his entrance was saluted with riotous enthusiasm.
Camille Desmoulins published a journal to defend the
cause of Robespierre. " I do not know," said he, " whe-
ther Robespierre should not tremble at the success he has
obtained over his cowardly accusers. What is virtue if
Robespierre be not its image ? What are eloquence and
talent if the speech of Robespierre be not their chef
d'ceuvre ? In this speech I find all the irony of Socrates,
with all the keenness of Pascal, and two or three passages
equal to the finest bursts of Demosthenes."
As the charges against Robespierre are really of the
vaguest kind, it may be assumed, that whatever might
have been passing in the depth of his own soul, Robes-
pierre had not, as yet, made any efforts towards dictator-
ship; though probably these very discussions helped to
foster the idea. In defendinof himself ao:ainst the accusation,
he might well say to himself, I have not aspired to the
dictatorship, but why should I not aspire? Am I not
the only virtuous man in France? The only sincere
Republican ? The only great man ? The only man
w^orthy to be a dictator? To give greater publicity to his
views he commenced a newspaper entitled Lettres de
Maximilien Robespierre a ses Commettans, Avhicli appeared
every Friday. Characteristically enough he says, that by
his " commettans" he designated all Frenchmen, thus
making himself the representative of France. In a long
THE LIFE OF KOBESPIERRE. 269
introduction ho says: "It is not enough to have over-
turned the throne; we must raise upon its ruins sacred
equahty and the imprescriptible rights of man. A republic
is not to be constituted by a vain word, but by the
character of its citizens. The soul of the republic is
virtue; that is to say, love of our country: that magnani-
mous devotion which confounds all private interests in the
general interest."
This was adroit flattery of himself, his own universal
reputation of incorruptibility making the application so
obvious !
In one of the sittings of the Jacobins, he indignantly
repelled the idea which had been proposed, of with-
drawing the government salary from the priests. It is
strange that Lamar tine, who, on the whole, takes so
favourable a view of Robespierre's character, should charge
him with cowardice and inconsistency in standing by the
priests. We have seen that he has done so throughout
his career. We have seen that, in the first place, he had very
strong religious convictions, though not perhaps of the
most orthodox kind ; and we have seen him in the Assembly
always advocating the real interests of the priesthood. In
one of his Lettres a ses Commettajis he thus explains
himself:
" God created all men for equality and happiness. It is he who
protects the oppressed and exterminates tyrants. My religion
is that of justice and humanity. I do not particularh^ love the
power of priest?. It is another chain on humanity, but it is an invi-
sible chain, and fetters the mind. The legislator may assist reason to
free itself from this chain, but not to break it. Our situation, in this
respect, appears to me favourable. The empire of superstition is
almost destroyed. The priest is no longer the object of veneration,
but the idea of that religion which he personifies. The torch of
philosophy, penetrating even to the lowest classes, has dispelled all
those ridiculous phantoms which the ambition of priests and the
policy of kings bade us adore. Little now remains save those
270 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
eternal dogmas which are the support of all our morality, the touch-
ing and subHme doctrines of charity and eqnaHty which the son of
Mary formerly taught mankind. Soon doubtless the gospel of rea-
son and liberty will be the gospel of the universe. Belief in the
Divinity is implanted in every mind ; the people connect it with the
religion they have hitherto professed; and to attack this belief would
be to attack the morality of the nation. But remember that our
revolution is based upon justice, and every thing which tends to
weaken morality is anti-revolutionary. Remember how careful
ancient lawgivers were to preserve this element of morality. Let us
throw no fresh element of discord among the people by making
them believe we attack religion in attacking priests. Do not say
that is not a question as to whether we shall abolish this religion but
only of not paying it, for those who believe in it, think that not
to pay ^or it, or to suffer it to perish, is the same thing. Besides, do
you not perceive that by leaving each man to find a religion for him-
self, you kindle the signal of discord in every town and every village?
Some would wish for a religion, others would wish for none, and
would thus become mutual objects of contempt and hatred."
It was well for the infidel journalists of that period to
accuse Robespierre of inconsistency and cowardice; but
Lamartine should not have called this " masking his
weakness under a sophism." It was well for the Girondists
to affect a pity for Robespierre's superstition; it served
their turn to accuse him of aspiring to be the pontiff of a
new religion.
