them. Fanatics, hope nothing from us ! To recall men to ttie pure
worship of the Supreme Being is to give a mortal blow to fanaticism.
All fiction disappears before truth, and every folly falls before reason.
Without constraint, without persecution,every sect ought to amalga-
mateitselfwiththe universal religion of nature. (Applause.) Ambitious
priests, do not expect then that we shall re-establish your empire !
Such an enterprise would be even above our power. (Applause.) You
have destroyed yourselves. And, besides, what is there in common, be-
tween the priests and God ! How different is the God of nature from
the God of priests. (Continued applause.) I know of nothing so re-
sembling atheism as the religions they have made. They have so
disfigured the Supreme Being that they have done their best to
destroy the idea ; they have made him sometimes a globe of fire,
sometimes an ox, sometimes a tree, sometimes a man, and sometimes
a king. Priests created a God in their own image, — they made
him jealous, capricious, covetous, cruel, and implacable. They have
treated him as tlie mayors of the palace treated the descendants of
Clovis, to reign in his name, and to put themselves in his place ;
they have exiled him to heaven, and have only called him upon
earth, to serve him in their demand for wealth, honours, pleasures,
and power. (Loud applause.) The true priest of the Supreme
Being is Nature ; His temple the universe ; His religion virtue ;
Ji'is fetes the joy of a great people assembled under his eyes, to draw
closer the sweet bonds of universal fraternity, and to present to him
the homage of pure and sensitive hearts.
" Let us leave the priests and return to the Divinity. {Applause.)
Let us establish morality upon an eternal and sacred basis ; let us
inspire in man that religious respect for man — that profound sen-
timent of his duties, which is the sole guarantee of social hap-
piness.
*' Woe on him who seeks to extinguish this sublime enthusiasm,
and to stifle by desolating doctrines this moral instinct of the people,
which is the principle of all great actions! It belongs to you, re-
presentatives of the people, to cause the truths we have developed
to triumph. Brave the wild clamour of presumptuous ignorance,
of hypocritical perversity ! Will posterity believe that "the van-
quished factions carried their audacity so far as to accuse us of
moderation and of aristocracy because we recalled the ideas of the
Divinity and morality ? Will it believe that in this hall it was
said that we had thus thrown human reason back several centuries?
Let us not be siirprised if all the wretches combined against us
prepare hemlock for us, but before we drink it, let us save the coun-
try. (Applause.) The vessel which bears the fortune of the re-
'^.v
THE LIFE OP ROBESPIERRE. ^ 337
\ ^
public is not destined to be wrecked; she sails under your auft^ices,
and the storm itself will be compelled to respect her. {Jpp/auifR^'^^
" The enemies of the Republic are all corrupt men. (/ipplause':-)^
The patriot is in every sense an honest and magnanimous man.
(Applause.) It is little to annihilate kings : we must make every
nation respect the character of the French people. It is use-
less to bear to the end of the universe the renown of our arms, if
every passion tears with impunity the bosom of our own country.
Let us beware of the intoxication of success! Let us be terrible
in reverses, modest in triumph (applause), and let us secure peace
and happiness by wisdom and morality. That is the true aim of our
labours— that our heroic and difficult task. We believe we shall
achieve this aim by proposing the following decree : —
" Art. 1st. The French people recognise the existence of the
Supreme Being, and the immortality of the soul.
" Art. 2nd. They acknowledge that the worship worthy of the
Supreme Being is one of the duties of man."
All France resounded witli his praises. Petitions flowed
in from the departments urging him to continue in that
high moral strain, and the Republic would be saved. The
most immoral of the revolutionists adopted probity and
virtue as watch-words ; but in the midst of all the applause
which his discourses excited, Robespierre could easily
discover that the majority of the Convention was decidedly
hostile to his dogmas — that they only thought they were
fulfilUng a simple formality in decreeing his propositions ;
and while they applauded all the violent accusations against
priests, superstitions, fanaticism, and hypocrisy, they listen-
ed with incredulity and silence to the enunciation of his
religious views.*
Charlotte Corday now found her imitator. In the second
* I have often paused to make comparisons between the Revolution
and that which is going on in France at the time I write this ; and I
may therefore throw into a note the following paragraph : —
" At Rodez, the chief town of the department of Aveiron, there is
a club of women, and the first question discussed in it Avas on the
existence of God. Tiie debate was very animated, and the two parties
were so nearly equal that a solution was for a long time in suspense.
