THE HALL OF THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.
_Couthon concluding a speech from the Tribune. Tallien, Fouché,
Carnôt, and others, standing near him. Robespierre, St. Just, and
others, in their seats._
_Tallien_ (_to Fouché_.)--Are you ready? {307}
_Fouché._--Doubt not my aid--denounce him where he stands--
And lose no time--this hour decides our fate.
_Couthon_ (_to the Convention_.)--Our country is in danger--I invoke
Your aid, compatriots, to shield her now!
Fain as I am to avoid confiding power
Without control, in even patriot hands,
We cannot choose--and much as I abhor
To see blood flow, let punishment descend
On traitors' heads, for this alone can save us.
_Tallien_ (_approaching him_.) Thou aged fangless tiger! not yet
glutted?
Torrents of blood are shed for thee and thine--
Must thou have more? Descend--before I trample
Thee to the earth. Thou art not fit to live.
(_he drags Couthon down by the hair of
his head and mounts the Tribune_.)
(_addressing the Convention_.) Yes, citizens, our country is
imperiled,
And by a band of dark conspirators,
Soul-hardened miscreants, in whose grasp the ties
That bind mankind together are rent asunder
By spies--by fraud--by hope of power and spoils--
By baser fears, and by increasing terror
Of their dread engine, whose incessant strokes
And never failing stream astound mankind.
These men have pav'd the way, that open force
May crush the hopes of France, and bend our necks
Unto a despotism strange as bloody.
And who, my countrymen, hath been their leader?
Ye know him well--and every Frenchman breathing
Hath need to rue the hour which gave _him_ birth--
A wretch accursed in heaven--abhorred on earth,
Hath dared aspire to sway most absolute
In this Republic--and the dread tribunals
Which for the land's protection were established
When pressed by foreign arms and homebred treason,
He hath converted to the deadly end
Of slaughtering all who crossed his onward path.
His black intrigues have occupied their seats
With robbers and assassins--whose foul riot,
Polluted lives, and unquenched thirst of gold,
Have beggar'd France and murdered half her sons.
Witness those long--long lists of dire proscription
Prepar'd at night for every coming day,
Even in the very chamber of the tyrant!
Witness the wanton, groundless confiscations,
Which ruin helpless men, to feed his minions!
Witness the cry of woe too great to bear,
That hath gone up to heaven from this fair land!
Yes--hear it, every man who loves his country--
France, for a ruler now, is ask'd to choose
The vampire who would drain her dearest blood:
A sordid slave, whose hideous form contains
A mind in moral darkness and fierce passions
Like nothing, save the cavern gloom of hell,
Which knows no light but its consuming fires!
I need not point to him. Your looks of terror,
Disgust and hatred turn at once upon him.
Though there be others of his name, this Hall--
This City--France--the World itself contains
Only one--Robespierre.
(_the Assembly in great confusion_.)
_Robes._ (_to St. Just_.) This blow is sudden.
_St. Just._--Up to the Tribune--speed--your life--our power
All hang upon a moment. Art thou dumb?
_Tallien_ (_continuing_.) The evil spirit who serv'd abandons him,
And I denounce him as the mortal foe
Of every man in France who would be free--
Impeach him as a traitor to the State
In league with Henriot, Couthon and St. Just.
To overawe by force and crush the Assembly!
I appeal for proof to those who plotted with him,
But now repentant have abjur'd his cause.
I move that he be instantly arrested
With Henriot and all accomplices.
_Robes._ (_to St. Just_.) See how they rise like fiends and point
the hand
Of bitterest hatred at your head and mine,
Our veriest bloodhounds turn and strive to rend us.
(_he rushes towards the Tribune, amid
loud cries of "Down with the tyrant!"_)
_Robes._--Hear me, ye members of the Mountain--hear me,
Cordeliers, who have prais'd and cheer'd me on--
Ye Girondists, give even your foes a hearing--
Ye members of the Plain, who moderate
The fury of contending factions--hear me
For all I have done or have designed to do,
I justify myself--and I appeal
To God--and----
(_he pauses choked with rage_.)
_Tallien._--Danton's blood is strangling him.
Consummate hypocrite!--darest thou use
Thy Maker's name to sanctify thy crimes,
Thou lover of Religion! Saintly being!
The executioner! thou prayerless atheist!
To thy high priest. The scaffold is thy temple--
The block thy altar--murder is thy God.
And could it come to this? Oh, France! Oh, France!
Was it for this that Louis Capet died?
For this was it we swore eternal hatred
To kings and nobles--pour'd our armies forth--
Crush'd banded despots and confirmed our rights?
And have we bled, endur'd and toil'd, that now
Our triumph should be to disgrace ourselves
And bend in worship to a man whose deeds
Have written demon on his very brow?
What! style Dictator--clothe with regal honors
And more than regal power this Robespierre,
So steep'd in guilt--so bath'd in human blood!
It may not be--France is at last awake
From this long dreary dream of shame and sorrow,
And may her sons in renovated strength
Shake off the lethargy that drew it on!
Spirits of Earth's _true_ heroes!--if ye see us
From the calm sunshine of your blest abodes,
Look with approval on me in this hour!
(_turning to the statue of Brutus_.)
Thee, I invoke!--Shade of the virtuous Brutus!
Like thee, I swear, should man refuse me justice
I draw this poignard for the tyrant's heart
Or for my own. Tallien disdains to live
The slave of Robespierre. I do not ask
Nor can expect him to receive the meed
Which should be his. Death cannot punish him
Whose life hath well deserv'd a thousand deaths,
But let us purge this plague-spot from among us, {308}
And tell wide Europe by our vote this night
That Terror's reign hath ceas'd--that axe and sceptre
Are both alike disown'd, destroyed forever.
Let us impeach him, Frenchmen, with the spirit
That springs from conscious rectitude of purpose.
Patriots arise! and with uplifted hands
Attest your deep abhorrence of this man,
And your consent that he be now arrested!
(_members rising in disorder_.) Away, away with him--arrest him
guards!
To the Conciergerie--away with him!
(_President rising._) The National Convention have decreed
The arrest of Maximilien Robespierre.
_Robes._ (_to St. Just_.) The day is theirs--with wrath and with
despair
My utterance is chok'd. Oh, were my breath
A pestilential gale to sting their lives!
(_to the President_.) Order me to be slain where now I stand,
Or grant me liberty of speech.
(_President_.) Thy name is Robespierre--it is enough,
And speaks for thee far more than thou wilt tell us.
_Robes._ (_to St. Just_.) Come thou with me--I see an opening yet
To victory, or a funeral pile--whose light
Shall dazzle France and terrify the world.
(_Robespierre, St. Just and others taken out by the guards_.[2])
[Footnote 2: It may be well to recall to the reader's recollection,
that Robespierre subsequently escaped from his guards to the Hotel
de Ville. But such partisans as rallied around him speedily
deserted, when a proclamation of outlawry from the Convention was
issued against him, and enforced by pointing cannon against the
building. After an ineffectual attempt at suicide he was conveyed in
a cart to the guillotine, July 28th, 1794.
The language put into his mouth in the following pages, is of course
inconsistent with historical probability, as he had wounded himself
with a pistol ball in the lower part of his face.]