" It is asked," said they, " why there are so many females at Robes-
pierre's house, at the tribune of the Jacobins, at the Cordeliers, at the
Convention ? The reason is, the French revolution is a religion, and
Robespierre hopes to make a sect. He is a kind of priest who has
his devotees, his Marys, and his Magdalens. All his power is in a
distaff. Robespierre preaches, Robespierre censures ; he is furious,
grave, melancholy ; he thunders against the rich and great. He
lives on a trifle. He has but one mission — to speak, and he talks
unceasingly. He has all the characteristics of a founder of religion.
He has a reputation for sanctity. He talks of God and Providence
and calls himself the support of the poor and oppressed ; he is,
followed by women and men of weak intellect. Robespierre is a
priest, and will never be anything else."
To the same effect we read a passage in Vilate's " Mys-
teres de Dieu Devoiles." On the occasion of Robespierre's
THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE. 271
defence, he says: " The galleries were filled with women
who applauded him with transports of devotional fervor.
At the conclusion of the seance I metRabaut de St. Etienne,
who exclaimed, ' What a man is that Robespierre with
all those women ! He is a priest who wishes to become a
god !' " Rabaut then agreed with Manuel that they
should write an article against Robespierre in La Ckromqiie,
in which he should be painted as a priest — a designation
then thought equivalent to that of charlatan !
272 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CAPTIVE KING — KOBESPIERRE DEMANDS THAT THE KING BE TRIED
-—THE TRIAL — THE EXECUTION — ROBESPIERRE's REFLECTIONS ON
THIS DEED — HIS SELF-GLORIFICATION — VERSES AGAINST HIM.
From neigKbouring windows curious spectators miglit
see, not without a touch of pity, at a certain hour Louis
Capet, the dethroned king, taking his daily walk in the
Temple Garden, w^ith his queen, his sister, and his two
children. " Imprisoned in that temple, he has heard
strange • things ; the yells of September massacres; the
distant war-thunders of Brunswick, dying off in disaster
and discomfiture. Quietly he walks and waits, that irre-
solute man; his daily meals, his lessons to his son, his daily
walk in the garden, his daily game at ombre, or draughts,
fill up the day. Outside the walls there is famine, and an
infuriated people lay the scarcity of grain upon his head ;
outside the walls there is distracted agitation, and the
excited people attribute all their agitation to him. Poor
discrowned king, he is looked upon as the source of all
the evils which fill France with dismay ; and France loudly
demands that he be tried. The trial of Charles I. of Eng-
land is printed, sold, and read everywhere; an " example
how the people judge a tyrant^, and become the first of
free people, which France thinks it would be well if she
were to imitate." And Robespierre demands, that the last
THE LIFE OF EOBESPIERRE. 273
tyrant of France, the rallying point of all conspirators, the
cause of all the troubles of the republic, should be promptly
sentenced.
Gamain, the locksmith, who had worked for the King,
and had constructed in the wall of a dark passage leading
to his cabinet a secret closet, revealed the existence of
that closet, where the king's secret papers were concealed.
These papers, except the treaty of the Court with Mirabeau
and others, were for the most part little but vague plans for
the king's escape, and the resumption of his power. They
were enough, however, to condemn him. Indeed he would
have been condemned without them ; so we may say no more
of that matter. Robespierre's speech, demanding that the
king should be tried, is remarkable for its frankness, no less
than for its vehemence.
" You wander from the question," he said ; " there is no proces
here! Louis is not an accused, nor are you judges. You have
no sentence to pass, but a measure of pnbHc safety — an act of
national providence to exercise. ( Ajjplause.) What is the conduct
prescribed by sound pohcy to cement therepubhc? It is to engrave
deeply into all hearts a contempt for royalty, and to strike terror
into the partisans of the King. To place his crime before the world as
a problem, his cause as the object of the most imposing discussion that
ever existed, to place an immeasurable space between the memory of
what he was and the title of a citizen, is the very way to make him
most dangerous to liberty. Louis X VL was king, and the republic is
established. The question is solved by this single fact. Louis is
dethroned by his crimes, he conspired against the republic ; either
he is condemned, or the republic is not acquitted. (Applause.)
To propose the trial of Louis XVL is to question the revolution.
If he may be tried, he may be acquitted ; if he may be acquitted, he
may be innocent. But, if he be innocent, what becomes of the re-
volution ? If he be innocent, what are we but his calumniators !