It was finally decided in favour of the existence of a God, by a majo-
rity of twelve votes." — Daihj News, 10th June, 1848.
Z
338 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
article of tlie Declaration of Rights, these words occur:
"The tyrant of a country may be put to death by a
free man." Men, who called themselves free had put to
death the King they called a tyrant, but it is surprising
how few attempts were made to assassinate the tyrants of
the Convention. Marat had fallen, yet no one had imi-
tated Charlotte Corday until now.
Curiously enough, two distinct attempts at assassination
were made in one day. The first was by a man called
Ladmiral, who came to Paris with the intention of killing
Robespierre. It so happened, that he lodged in the same
house with Collot d'Herbois. He laid in wait for Robespierre
several days in vain. At length, wearied with seeking
him, he deemed that fate had pointed out another, and
one night, meeting Collot d'Herbois on the stairs, he
snapped a pistol at him. It flashed in the pan. He snapped
a second ; it hung fire. The ball passed close by CoUot's
head. Collot grappHng with the assassin, both rolled down
the stairs. The report of the pistol alarmed the house.
Ladmiral shut himself in his room, and threatened to fire
on the first man who approached him. A locksmith
ventured and was instantly shot, but Ladmiral after a
a desperate struggle, was seized and brought before Fou-
quier Tinville. There he declared he sought to deliver
his country from a tyrant.
At the very same moment a young girl of seventeen
went to Robespierre's house, and asked to see him. Her
youth and innocent appearance lulled all suspicion, and
she was shown into the ante-room. There she remained
some time, till her pertinacity exciting attention, she was
told to withdraw. She declined. " A public man," she
said, " should be accessible to all who wished to see him."
A guard was called in; she was searched. They found in
THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE. 339
her basket some clothes and two small knives. She
was carried before the Tribunal of the Rue des Piques,
and there examined. " What was the object of your
visit to Robespierre?" " I wanted/' she replied, " to
see what a tyrant was like."
Her name was Cecile Renault. She was the daughter
of a paper- maker. On being asked why she provided
herself with the clothes, she said, " Because I expected
to be sent to prison." " Explain the presence of the two
knives? Did you intend to stab Robespierre?" " No, I
never wished to hurt any one in my life?" " What made
you wish to see Robespierre?" " To satisfy myself if he
was hke the man I had imagined." " Why are you a
Royalist?" " Because I prefer one king to sixty tyrants.'^
The news of these two attempts caused great fury
against the Royalists, and increased the idolatry for Robes-
pierre.
At the sitting of the Convention on the next day,
Barcre exaggerated the dangers. He accused Mr. Pitt,
(of course the gold of Pitt !) of having instigated Lad-
miral and Cecile. Robespierre also spoke in the same
strain.
The 8th of June arrived. It was the day fixed
for the festival de VEtre Supreme. Robespierre had
awaited it with feverish impatience; for of all missions,
the highest and most holy in his eyes was the regeneration
of the religious sentiment of the people. His private
friends were surprised at his unusual serenity. As he
wandered with them in the garden of Mosseaux, his
heart beat with joy, and he talked of nothing but the
8th of June, when he hoped to close the Terror and to
open the era of fraternity and clemency. The fete had
been organised imder the directions of the painter David
z2
340 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
and Cuvellier, a well known writer of pantomimes and
spectacles ; of course, under tlie direction of Robespierre
himself, who was anxious that this ceremony should be
very impressive. " But why," said he to Souberville on
the previous evening, *' why must there be one scaf-
fold left in France? Life alone ought to-morrow to
appear before the source of all life," and he insisted that
punishments should be suspended on that day.
Barere and Collot D'Herbois had agreed to breakfast
with Vilate. On calKng, they found him out. He en-
countered them in the street, in company with Prieur
and Carnot, who wanted him to breakfast with him at a
restaurant. " I quitted them," says Vilate, '* and in pass-
ing through the Salle de la Liberte I met Robespierre,
attired in the costume of a Representative, holding in his
Land a bouquet of flowers. For the first time his face
was lit up with joy. He had not breakfasted. With a
heart full of the sentiment which this superb day inspired,
I invited him to come home with me and breakfast. He
accepted without hesitation. He was astonished at the
immense concourse of people which crowded in the gar-
dens of the Tuileries, hope and gaiety beaming upon
every face; the women all in their gayest dresses. He
scarcely ate anything. His eyes w^andered constantly
towards this magnificent spectacle, and he seemed plunged
in the intoxication of enthusiasm. ' Behold,' said he,
* the most interesting portion of humanity ! the Universe
is here collected together. Oh, Nature ! how sublime and
delicious is thy power ! How tyrants ought to turn pale
at the idea of this fete !' That was all he said."
