DEATH'S KINDLY VEIL
Robespierre has thus been vanquished for the second time!
Where will they take him? To the Tuileries, to the Convention, into
the very midst of the victorious National Assembly, where the dying
despot is to be exposed to the raillery of the populace, before being
carried to the scaffold. Robespierre is laid down in the courtyard
of the Hôtel de Ville, and placed with infinite care on a litter.
They lift his head and bind up his wound, for he must live long
enough to receive the final retribution. The bullet has but half
robbed the scaffold of its prey.
Artillerymen now come forward, and take him up again, but
Robespierre, still unconscious, knows nothing of what is passing
round him. They lift the wreck of what was once the Incorruptible
and continue their way. Saint-Just walks in the rear between two
gendarmes, his hands bound behind him, very pale, with head erect,
and perfectly indifferent to the insults hurled at him--the only one
of his allies who is with Robespierre in the hour of defeat. The
others are either dead, hidden or fled. But their turn will come,
for hot search is afoot for the cowards and fugitives.
The gloomy _cortège_ crosses the Place de la Grêve, and moves in the
direction of the quay, on its way to the Tuileries, beneath a
cloudless sky that smiles after the rain, as the stars are gradually
effaced by the first gleams of dawn. It is three o'clock. The
_cortège_ is followed by a curious and gaping crowd. Passers-by stop
and ask, "What is it?"
"Robespierre, who is wounded. They are taking him to the Convention."
Then the inquirers' faces light up with joy.
"It is all over, then! ... The tyrant is going to die! ... There will
be no more scaffold!"
And the passers-by joined the crowd.
But at the Convention the order had been given that the "monster" was
not to be received. Even a captive and almost a corpse, they will
not allow Robespierre again to cross the threshold, once he has been
banished from their midst. The Incorruptible, as an outlaw, belongs
to justice only. So the wounded man is taken up and laid at the foot
of the grand staircase leading to the Committee of Public Safety.
There, on the very spot where, two days before, Robespierre,
returning from the Conciergerie, hurled defiance at Billaud-Varennes,
he now lies on a litter, vanquished, ruined, gasping out his life!
A peremptory order is given, and flies from mouth to mouth.
Robespierre is to be transported to the Committee's waiting-room.
Saint-Just walks in front now, with Dumas, President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, who has been discovered hidden in a corner of
the Hôtel de Ville, and several others whose arrest and arrival is
also announced.
The litter is carried into the room. Robespierre still unconscious
is lifted out and laid on a table, and his head is pillowed on a deal
box, containing samples of munition bread. His shirt, loosened at
the neck, and leaving the throat bare, is covered with blood which
still flows freely from the mutilated jaw. The sky-blue coat is
soiled and torn, the nankeen breeches, the white stockings, washed
and ironed by Cornélie Duplay, are now all stained and disfigured.
The Incorruptible is a mutilated mass, but a living mass, still
breathing and still suffering.
Robespierre has opened his eyes; he raises his right hand, groping
instinctively for his handkerchief, wishing to wipe his mouth. His
trembling fingers come in contact with a white leather pistol-case,
which he lifts to his lips to staunch the blood. By an irony of fate
the case bears the inscription--"_The Great Monarch; Lecourt,
manufacturer to the King_."
Robespierre appears to revive. He looks round, and his eyes fall on
Saint-Just and Dumas, side by side in the recess of one of the
windows, shrugging their shoulders at the rudeness of the people who
pass through the room and stare at them as if they were curiosities.
The insults are now directed against Robespierre, who turns
away:--"There is fallen majesty for you!" exclaims one.... "Majesty
laid low," says another.... "With his bandages he looks like a mummy
or a nun!" ... "Yes, a nun with her head-gear awry!" ... "He is
thinking of his Supreme Being! It's just the right moment!"
But Robespierre, under this railing clamour and abuse, does not stir.
There he lies, stretched out motionless, his eyes fixed on the
ceiling, the very embodiment of silent scorn. Slowly and without a
word, he drinks the cup of bitterness; he will drink it so, to the
very dregs. A conqueror, he would have been to them a god;
vanquished, they nail him to the pillory. Such is the constant
perfidy of human nature! And yet he had been so near success, so
near! If the Convention had not proved so cowardly at the sitting,
had not succumbed directly before Tallien's attack! ... If they had
but let him speak! If they had allowed him to defend himself! But
the plot had been too well laid. Then Robespierre's thoughts wander
to the other wretches, the Communes, the cowards on whom he had
counted, the vile traitors and base deserters!
His bitter meditations are suddenly cut short by a shooting pain in
the knee, which runs through him like a knife. It is his garter,
which is too tightly drawn. He raises himself and stretches out his
hand to undo it, but his strength fails, and he falls back again.
Suddenly he feels some one gently loosening it. He lifts himself
again and bends forward. Can he be dreaming? That young man ...
yes, it is Olivier! ... Olivier, himself!