The coalition is just; his imprisonment is a crime; all the patriots
are guilty ; and the great cause which for so many centuries has
been deijated between Crime and Virtue, between Liberty and
Tyranny, is finally decided in favour of Crime and Despotism !
•' Citizens, beware! you are misled by false notions. Tlie majestic
movements of a great people, the sublime impulses of virtue, present
themselves as the eruption of a volcano, and as the overthrow of poli-
tical society. When a nation is forced to recur to the right of insurrec-
274 THE LIFE OF EOBESPIERRE.
tion, it returns to its original state. How can the tyrant appeal to
the social compact? He has destroyed it ! What laws replace it?
Those of nature: the people's safety. The right to punish tiie
tyrant or to dethrone him is the same thing. Insurrection is the trial
of the tyrant — his sentence is his fall from power ; his punishment
is exacted by the liberty of the people. The people dart their
thunderbolts, that is, their sentence : they do not condemn kings,
they suppress them — thrust them back again into nothingness.
In what republic was the right of punishing a tyrant ever deemed a
question? Was Tarquin tried? What would have been said in
Rome if any one had undertaken his defence? Yet we demand
advocates for Louis! They hope to gain the cause ; otherwise we
are only acting an absurd farce in the face of Europe. (Apjilause.)
And we dare to talk of a republic ! Ah ! we are so pitiful for op-
pressors because we are pitiless towards the oppressed !
" Two months since, and who would have imagined there could
be a question here of the inviolability of Kings ? Yet to-day a mem-
ber of the National Convention, citizen Petion, brings the question
before you as though it were one for serious deliberation ! O crime!
shame! Tiie tribune of the French people has echoed the pane-
gyric of Louis XVI. Louis combats us from the depths of his
prison, and you ask if he be guilty, and if he may be treated as an
enemy? Will you allow the Constitution to be invoked in his
favour? If so, the Constitution condemns you ; it forbids you to
overturn it. Go then to the feet of the tyrant, and implore his
pardon and clemency.
" But there is another difficulty — to what punishment shall we con-
demn bin? The punishment of death is too cruel, says one. No,
says another, life is more cruel still, and we must condemn him to
live. Advocates! is it from pity or from cruelty, you wish to annul
the punishment of crimes? For myself I abhor the penalii/ of
death ; I neither love nor hate Louis ; I hate nothing but his crimes.
1 demanded the abolition of capital punishment in the Constituent
Assembly, and it is not my fault if the first principles of reason have
appeared moral and judicial heresies. But you who never thought
this mercy should be exercised in favour of those whose offences are
pardonable, by what fatality are you reminded of your humanity,
to plead the cause of the greatest of criminals. You ask an excep-
tion from the punishment of death for him who alone could render it
legitimate ! A dethroned king in the very heart of a republic not yet
cemented! A king whose very name draws foreign wars on the
nation ! Neither prison nor exile can make his an innocent ex-
istence. It is with regret I pronounce the fatal truth : Louis must
perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens ! Louis must
perish because our country must live !"
The doctrine liere put forth with respect to the right of
insurrection, is that used to justify our own revolution.
THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE. 275
There are times, indeed, when it would seem as if there
were a law above all law : Gordian knots in human history
which can only be cut with a sword, for human reason
fails to unravel them. The executions of Charles I. and
of Louis XVI. can be justified by no law; they were, at
the best, only terrible expediencies. Clemency, no less than
political philosophy, teaches us that it was a mistaken act
— that having dethroned the king they were only staining
their cause with needless blood by executing him ; but in
times of revolution, men are not so calm ; their fears get
the better of their reason; and nothing is so cruel as
cowardice.
On Tuesday, the 11th of December, through drizzling
rain, the king is carried to the Convention Hall. The pro-
cession wends on in silence, or amid growlings of the
Marseillaise hymn; and Santerre, holding Louis's arm with
his hand, leads him before the Convention. The King looks
round with a composed air to see what kind of convention
and parliament it is. '' Strange sight for those royal eyes!
It is but two years since the Constituent Assembly spread
fleur-de-lis velvet for him when he came over to speak
kindly to them, and they all started up swearing fidelity ;
all France started up swearing, and made a glorious feast
of pikes."