The Convention, as an honour, nominated Robespierre
their president, in order that the author of the decree
might also be the principal actor therein. As he rose to
THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE. 341
place himself at the head of the procession which was
already moving, a young woman residing at Vilate's house
entered with a child in her arms. The name of Robes-
pierre at first frightened the stranger^ but he, re-assuring
her, began playing with the child; the young mother
playfully obtained from him his bouquet.
It was past twelve o'clock, and Robespierre forgot that
he was keeping his colleagues w^aiting. They murmured
at his delay; he enjoyed it as a proof of their inferiority.
The day was magnificent; the sky of an eastern purity.
Robespierre attired in a coat of pale blue, a white waist-
coat, yellow leather breeches, top boots, and a round hat,
wutli a quantity of tri-color ribbons in it, fixed uni-
versal attention. In his hand was an enormous bouquet
of flowers and wheat-ears. Garlands of oak foliage, and
wheat-s]ieaves,were hung from every window, and thrown
across the street on the ropes of the night lamps.
Paris on that day was a splendid spectacle. An im-
mense amphitheatre, resembling an ancient circus, was
erected behind the Tuileries. In the centre of this amphi-
theatre an elevated tribune, somewhat resembling a throne,
was reserved for Robespierre. In front of this was a colos-
sal group of figures, representing Atheism, Selfishness,
Annihilation, Crime, and Vice. These were formed out
of combustible materials, and were to be set on fire as a
sacrifice. The idea of a god was to reduce them to ashes.
All the deputies, uniformly dressed in blue coats with red
facings, each carrying a symbolical bouquet, slowly seated
themselves on the steps. Robespierre appeared with the
air of a master; imperial acclamations hailed him. The
multitude was eager to hear him. Some expected an
amnesty, others the organisation of a powerful and merci-
342 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
ful government. The minds of all were greatly agitated.
Strangers embraced each other.
" Frenchmen, republicans !" said Robespierre ; " at length the
happy day has arrived, which the French people consecrate to
the Supreme Being! Never did the world offer to its author a
spectacle so worthy of his contemplation. He has seen tyranny,
crime, imposture on the throne. He sees at this moment a whole
nation fighting against all the oppressors of the human race,
suspending the course of their heroic labours, to raise up their
thoughts and vows to the Great Being who gave them this mission,
and gave them the force to execute it !
" He did not create kings to oppress the human race ; he did
not create priests to yoke us like vile animals to the car of kings,
and present an example of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice, de-
bauchery, and falsehood : but he created the universe to make
known his power ; he created men to aid and love each other, and
to attain happiness by the path of virtue.
" It is He who places remorse in the bosom of the triumphant
oppressor, and calm pride in the heart of oppressed innocence;
it is He who forces the just man to hate the wicked, and the
wicked man to respect the just; it is He who adorns with
modesty the brow of beauty to embellish it the more; it is He
who makes mothers' hearts to throb with tenderness and joy; it
is He who bathes with delicious tears the eyes of the child pressed
to its mother's bosom ; it is He who makes sublime patriotism
superior to the most energetic and tenderest passions ; it is He who
has covered nature with charms, wealth, and majesty. All that is
good is His work, — evil belongs to depraved man, who oppresses or
allows his fellow-creatures to be oppressed.
"The Author of Nature had bound all mortals together by a
vast chain of love and felicity : perish the tyrants who have dared to
break it !
" Being of Beings! we address to thee no unjust prayers. Thou
knowest the creatures sent forth from thy hands ; their wants do not
escape thine eyes, neither do their most secret thoughts. The
hatred of hypocrisy and tyranny burns in our hearts with the love
of justice and our country. Our blood flows for the cause of
humanity ! This is our prayer — this is our sacrifice — this the wor-
ship we offer unto thee !"
Strains of music than filled the air, and thousands of
voices sang the hymn composed by Chenier.
I.
THE MEN.
" Dieu puissant, d'un peuple intrepide,
C'est toi qui defends les remparts ;
THE LIFE OF EOBESPIERRE. 343
La victoire a, d'un vol rapide,
Accompagne nos etendards.
