THE CATACLYSM
§1
Forty names! Found on a list in the pocket of Robespierre's coat!
Forty names! And every one of these that of a known opponent of
Robespierre's schemes of dictatorship: Tallien, Barrère, Vadier,
Cambon, and the rest. Men powerful to-day, prominent Members of the
Convention, leaders of the people, too--but opponents!
The inference was obvious, the panic general. That night--it was the 8th
Thermidor, July the 26th of the old calendar--men talked of flight, of
abject surrender, of appeal--save the mark!--to friendship, camaraderie,
humanity! Friendship, camaraderie, humanity? An appeal to a heart of
stone! They talked of everything, in fact, save of defying the tyrant;
for such talk would have been folly.
Defying the tyrant? Ye gods! When with a word he could sway the
Convention, the Committees, the multitude, bend them to his will, bring
them to heel like any tamer of beasts when he cracks his whip?
So men talked and trembled. All night they talked and trembled; for they
did not sleep, those forty whose names were on Robespierre's list. But
Tallien, their chief, was nowhere to be found. 'Twas known that his
fiancée, the beautiful Theresia Cabarrus, had been summarily arrested.
Since then he had disappeared; and they--the others--were leaderless.
But, even so, he was no loss. Tallien was ever pusillanimous, a
temporiser--what?
And now the hour for temporising is past. Robespierre then is to be
dictator of France. He will be dictator of France, in spite of any
opposition led by those forty whose names are on his list! He will be
dictator of France! He has not said it; but his friends have shouted it
from the house-tops, and have murmured under their breath that those who
oppose Robespierre's dictatorship are traitors to the land. Death then
must be their fate.
What then, ye gods? What then?
§2
And so the day broke--smiling, mark you! It was a beautiful warm July
morning. It broke on what is perhaps the most stupendous cataclysm--save
one--the world has ever known.
Behold the picture! A medley. A confusion. A whirl of everything that is
passionate and cruel, defiant and desperate. Heavens, how desperate! Men
who have thrown lives away as if lives were in truth grains of sand; men
who have juggled with death, dealt it and tossed it about like cards
upon a gaming table. They are desperate now, because their own lives are
at stake; and they find now that life can be very dear.
So, having greeted their leader, the forty draw together, watching the
moment when humility will be most opportune.
Robespierre mounts the tribune. The hour has struck. His speech is one
long, impassioned, involved tirade, full at first, of vague accusations
against the enemies of the Republic and the people, and is full of
protestations of his own patriotism and selflessness. Then he warms to
his own oratory; his words are prophetic of death, his voice becomes
harsh--like a screech owl's, so we're told. His accusations are no
longer vague. He begins to strike.
Corruption! Backsliding! Treachery! Moderatism!--oh, moderatism above
all! Moderatism is treachery to the glorious revolution. Every victim
spared from the guillotine is a traitor let loose against the people! A
traitor, he who robs the guillotine of her prey! Robespierre stands
alone incorruptible, true, faithful unto death!
And for all that treachery, what remedy is there? Why, death of course!
Death! The guillotine! New power to the sovereign guillotine! Death to
all the traitors!
And seven hundred faces become paler still with dread, and the sweat of
terror rises on seven hundred brows. There were only forty names on that
list . . . but there might be others somewhere else!
And still the voice of Robespierre thunders on. His words fall on seven
hundred pairs of ears like on a sounding-board; his friends, his
sycophants, echo them; they applaud, rise in wild enthusiasm. 'Tis the
applause that is thundering now!
One of the tyrant's most abject slaves has put forward the motion that
the great speech just delivered shall forthwith be printed, and
distributed to every township, every village, throughout France, as a
monument to the lofty patriotism of her greatest citizen.
The motion at one moment looks as if it would be carried with
acclamations; after which, Robespierre's triumph would have risen to the
height of deification. Then suddenly the note of dissension; the hush;
the silence. The great Assembly is like a sounding-board that has ceased
to respond. Something has turned the acclamations to mutterings, and
then to silence. The sounding-board has given forth a dissonance.
Citizen Tallien has demanded "delay in printing that speech," and asked
pertinently:
"What has become of the Liberty of Opinion in this Convention?"
His face is the colour of ashes, and his eyes, ringed with purple, gleam
with an unnatural fire. The coward has become bold; the sheep has donned
the lion's skin.
There is a flutter in the Convention, a moment's hesitation. But the
question is put to the vote, and the speech is _not_ to be printed. A
small matter, in truth--printing or not printing. . . . Does the
Destiny of France hang on so small a peg?
It is a small matter; and yet how full of portent! Like the breath of
mutiny blowing across a ship. But nothing more occurs just then.
Robespierre, lofty in his scorn, puts the notes of his speech into his
pocket. He does not condescend to argue. He, the master of France, will
not deign to bandy words with his slaves. And he stalks out of the Hall
surrounded by his friends.