And Louis's trial begins. The accusation consists of
fifty-seven questions, the substance of which, says Carlyle,
is this: — " Louis, who wert king, art thou not guilty to a
certain extent, by act and written documents, of trying
to continue king?" To every question he replies with
clearness and precision ; denying some of the alleged
crimes; shoAving that others were the work of his ministers;
and justifying all by the powers conferred on him by the
T 2
276 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
constitution. After three liours, Barrere says, " Louis, I
invite you to withdraw."
On the 26th of December, he was tried. After
hearing his defence, a stormy discussion arose in the
Assembly.
It was all in vain. The appeal to the people was re-
jected by a majority of 423 to 281; and the question then
arose as to what punishment should be inflicted.
"Long night," says Carlyle, "wears itself into day,
morning's paleness is spread over all faces; and again the
wintry shadows sink, and the dim lamps are lit : but,
through day and night and the vicissitudes of hours,
member after member is mounting continually those
tribune-steps ; pausing aloft there, in the clearer upper
light, to speak his fate-word ; then diving down into the
dusk and throng again. Like phantoms in the hour of
midnight; most spectral, pandemonical ! Never did Pre-
sident Vergniaud, or any terrestrial president, superintend
the like. A king's life, and so much else that depends
thereon, hangs trembling in the balance. Man after man
mounts ; the buzz hushes itself till he have spoken :
Death ; banishment; imprisonment till the peace. Many
say, death ; with what cautious well-studied phrases and
paragraphs they could devise of explanation, of enforce-
ment, of faint recommendation to mercy. Many, too,
say, banishment; something short of death. The balance
trembles, none can yet guess whitherward. Whereat
anxious patriotism bellows, irrepressible by ushers."
Robespierre ascends the tribune and says:
'* I do not like long discourses upon obvious questions;
they are a sinister presage for liberty; and they cannot
supply the place of love of truth and patriotism, which
render them superfluous. I cannot flatter myself that I
THE LIFE OF EOBESPIEKRE. 277
understand the subtle distinctions, imagined for the sake
of ehiding the consequences of a recognised principle. All
that I know is, that we arc the representatives of the
people, sent here to cement public liberty by the condem-
nation of a tyrant; and that suffices me.
"I know not how to outrage reason and justice, by
regarding the life of a despot as more valuable than that
of tlie simplest citizen ; nor in torturing my mind to shield
great culprits from that pj,inishment of the law, which has
already been inflicted upon their accomplices. I am
inflexible for oppressors, because I compassionate the op-
pressed. I do not understand that humanity which
slaughters people, and which pardons despots. The senti-
ment which has made me vainly demand from the Con-
stituent Assembly the abolition of the punishment of
death, is the same which forces me to-day to demand that
it should be applied to the tyrant of my country, and to
royalty itself in his person. I cannot predict or imagine
future or unknown tyrants, to dispense with my striking
the one whom I have declared convicted. I vote for
death." Others followed him ; death, with or without
conditions, was on most of their tongues. It was a fearful
spectacle, and yet, as Carlyle says,
*' If the reader fancy it of a funereal, sorrowful, or even
grave character, he is far mistaken: 'the ushers in the
Mountain quarter,' says Mercier, *had become as box-
keepers at the Opera;' opening and shutting of galleries
for privileged persons, for ' D'Orleans Egalite's mistresses,'
or other high-dizened women of condition, rusthng with
laces and tricolor. Gallant deputies pass and repass thi-
therward, treating them with ices, refreshments, and
small-talk ; the high-dizened heads beck responsive ; some
278 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
have tlieir card and pin, pricking down the ayes and noes,
as at a game of rouge-et-noir. Further aloft reigns Mere
Duchesne, with her unrouged Amazons; she cannot be
prevented making long liahas, when the vote is not La
Mort. In these galleries there is refection, drinking of
wine and brandy, ' as in open tavern, en pleine tahagie.^
Betting goes on in all coffee-houses of the neighbourhood.
But, within doors, fatigue, impatience, uttermost weari-
ness sits now on all visages ; lighted up only from time to
time by turns of the game. Members have fallen asleep ;
ushers come and awaken them to vote. Other members
calculate whether they shall not have time to run and
dine. Figures rise, like phantoms, pale in the dusky
lamp-light, utter from this tribune only one word: Death.