Les Alpes et les Pyrenees,
Des rois ont vu tomber I'orgueil ;
Au nord nos champs sont le cerceuil
De leurs phalanges consternies.
Chorus.
Avant de deposer nos glaives triomphans,
Jurons d' aneantir le crime et les tyrans.
II.
THE WOMEN.
Entend les vierges et les meres,
Auteur de la fecondite !
Nos epoux, nos enfans, nos frbres
Combattent pour la liberty ;
Et si quelque main criminelle
Terminait des destins si beaux,
Leurs fils viendront sur ses tombeaux
Venger la cendre paternelle.
Chorus.
Avant de deposer nos glaives triomphans,
Jurez d' aneantir le crime et les tyrans.
MEN AND WOMEN TOGETHER.
Guerriers, ofFrez votre courage;
Jeunesfilles, offrez des fleurs ;
Mferes, viellards, pour votre hommage
OfFrez vos fils triomphateurs ;
B^nissez, dans ce jour de gloire,
Le fer consacre par leurs mains :
Sur ce fer, vengeur des humains,
L' Eternel grava la victoire.
Chorus.
Avant de deposer nos glaives triomphans,
urons / jj'aj^^jjjjtjr jg crime et les tyrans.'*
Jurez ) •'
During this chorus, the women flung their flowers up
into the air ; the young men drew their swords, and swore
to render their arms everywhere victorious ; the old men
placed their hands upon their heads, giving a paternal
benediction.
344 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIEERE.
Robespierre descending from tlie tribune set fire to the
group of Atheism, amidst tlie acclamations of the multi-
tude. Then the members of the Convention, following
him at some distance, advanced in two columns, towards
the Champ de Mars. Between these two columns were
rustic cars, ploughs drawn by bullocks, and symbols of
agriculture, the trades, and the arts. A group of girls
clothed in white, attached to each other by tri-coloured
ribbons, accompanied the Convention. Robespierre, wdth
elated looks, on his lips an ineffable smile of security and
enthusiasm, frequently turned round, in order to measure
the distance left between himself and his colleagues ; as
if to accustom the people to separate him from them by
respect, as he separated himself from them by distance.
In the centre of the Champ de Mars, a symbolic eminence
was raised on the spot of the ancient altar of the country.
Robespierre, with Couthon, Saint Just, and Lebas, (all his
friends), were on the summit. The rest of the Conven-
tion were spread about at the sides.
From this elevation, amidst salvos of artillery, he
proclaimed the Profession of Faith of the French People,
The people were intoxicated, the Convention sullen. The
enthusiasm of the people only rankled in the bosoms of
the Convention. They saw Robespierre growing into the
worst of dictators — a religious dictator. He noticed their
sinister looks and menacing gestures, and overheard some
of the significant phrases which escaped them. " There
is but one step from the Capitol to the Tarpeian rock,"
exclaimed one. '^ Brutus still lives," murmured another.
" Behold that man," said a third ; "he wishes to accustom
the people to adore some one in order that they may learn
to adore him by and by." " He has invented a God
THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE. 345
because God is the supreme tyrant," said a fourth. " He
wishes to be the high priest. Let him take care he is
not the victim I"
This day indeed, so glorious for Robespierre, ruined him
with the Convention. He felt it, and returned pensive to
his habitation. He was there all day besieged by anony-
mous congratulations. Protracted shouts beneath his
window thanked him for having '* restored a soul to the
people, and a god to the Republic.'" Several notes con-
tained only the word, '* Dare !"
Such was the Fete de VEtre Supreme : to France, a day
of hope and great rejoicing — a grand and imposing spec-
tacle ; to us, one of the most colossal pieces of buffoonery
written in the annals of human folly. The idea of any
man, or body of men, solemnly decreeing the existence
of a God, and that *' consolatory idea" of the immortality
of tlie soul, is too much for our gravity. Yet it was
taken very seriously by the French, and the Journal of
the Mountain speaks of it in these terms: — " This fete,
so imposing in its object, was celebrated with a simple and
majestic pomp, truly worthy of the Eternal Author of
Nature."
There can be no doubt of Robespierre's seriousness.
There can be no doubt of the people's seriousness. Even
Charles Nodier, writing many years afterwards, and
writing from his recollections, speaks of it as a most im-
posing solemnity. All one can say is, that it was intensely
French. For can we without a smile read a plan of the
fete, which was proposed by David, and decreed by the
Convention, in which the whole thing was laid out before-
hand ; tears, enthusiasm, and shouts of joy included.
