Robespierre, awake! The hour is come, time presses,... soon it will be
too late....
At last, on the 8 Thermidor, in the Convention, the Incorruptible rises,
he is going to speak. Sun of the 31st May, is this to be a second
day-spring? Gamelin waits and hopes. His mind is made up then!
Robespierre is to drag from the benches they dishonour these legislators
more guilty than the federalists, more dangerous than Danton.... No! not
yet. "I cannot," he says, "resolve to clear away entirely the veil that
hides this mystery of iniquity."
It is mere summer lightning that flashes harmlessly and without striking
any one of the conspirators, terrifies all. Sixty of them at least for a
fortnight had not dared sleep in their beds. Marat's way was to denounce
traitors by their name, to point the finger of accusation at
conspirators. The Incorruptible hesitates, and from that moment he is
the accused....
That evening at the Jacobins, the hall is filled to suffocation, the
corridors, the courtyard are crowded.
They are all there, loud-voiced friends and silent enemies. Robespierre
reads them the speech the Convention had heard in affrighted silence,
and the Jacobins greet it with excited applause.
"It is my dying testament," declares the orator. "You will see me drain
the hemlock undismayed."
"I will drink it with you," answered David.
"All, we all will!" shout the Jacobins, and separate without deciding
anything.
Évariste, while the death of _The Just_ was preparing, slept the sleep
of the Disciples in the garden of Gethsemane. Next day, he attended the
Tribunal where two sections were sitting. That on which he served was
trying twenty-one persons implicated in the conspiracy of the Lazare
prison. The case was still proceeding when the tidings arrived:
"The Convention, after a six-hours' session, has decreed Maximilien
Robespierre accused,--with him Couthon and Saint-Just; add Augustin
Robespierre, and Lebas, who have demanded to share the lot of the
accused. The five outlaws stand at the bar of the house."
News is brought that the President of the Section sitting in the next
court, the _citoyen_ Dumas, has been arrested on the bench, but that the
case goes on. Drums can be heard beating the alarm, and the tocsin peals
from the churches.
Évariste is still in his place when he is handed an order from the
Commune to proceed to the Hôtel de Ville to sit in the General Council.
To the sound of the rolling drums and clanging church bells, he and his
colleagues record their verdict; then he hurries home to embrace his
mother and snatch up his scarf of office. The Place de Thionville is
deserted. The Section is afraid to declare either for or against the
Convention. Wayfarers creep along under the walls, slip down
side-streets, sneak indoors. The call of the tocsin and alarm-drums is
answered by the noise of barring shutters and bolting doors. The
_citoyen_ Dupont senior has secreted himself in his shop; Remacle the
porter is barricaded in his lodge. Little Joséphine holds Mouton
tremblingly in her arms. The widow Gamelin bemoans the dearness of
victuals, cause of all the trouble. At the foot of the stairs Évariste
encounters Élodie; she is panting for breath and her black locks are
plastered on her hot cheek.
"I have been to look for you at the Tribunal; but you had just left.
Where are you going?"
"To the Hôtel de Ville."
"Don't go there! It would be your ruin; Hanriot is arrested ... the
Sections will not stir. The _Section des Piques_, Robespierre's Section,
will do nothing, I know it for a fact; my father belongs to it. If you
go to the Hôtel de Ville, you are throwing away your life for nothing."
"You wish me to be a coward?"
"No! the brave thing is to be faithful to the Convention and to obey the
Law."
"The law is dead when malefactors triumph."
"Évariste, hear me; hear your Élodie; hear your sister. Come and sit
beside her and let her soothe your angry spirit."
He looked at her; never had she seemed so desirable in his eyes; never
had her voice sounded so seductive, so persuasive in his ears.
"A couple of paces, only a couple of paces, dear Évariste!"--and she
drew him towards the raised platform on which stood the pedestal of the
overthrown statue. It was surrounded by benches occupied by strollers of
both sexes. A dealer in fancy articles was offering his laces, a seller
of cooling drinks, his portable cistern on his back, was tinkling his
bell; little girls were showing off their airs and graces. The parapet
was lined with anglers, standing, rod in hand, very still. The weather
was stormy, the sky overcast. Gamelin leant on the low wall and looked
down on the islet below, pointed like the prow of a ship, listening to
the wind whistling in the tree-tops, and feeling his soul penetrated
with an infinite longing for peace and solitude.
Like a sweet echo of his thoughts, Élodie's voice sighed in his ear:
"Do you remember, Évariste, how, at sight of the green fields, you
wanted to be a country justice in a village? Yes, that would be
happiness."
But above the rustling of the trees and the girl's voice, he could hear
the tocsin and alarm-drums, the distant tramp of horses, and rumbling of
cannon along the streets.
Two steps from them a young man, who was talking to an elegantly attired
_citoyenne_, remarked:
"Have you heard the latest?... The Opera is installed in the Rue de la
Loi."
Meantime the news was spreading; Robespierre's name was spoken, but in a
shuddering whisper, for men feared him still. Women, when they heard the
muttered rumour of his fall, concealed a smile.
Évariste Gamelin seized Élodie's hand, but dropped it again swiftly next
moment:
"Farewell! I have involved you in my hideous fortunes, I have blasted
your life for ever. Farewell! I pray you may forget me!"
"Whatever you do," she warned him, "do not go back home to-night. Come
to the _Amour peintre_. Do not ring; throw a pebble at my shutters. I
will come and open the door to you myself; I will hide you in the
loft."
"You shall see me return triumphant, or you shall never see me more.
Farewell!"