"Oh, thank you, my ... thank you, my ... thank you, monsieur!" he
says hastily.
He is on the point of saying, "my son!" but has strength enough left
to recollect himself. No! Olivier must never know the secret of his
birth, never, never!
Robespierre falls back again. The emotion is too much for him, and
he faints away.
Yes, it is Olivier, who has just obtained from the Committee a
passport for his mother, his _fiancée_, and himself. Crossing the
waiting-room he had seen Robespierre stretched out on the table in
front of him. Touched with pity at his vain and painful attempts to
undo the garter, he had come to his assistance.
Olivier now leaves the Committee of Public Safety to rejoin Clarisse
and Thérèse, who are waiting for him in the Tuileries Gardens, and
overcome with fatigue have sat down on a bench, and seeing them in
the distance hastens his steps.
"I have the passport!" he exclaims.
"Then let us go, and lose no time!" Clarisse answers; "let us return
to Montmorency, at once! I long to leave the city of woe and misery."
"We cannot go yet," replies Olivier. "The passport must bear the
stamp of the Committee of General Security to be of any use, and I
must present myself before the Committee at three o'clock."
"Then, what are we to do? Where shall we go?" asks Clarisse wearily.
"We can only go to the Rue du Rocher, to Leonard's landlady. She
will receive me with open arms, you will see, now she has no longer
Robespierre to fear."
It is five o'clock, and day has just dawned. The air is soft and
fresh, the sky above of sapphire blue; the trees, the streets, the
very houses, seem smiling with renewed life, after the refreshing
shower.
In this brightening dawn Robespierre is being taken to the
Conciergerie, for the Committee of Public Safety have altered their
decision. Robespierre and his accomplices, now found and arrested,
are to be confined in the Conciergerie in order to undergo the
formality of identification. From thence they are to be taken to the
scaffold without trial or judgment, as outlaws.
So Robespierre is replaced on the litter, followed by the gaping
crowd. He sleeps the whole way, lulled by the measured tread of the
men who carry him, and only awakes to find himself in a narrow cell,
in charge of a gendarme.
"Can I write?" he asks.
"No!"
"Where am I?"
"At the Conciergerie."
His eyes flash for a second. He looks round uneasily and
repeats--"At the Conciergerie! In what part of the Conciergerie?"
"Between the Queen's cell and the Girondins' Chapel."
Between his victims! He is between his victims! The fearful warning
on the prison walls passes again before his eyes: "Robespierre, your
hour will come!..." The dead were right! If he had done away with
the guillotine in time, he would perhaps not be there, himself a
victim of the Terror he had let loose! But he could not! No, he
could not, it was too soon.... He would have been engulfed in the
turmoil, just the same! ... In continuing the Revolutionary Tribunal,
in keeping the executioner at his post, he was merely protecting his
own head!
His mind is flooded with ideas.... He is, dreaming vaguely, his dim
eyes fixed on the low ceiling of his cell.... His youth smiles at
him through the mist of years, every detail of the past comes back to
him in clear and lucid vision.
He sees Clarisse seated at her harpsichord, he is turning over the
leaves of her music ... but the vision trembles, and then fades away.
Fever gradually rises to his brain, takes entire possession of him,
and deadens his senses, so that he is completely unconscious, and
when Fouquier-Tinville, his creature of the Revolutionary Tribunal,
his accomplice in the days of bloodshed, comes forward to identify
him, he does not recognise his voice.
The end is now approaching. At five in the afternoon the gendarmes
come to conduct Robespierre to the scaffold. The Convention has
decreed that for this occasion the guillotine shall be erected at the
Place de la Révolution. Robespierre is borne on the litter through
the crowd of prisoners, the victims of his hatred and his laws, and
when the dying man has passed the threshold they breathe again. With
him death departs and new life comes in.
The tumbril is waiting in the courtyard, surrounded by a crowd of
_sans-culottes_ and Mænads, and hundreds of spectators eager to
witness the startling spectacle, are swarming in the streets to hoot
and abuse Robespierre as heartily as they had cheered and applauded
him at the Fête of the Supreme Being! To effect this startling
change one sitting of the Convention has sufficed!
Robespierre is now in sight. This is the signal for the wildest
uproar. He is seated on a bench in the first tumbril, and fastened
against the bars of the cart to keep him from falling. The fresh air
has revived him; he allows them to do as they please, looking on in
silent scorn. Others of the condemned are placed in the same
tumbril: Augustin Robespierre, Saint-Just, Dumas the president,
Hauriot, and Couthon. The two last are seated right and left of
Robespierre. Four other carts follow, equally loaded. The condemned
number twenty-two in all.
Now Robespierre's _via dolorosa_ begins.
Abuse and insults rain down on them in torrents, covering Robespierre
and his accomplices with ignominy.
The ghastly procession crosses the Pont-au-Change, the Quay de la
Mégisserie, and passing the Rue de la Monnaie it enters the Rue
Saint-Honoré.