*' Whilst the infant presses its mother's breast, of which he
346 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIEREE.
is tlie most beautiful ornament," says the prospective re-
port, '' the son with vigorous arm seizes his sword ; he
will only receive the sword-belt from the hands of his
father. The old man, smiling with pleasure, his eyes
moist with tears of joy, feels his spirit become young
again in presenting the sword to the defender of liberty."
And of course the old man was obliged to fulfil this pro-
gramme ; he was obliged to shed tears of joy. A com-
mand was laid upon his sensibility ; his patriotism was
engaged for that performance. On the stage actors sob
with very dry eyes ; a cambric handkerchief and two
hands covering the countenance, suffice for the most heart-
breaking distress. Let us hope in this gigantic farce
planned by the Convention theatrical expedients w^ere
permitted, and that those who could not exhibit eyes moist
with patriotic tears were allowed to cover their eyes with
patriotic hands !
In the same programme we see how the people are to
fill the streets and public places, joy and fraternity in-
flaming their souls; and it is arranged, that the people,
like a true chorus of opera-singers, *' at certain intervals
shall make the air resound with cries of j oy ; they shall
embrace, and when they see Atheism in flames, tears of
delight and gratitude shall flow from all their eyes." It
is also arranged that there shall be numberless mothers
with infants at the breast, in order that, at a given signal,
they may press them more tenderly to those breasts, as a
homage to the author of Nature. In this way is the fete
arranged ; in this theatrical way is it carried out : and
yet, amidst all this buflbonery, this calculated sensibility,
this well-rehearsed enthusiasm, there was a real serious-
ness, and an intense excitement pervading the whole
THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE. 347
ceremony. Such is the Frenchman's nature ; he is thea-
trical when he is serious, and he is serious even in his thea-
tricaUty.
Robespierre had gained the people ; he had gained the
dictatorship, if he had had the courage to take it. But
he had also bitterly estranged from him the greater part
of the Convention, who groaned over the approaching
tyranny of a man who so obviously despised them ; and
Billaud Varennes, in his brutal way, said to Robespierre,
^^ Avec ton Etre Supreme i tu commences a rriembker-. —
With your Supreme Being you begin infernally to bore
me.
Saint Just endeavoured to make Robespierre accept the
dictatorship. Finding he could not prevail upon him, he
tried to make the Committee of Public Safety decree
it: but at the word Dictator every visage was over-
shadowed ; no one dared dispute the genius and virtue of
Robespierre, but the idea of a dictator made the Com-
mittee tremble. Of course, Saint Just's proposition was
imputed to Robespierre as a crime. *' These men," said
Billaud, " do not beg the supreme power, they assume it.
Let them seize it if they dare." On the day after the
festival of the Supreme Being, the Convention, at the in-
stigation of Robespierre and his adherents, passed a num-
ber of decrees imbued with the better spirit of the revo-
lution. The people began to hope that they had at last
obtained the true principle of democracy. The scaffold
alone still threw its shadow over all their hopes ; the scaffold
still stood before them, darkening the bright future.
Robespierre secretly entertained hopes of abolishing it.
Napoleon has told us that he had seen letters from Robes-
pierre to his younger brother, in which his resolution was
announced of abolishing terror, and commencing the reign
34:8 THE LIFE OF ROBESPIERRE.
of peace. Unliappily Robespierre liad not courage, as I
have said before, but only spasms of audacity. He could
not calmly dare, he could only act spasmodically. He was
terrible because he was weak, and his only notion of abo-
lishing terror was by inspiring still greater terror !
Warned by the murmurs which he had heard around
him at the Festival of the Supreme Being — warned by
Saint Just and Lebas of the hatred of the committees, he
resolved to astonish his rivals by his audacity, and outstrip
them by his rapidity.
On the twenty-second Prairial, only two days after the
festival, he suddenly proposed to the Convention a decree
for the re- organisation of the revolutionary tribunal. This
terrible project had only been partly communicated to the
Committee. It was a code of arbitrary power; its instru-
ment was the guillotine ; the dictatorship not of a man
but of the scaffold.
I He was wearied of the Terrorists. He had used them
^s his instruments to destroy obstacles on his path, and
now wished to destroy them. Those who defend Robes-
pierre should not overlook this. The man who had acted