* Tout est ojptique^ says Mercier, ' the world is all an
optical shadow.' Deep in the Thursday night, when the
voting is done, and secretaries are summing it up, sick
Duchatel, more spectral than another, comes borne on a
chair, wrapt in blankets, in ^ night-gown and night-cap,' to
vote for mercy : one vote it is thought may turn the
scale.
" Ah, no ! In profoundest silence. President Vergniaud,
with a voice full of sorrow, has to say : ^ I declare, in
the name of the Convention, that the punishment it pro-
nounces on Louis Capet is that of death.' Death, by a
small majority of fifty- three. Nay, if we deduct from
the one side, and add to the other, a certain twenty-six,
who said death, but coupled some faintest ineffectual
surmise of mercy with it, the majority will be but one.
" To this conclusion hast thou come, oh hapless Louis !
The son of sixty kings is to die on the scaffold by form of
law."
THE LIFE OF KOBESPIERRE. 279
Royalty is not only abolished, but tbe symbol of royalty,
in the person of this unhappy Louis, is also to be abo-
lished.
It is Monday, the 21st of January, ]793. In the
Tower, through the iron bars, the day begins to dawn;
there is heard the noise of drums beating in all quarters,
the trampling of gendarmes' horses, and the rolling of
wheels of cannon and tumbrils arriving at their stations.
The poor King, calm and resigned, listens to these sounds
with indifference. He yesterday took leave of his family,
promising to see them to-day, but he spares them the
anguish of parting. At eight o'clock the municipals
enter. The King gives them his will, and prepares to
depart. The carriage awaits him at the entrance of
the second court ; two gendarmes stand by the steps;
one of these mounts first, and seats himself in front, the
King gets in, followed by his confessor, the second gen-
darme then enters, fastens the door, and the vehicle moves
on. Sixty drums are beating at the heads of the horses;
a moving army, consisting of national guards, troops of
the line, cavalry, and artillery, march before, behind,
and on each side of the carriage. An order of the day
has forbidden any citizens, not forming a portion of the
armed militia, to cross the streets which lead to the
Boulevards, or to show themselves at the windows on the
line of the procession. The very markets are empty.
The weather is foggy and chilly. Under a lowering sky in
the Place de la Revolution, there is a forest of bayonets
and pikes; at intervals, this double row of steel is re-
inforced by the detachments of infantry from the camp
around Paris, with their knapsacks on their backs ; cannon
loaded with grape, the matches lighted, guard the main
280 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
streets on tlic line of road ; a fearful stillness reigns over
the city ; no man even utters his thoughts to his neighbour ;
the King leans back in the carriage, and is scarcely per-
ceived; he is talking to the Abbe Edgeworth, or seeking
in the Psalms such passages as are peculiarly suited to his
situation. The priest prays beside him. At the Temple
gate are heard some faint cries, perhaps from voices of
pitiful women, exclaiming " Grace ! grace !" but for the
rest, all is silent. As the clock strikes ten, they reach the
Place de la Revolution, once called Place de Louis Quinze;
there stands the guillotine. The terraces of the Tuileries,
the parapets on the borders of the river, the roofs of the
houses in the Rue Royale, even the leafless branches of
the trees in the Champs Etysees, are filled with the
countless multitude. The King descends from his carriage,
and enjoining those around him to take care of the Abbe
Edgeworth, he mounts the scaffold, though with some
hesitation. He is dressed in a puce coat, gray breeches,
and white stockings; his hair turned up beneath his hat.
He strips off his coat, and the executioners approach to
bind him. " Bind me!" he indignantly replies, " no, no,
I will never consent. Do your business, but you shall
not bind me; don't think of such a thing." The execu-
tioners insisting, raise their voices,' and call for help.
A personal struggle is about to sully the victim at the foot
of the scaffold, when the Abbe Edgeworth says to him,
" Sire, submit to this insult as the last trait of resemblance
between yourself and the God who is about to recompense
you."
The King raises his eyes to heaven, with an expression
of resignation. " There needed nothing less than such an
example to make me submit to such an indignity." Then
turning round he extends his arms towards the executioners,
THE LIFE OF KOBESPIERRE. 281
' • Do as you will, I will drink the cup to the dregs."
Turning towards the palace, where the greatest number of
the populace could see and hear him, ^'People," he exclaims,