On nearing the Hôtel de Ville, he caught the well-remembered roar of the
old great days rising to the grey heavens. In the Place de Grève a clash
of arms, the glitter of scarfs and uniforms, Hanriot's cannon drawn up.
He mounts the grand stairs and, entering the Council Hall, signs the
attendance book. The Council General of the Commune, by the unanimous
voice of the 491 members present, declares for the outlawed patriots.
The Mayor sends for the Table of the Rights of Man, reads the clause
which runs, "When the Government violates the Rights of the people,
insurrection is for the people the most sacred and the most
indispensable of duties," and the first magistrate of Paris announces
that the Commune's answer to the Convention's act of violence is to
raise the populace in insurrection.
The members of the Council General take oath to die at their posts. Two
municipal officers are deputed to go out on the Place de Grève and
invite the people to join with their magistrates in saving the
fatherland and freedom.
There is an endless looking for friends, exchanging news, giving advice.
Among these Magistrates, artisans are the exception. The Commune
assembled here is such as the Jacobin purge has made it,--judges and
jurors of the Revolutionary Tribunal, artists like Beauvallet and
Gamelin, householders living on their means and college professors, cosy
citizens, well-to-do tradesmen, powdered heads, fat paunches, and gold
watch-chains, very few sabots, striped trousers, carmagnole smocks and
red caps.
These bourgeois councillors are numerous and determined, but, when all
is said, they are pretty well all Paris possesses of true Republicans.
They stand on guard in the city mansion-house, as on a rock of liberty,
but an ocean of indifference washes round their refuge.
However, good news arrives. All the prisons where the proscribed had
been confined open their doors and disgorge their prey. Augustin
Robespierre, coming from La Force, is the first to enter the Hôtel de
Ville and is welcomed with acclamation.
At eight o'clock it is announced that Maximilien, after a protracted
resistance, is on his way to the Commune. He is eagerly expected; he is
coming; he is here; a roar of triumph shakes the vault of the old
Municipal Palace.
He enters, supported by twenty arms. It is he, the little man there,
slim, spruce, in blue coat and yellow breeches. He takes his seat; he
speaks.
At his arrival the Council orders the façade of the Hôtel de Ville to be
illuminated there and then. It is there the Republic resides. He speaks
in a thin voice, in picked phrases. He speaks lucidly, copiously. His
hearers who have staked their lives on his head, see the naked truth,
see it to their horror. He is a man of words, a man of committees, a
wind-bag incapable of prompt action, incompetent to lead a Revolution.
They draw him into the Hall of Deliberation. Now they are all there,
these illustrious outlaws,--Lebas, Saint-Just, Couthon. Robespierre has
the word. It is midnight and past, he is still speaking. Meantime
Gamelin in the Council Hall, his bent brow pressed against a window,
looks out with a haggard eye and sees the lamps flare and smoke in the
gloom. Hanriot's cannon are parked before the Hôtel de Ville. In the
black Place de Grève surges an anxious crowd, in uncertainty and
suspense. At half past twelve torches are seen turning the corner of the
Rue de la Vannerie, escorting a delegate of the Convention, clad in the
insignia of office, who unfolds a paper and reads by the ruddy light the
decree of the Convention, the outlawry of the members of the insurgent
Commune, of the members of the Council General who are its abettors and
of all such citizens as shall listen to its appeal.
Outlawry, death without trial! The mere thought pales the cheek of the
most determined. Gamelin feels the icy sweat on his brow. He watches the
crowd hurrying with all speed from the Place. Turning his head, he finds
that the Hall, packed but now with Councillors, is almost empty. But
they have fled in vain; their signatures attest their attendance.
It is two in the morning. The Incorruptible is in the neighbouring Hall,
in deliberation with the Commune and the proscribed representatives.
Gamelin casts a despairing look over the dark Square below. By the light
of the lanterns he can see the wooden candles above the grocer's shop
knocking together like ninepins; the street lamps shiver and swing; a
high wind has sprung up. Next moment a deluge of rain comes down; the
Place empties entirely; such as the fear of the Convention and its dread
decree had not put to flight scatter in terror of a wetting. Hanriot's
guns are abandoned, and when the lightning reveals the troops of the
Convention debouching simultaneously from the Rue Antoine and from the
Quai, the approaches to the Hôtel de Ville are utterly deserted.
At last Maximilien has resolved to make appeal from the decree of the
Convention to his own Section,--the _Section des Piques_.
The Council General sends for swords, pistols, muskets. But now the
clash of arms, the trampling of feet and the shiver of broken glass fill
the building. The troops of the Convention sweep by like an avalanche
across the Hall of Deliberation, and pour into the Council Chamber. A
shot rings out; Gamelin sees Robespierre fall; his jaw is broken. He
himself grasps his knife, the six-sous knife that, one day of bitter
scarcity, had cut bread for a starving mother, the same knife that, one
summer evening at a farm at Orangis, Élodie had held in her lap, when
she cried the forfeits. He opens it, tries to plunge it into his heart,
but the blade strikes on a rib, closes on the handle, the catch giving
way, and two fingers are badly cut. Gamelin falls, the blood pouring
from the wounds. He lies quite still, but the cold is cruel, and he is
trampled underfoot in the turmoil of a fearful struggle. Through the
hurly-burly he can distinctly hear the voice of the young dragoon Henry,
shouting:
"The tyrant is no more; his myrmidons are broken. The Revolution will
resume its course, majestic and terrible."
Gamelin fainted.
At seven in the morning a surgeon sent by the Convention dressed his
hurts. The Convention was full of solicitude for Robespierre's
accomplices; it would fain not have one of them escape the guillotine.
The artist, ex-juror, ex-member of the Council General of the Commune,
was borne on a litter to the Conciergerie.