Curses are heard mingling with the shrieks of the rabble, for among
the crowd there are many victims of the Terror, widows and orphans
conjuring up the memory of all their anguish, all the drama of the
guillotine, the work of the Incorruptible.
A woman clutches at the tumbril in which Robespierre sits, a woman
whose two children had been torn from her by the Prairial law.
"Monster!" she cries, "vile monster! in the name of all mothers, I
curse you to hell!"
The crowd following the _cortège_ grows denser as it proceeds. It is
_Decadi_, the Republican Sunday. All Paris is out of doors. The
windows and balconies are thronged with men and women in festal
attire, pressing forward to see the procession file past, and
showering down shouts of joy and triumph, for the passing of those
tumbrils means also the passing away of the reign of Terror.
Robespierre continues his dreadful way, his eyes fixed and glassy,
his face wrapped in the bandage which holds his jaw together, and
partly hides it like some ghastly mask. By his side sits Hauriot,
livid and terrified, covered with the mud and filth of the sewer into
which he had fallen. Couthon and Augustin Robespierre, pitifully
mutilated, are lying at the bottom of the cart. Saint-Just alone
stands erect, his hands bound, and retains his scornful air.
The tumbrils enter the Rue Saint-Honoré near the Jacobin Club, where
two days before the Incorruptible reigned supreme. The martyrdom is
not over. They are before the house of the Duplays.
The _cortège_ stops.
At a given signal a child dips a broom in a pail of blood, and
sprinkles the front door.
"Ha! Robespierre, here is your cavern branded with the blood of your
victims!" cries a voice.
A plaintive howl is heard from behind the blood-smeared door. It is
Blount, who has scented his master. Robespierre shuts his eyes but
it is useless, for he can hear!
People question each other in the crowd. Where are the Duplays? In
prison! The father at Plessis, the mother at Sainte-Pilagie with her
young son. Lebas has killed himself! His body is there in one of
the carts. As to the daughters, they have fled, most probably.
But now for the guillotine!
The _cortège_ continues its way, while the heart-rending moans of
Blount can still be heard in the distance. That cry of the faithful
dog, recognising his master and calling to him, is the last adieu to
Robespierre from his recent home.
The first tumbril is already at the top of the Rue Saint-Florentin.
A man turns out of the street and runs in the direction of the Rue de
la Révolution.
The crowd cry after him--
"Hallo, there! will you not see the Incorruptible's head cut off?
Stop! stop! Don't be so chicken-hearted!"
But the man is already far away. It is Olivier, returning from the
Committee of General Security, where he had at last succeeded in
having his passport countersigned, after endless trouble. He tries
to cross the Rue Saint-Honoré, but the crowd fills the street; so he
retraces his steps, followed the Jardin des Tuileries, and reaches
the Rue Saint-Florentin, at the very moment when the tumbrils are at
hand.
Away from them he hurries, towards the Rue de Rocher, where Clarisse
and Thérèse are impatiently awaiting him in their room. The
landlady, anxious to be taken back to favour, has been worrying them
with officious attention since the morning.
Olivier bursts in upon them eagerly--
"It's done! Now we can start! Is the carriage ready?"
The widow Beaugrand is in despair.
"Then you have decided to go? Will you not wait until to-morrow? I
have such a nice supper prepared!"
Olivier grows impatient. Clarisse and Thérèse get ready to start.
"It's all right! Everything is arranged," says the landlady. "The
carriage has been ordered, and is just two steps from here."
She hastens downstairs, followed by Olivier and the two women, who
wait outside. The street is deserted. The day melts in a soft
twilight. Stars already twinkle in the cloudless sky. Light, happy
laughter comes from a balcony opposite, the echo of childish
merriment, which soon ceases with the closing of a door.
The carriage has arrived, an open _char-à-banc_ with four seats.
Olivier helps his mother and his _fiancée_ in, then climbs up on the
box beside the driver.
"To Montmorency! And take the shortest cut!"
The carriage rolls away amidst the farewells and good wishes of the
widow Beaugrand. However, at the end of the Rue du Rocher it stops
suddenly and draws up to the side of the road. Two carts are coming
at full gallop, driven by men in red nightcaps. Olivier asks
impatiently--
"What is the matter now?"
"It's the dead bodies of the condemned, citoyen; they are taking them
to the Cemetery des Errancy. Ah! now, the Incorruptible can kill no
more!"
The two women have heard!
Clarisse and Thérèse fall on their knees, their hands clapped, and
their eyes lifted in prayer. Olivier bares his head. The carts are
passing. Clarisse and Thérèse make the sign of the cross. Olivier,
pale with emotion, follows their example, turning towards Thérèse and
his mother, whose eyes dwell with strange emotion on his face. Her
tear-dimmed gaze is full of mute thanksgiving, the secret of which
Olivier will never know.