that excelled the labouring classes in rennes, and Collot d'Herbois, were in situation, fortune, or acquirement, had the ranks of the victorious party, and, been removed; they had triumphed though the worst of the whole, suffered over their oppressors, seized their posat that time no punishment for their sessions, and risen into their stations. crimes. The whole theatres of Paris And what was the consequence? The were open, as usual, during these scenes establishment of a more cruel and reof horror, as they had been during the volting tyranny than any which manwhole continuance of the Reign of Ter- kind had yet witnessed; the destruction lor.* of all the charities and enjoyments of life; the dreadful spectacle of streams of blood flowing through every part of France. With truth did the warmest apologists and ablest advocates of the Revolution now admit that it had produced "the most indefatigable, searching, multiform, and omnipresent_tyranny that ever existed, which pervaded every class of society, which had ministers and victims in every village of France.” ‡ The earliest friends, the warmest advocates, the firmest supporters of the people, were swept off indiscriminately with their bitterest enemies; in the unequal struggle, virtue and philanthropy sank under ambition and violence; and society returned to a state of chaos, when all the elements of private or public happiness were scattered to the winds. Such are the results of unchaining the passions of the multitude; such the peril of suddenly admitting the light upon a benighted people. § 86. Thus terminated the Reign of Terror "the only series of crimes," says Sir James Mackintosh, "perhaps, in history, which, in spite of the common disposition to exaggerate extraordinary facts, has been beyond measure underrated in public opinion." It is an epoch fraught with greater political instruction than any of equal duration which has existed since the beginning of the world. In no former period had the efforts of the people so completely triumphed, or the higher orders been so thoroughly crushed by the lower. The throne had been overturned, the altar destroyed, the aristocracy levelled with the dust; the nobles were in exile, the clergy in captivity, the gentry in affliction. A merciless sword had waved over the state, destroying alike * Theatres open on the 9th Thermidor, viz: 1. Opéra. Armide, avec le ballet de Télémaque. 2. Opéra Comique. La Mélomanie. 3. Théâtre de la République. La Conspira- 4. Théâtre Feydeau. Roméo et Juliette. laume Tell. "The will 87. The facility with which a faction, | holders of property in the kingdom, and composed of a few of the most audacious led them forth like victims to the sacriand reckless of the nation, triumphed fice, is not the least extraordinary or over the immense majority of all the memorable fact of that eventful period. appreciated unless it is recollected that the Brought over, author who compiled it was an ardent supporter of the Revolution-an intimate friend and political agent of Danton's; and that, in his well-known revolutionary journal, the "Révolutions de Paris," he had justified the massacres in the prisons in September 1792. See No., September 10, 1792. Of Women, VICTIMS under the proconsulate 966,916 15,000 20,000 32,000 500 1,278 760 - 360 1,135 Nobles drowned, Artisans drowned, 31,200 Wives of mechanics, Persons who perished in the civil war after the 31st May 1793 at Lyons, LYONS. Died in prison by dis- Note. Those guillotined at Persons who committed suicide 4,790 Died in prison, 32 Women who died in premature Suicides, childbirth, 45 3,400 Deaths from famine, Houses destroyed, 1674. Fight of Carteaux, on the road 20,000 Persons made insane through In all, 1,027,106 to Marseilles, Died in prison, Total, TOULON. 650 79 729 9,000 3,100 160 800 1,265 In this enumeration are not comprehended the massacres at Versailles, at the Abbaye, the Carmes, or other prisons, on September 2d, the victims of the Glacière of Avignon, those shot at Toulon and Marseilles, or the persons slain in the little town of Bédoin, of which the whole population perished. Those contained in the "Liste des Condamnés," a very curious work, down to the 12th Thermidor (30th July 1794), are 2741.-Supplement 14,325 à No. IX. Liste des Condamnés, p. 15.-The additional 99 contained in the Moniteur are those condemned and executed after the fall of Robespierre, and are also in the Liste des Condamnés, Nos. X. and XI. 750 360 140 900,000 966,916 It is in an especial manner remarkable, in this dismal catalogue, how large a proportion of the victims of the Revolution were persons in the middle and lower ranks of life. The priests and nobles guillotined are only 2413, while the persons of plebeian origin exceed 13,000! The nobles and priests put to death at Nantes were only 2160; while the infants drowned and shot are 2000, the women 764, and the artisans 5300! So rapidly in revolutionary convulsions does the career of cruelty reach the lower orders, and so wide-spread is the carnage dealt out to them, compared with that which they have sought to inflict on their superiors. |