There _has_ been a breath of mutiny; but his is still the iron heel,
powerful enough to crush a raging revolt. His withdrawal--proud, silent,
menacing--is in keeping with his character and with the pose which he
has assumed of late. But he is still the Chosen of the People; and the
multitude is there, thronging the streets of Paris--there, to avenge
the insult put upon their idol by a pack of slinking wolves.
§3
And now the picture becomes still more poignant. It is painted in
colours more vivid, more glowing than before. The morning breaks on the
9th Thermidor, and again the Hall of the Convention is crowded to the
roof, with Tallien and his friends, in a close phalanx, early at their
post!
Tallien is there, pale, resolute, the fire of his hatred kept up by
anxiety for his beloved. The night before, at the corner of a dark
street, a surreptitious hand slipped a scrap of paper into the pocket of
his coat. It was a message written by Theresia in prison, and written
with her own blood. How it ever came into his pocket Tallien never knew;
but the few impassioned, agonised words seared his very soul and whipped
up his courage:
"The Commissary of Police has just left me," Theresia wrote. "He came to
tell me that to-morrow I must appear before the tribunal. This means the
guillotine. And I, who thought that you were a _man_ . . .!"
Not only is his own head in peril, not only that of his friends; but the
life of the woman whom he worships hangs now upon the thread of his own
audacity and of his courage.
St. Just on this occasion is the first to mount the tribune; and
Robespierre, the very incarnation of lustful and deadly Vengeance,
stands silently by. He has spent the afternoon and evening with his
friends at the Jacobins Club, where deafening applause greeted his every
word, and wild fury raged against his enemies.
It is then to be a fight to the finish! To your tents, O Israel!
To the guillotine all those who have dared to say one word against the
Chosen of the People! St. Just shall thunder Vengeance from the tribune
at the Convention, whilst Henriot, the drunken and dissolute Commandant
of the Municipal Guard, shall, by the might of sword and fire, proclaim
the sovereignty of Robespierre through the streets of Paris. That is the
picture as it has been painted in the minds of the tyrant and of his
sycophants: a picture of death paramount, and of Robespierre rising like
a new Phoenix from out the fire of calumny and revolt, greater, more
unassailable than before.
And lo! One sweep of the brush, and the picture is changed.
Ten minutes . . . less . . . and the whole course of the world's history
is altered. No sooner has St. Just mounted the tribune than Tallien
jumps to his feet. His voice, usually meek and cultured, rises in a
harsh crescendo, until it drowns that of the younger orator.
"Citizens," he exclaims, "I ask for truth! Let us tear aside the curtain
behind which lurk concealed the real conspirators and the traitors!"
"Yes, yes! Truth! Let us have the truth!" One hundred voices--not
forty--have raised the echo.
The mutiny is on the verge of becoming open revolt, is that already,
perhaps. It is like a spark fallen--who knows where?--into a powder
magazine. Robespierre feels it, sees the spark. He knows that one
movement, one word, one plunge into that magazine, foredoomed though it
be to destruction, one stamp with a sure foot, may yet quench the spark,
may yet smother the mutiny. He rushes to the tribune, tries to mount.
But Tallien has forestalled him, elbows him out of the way, and turns to
the seven hundred, with a cry that rings far beyond the Hall, out into
the streets.
"Citizens!" he thunders in his turn. "I begged of you just now to tear
aside the curtains behind which lurk the traitors. Well, the curtain is
already rent. And if you dare not strike at the tyrant now, then 'tis I
who will dare!" And from beneath his coat he draws a dagger and raises
it above his head. "And I will plunge this into his heart," he cries,
"if you have not the courage to smite!"
His words, that gleaming bit of steel, fan the spark into a flame.
Within a few seconds, seven hundred voices are shouting, "Down with the
tyrant!" Arms are waving, hands gesticulate wildly, excitedly. Only a
very few shout, "Behold the dagger of Brutus!" All the others retort
with "Tyranny!" and "Conspiracy!" and with cries of "Vive la Liberté!"
At this hour all is confusion and deafening uproar. In vain Robespierre
tries to speak. He demands to speak. He hurls insults, anathema, upon
the President, who relentlessly refuses him speech and jingles his bell
against him.
"President of Assassins," the falling tyrant cries, "I demand speech of
thee!"
But the bell goes jingling on, and Robespierre, choked with rage and
terror, "turns blue" we are told, and his hand goes up to his throat.
"The blood of Danton chokes thee!" cries one man. And these words seem
like the last blow dealt to the fallen foe. The next moment the voice of
an obscure Deputy is raised, in order to speak the words that have been
hovering on every lip:
"I demand a decree of accusation against Robespierre!"
"Accusation!" comes from seven hundred throats. "The decree of
accusation!"
The President jingles his bell, puts the question, and the motion is
passed unanimously.
Maximilien Robespierre--erstwhile master of France--is decreed
_accused._