Quid mirare meas tot in uno corpore formas?
Propert.
(Why wonder that I have so many forms in a single body?)
Zanoni to Mejnour.
.....
“She is in one of their prisons,--their inexorable prisons. It is
Robespierre’s order,--I have tracked the cause to Glyndon. This, then,
made that terrible connection between their fates which I could not
unravel, but which (till severed as it now is) wrapped Glyndon himself
in the same cloud that concealed her. In prison,--in prison!--it is the
gate of the grave! Her trial, and the inevitable execution that follows
such trial, is the third day from this. The tyrant has fixed all his
schemes of slaughter for the 10th of Thermidor. While the deaths of the
unoffending strike awe to the city, his satellites are to massacre his
foes. There is but one hope left,--that the Power which now dooms the
doomer, may render me an instrument to expedite his fall. But two
days left,--two days! In all my wealth of time I see but two days; all
beyond,--darkness, solitude. I may save her yet. The tyrant shall fall
the day before that which he has set apart for slaughter! For the first
time I mix among the broils and stratagems of men, and my mind leaps up
from my despair, armed and eager for the contest.”
....
A crowd had gathered round the Rue St. Honore; a young man was just
arrested by the order of Robespierre. He was known to be in the service
of Tallien, that hostile leader in the Convention, whom the tyrant had
hitherto trembled to attack. This incident had therefore produced a
greater excitement than a circumstance so customary as an arrest in the
Reign of Terror might be supposed to create. Amongst the crowd were many
friends of Tallien, many foes to the tyrant, many weary of beholding
the tiger dragging victim after victim to its den. Hoarse, foreboding
murmurs were heard; fierce eyes glared upon the officers as they seized
their prisoner; and though they did not yet dare openly to resist, those
in the rear pressed on those behind, and encumbered the path of the
captive and his captors. The young man struggled hard for escape, and,
by a violent effort, at last wrenched himself from the grasp. The
crowd made way, and closed round to protect him, as he dived and darted
through their ranks; but suddenly the trampling of horses was heard at
hand,--the savage Henriot and his troop were bearing down upon the mob.
The crowd gave way in alarm, and the prisoner was again seized by one
of the partisans of the Dictator. At that moment a voice whispered the
prisoner, “Thou hast a letter which, if found on thee, ruins thy last
hope. Give it to me! I will bear it to Tallien.” The prisoner turned in
amaze, read something that encouraged him in the eyes of the stranger
who thus accosted him. The troop were now on the spot; the Jacobin who
had seized the prisoner released hold of him for a moment to escape
the hoofs of the horses: in that moment the opportunity was found,--the
stranger had disappeared.
....
At the house of Tallien the principal foes of the tyrant were assembled.
Common danger made common fellowship. All factions laid aside their
feuds for the hour to unite against the formidable man who was marching
over all factions to his gory throne. There was bold Lecointre, the
declared enemy; there, creeping Barrere, who would reconcile all
extremes, the hero of the cowards; Barras, calm and collected; Collet
d’Herbois, breathing wrath and vengeance, and seeing not that the crimes
of Robespierre alone sheltered his own.
The council was agitated and irresolute. The awe which the uniform
success and the prodigious energy of Robespierre excited still held the
greater part under its control. Tallien, whom the tyrant most feared,
and who alone could give head and substance and direction to so many
contradictory passions, was too sullied by the memory of his own
cruelties not to feel embarrassed by his position as the champion
of mercy. “It is true,” he said, after an animating harangue from
Lecointre, “that the Usurper menaces us all. But he is still so beloved
by his mobs,--still so supported by his Jacobins: better delay open
hostilities till the hour is more ripe. To attempt and not succeed is
to give us, bound hand and foot, to the guillotine. Every day his power
must decline. Procrastination is our best ally--” While yet speaking,
and while yet producing the effect of water on the fire, it was
announced that a stranger demanded to see him instantly on business that
brooked no delay.
“I am not at leisure,” said the orator, impatiently. The servant placed
a note on the table. Tallien opened it, and found these words in pencil,
“From the prison of Teresa de Fontenai.” He turned pale, started up,
and hastened to the anteroom, where he beheld a face entirely strange to
him.
“Hope of France!” said the visitor to him, and the very sound of his
voice went straight to the heart,--“your servant is arrested in the
streets. I have saved your life, and that of your wife who will be. I
bring to you this letter from Teresa de Fontenai.”
Tallien, with a trembling hand, opened the letter, and read,--
“Am I forever to implore you in vain? Again and again I say, ‘Lose not
an hour if you value my life and your own.’ My trial and death are fixed
the third day from this,--the 10th Thermidor. Strike while it is yet
time,--strike the monster!--you have two days yet. If you fail,--if you
procrastinate,--see me for the last time as I pass your windows to the
guillotine!”
“Her trial will give proof against you,” said the stranger. “Her death
is the herald of your own. Fear not the populace,--the populace would
have rescued your servant. Fear not Robespierre,--he gives himself to
your hands. To-morrow he comes to the Convention,--to-morrow you must
cast the last throw for his head or your own.”
“To-morrow he comes to the Convention! And who are you that know so well
what is concealed from me?”
“A man like you, who would save the woman he loves.”
Before Tallien could recover his surprise, the visitor was gone.
Back went the Avenger to his conclave an altered man. “I have heard
tidings,--no matter what,” he cried,--“that have changed my purpose.
On the 10th we are destined to the guillotine. I revoke my counsel for
delay. Robespierre comes to the Convention to-morrow; THERE we must
confront and crush him. From the Mountain shall frown against him
the grim shade of Danton,--from the Plain shall rise, in their bloody
cerements, the spectres of Vergniaud and Condorcet. Frappons!”
“Frappons!” cried even Barrere, startled into energy by the new daring
of his colleague,--“frappons! il n’y a que les morts qui ne reviennent
pas.”
It was observable (and the fact may be found in one of the memoirs
of the time) that, during that day and night (the 7th Thermidor), a
stranger to all the previous events of that stormy time was seen in
various parts of the city,--in the cafes, the clubs, the haunts of the
various factions; that, to the astonishment and dismay of his hearers,
he talked aloud of the crimes of Robespierre, and predicted his coming
fall; and, as he spoke, he stirred up the hearts of men, he loosed the
bonds of their fear,--he inflamed them with unwonted rage and daring.
But what surprised them most was, that no voice replied, no hand was
lifted against him, no minion, even of the tyrant, cried, “Arrest the
traitor.” In that impunity men read, as in a book, that the populace had
deserted the man of blood.
Once only a fierce, brawny Jacobin sprang up from the table at which he
sat, drinking deep, and, approaching the stranger, said, “I seize thee,
in the name of the Republic.”
“Citizen Aristides,” answered the stranger, in a whisper, “go to the
lodgings of Robespierre,--he is from home; and in the left pocket of the
vest which he cast off not an hour since thou wilt find a paper; when
thou hast read that, return. I will await thee; and if thou wouldst then
seize me, I will go without a struggle. Look round on those lowering
brows; touch me NOW, and thou wilt be torn to pieces.”
The Jacobin felt as if compelled to obey against his will. He went
forth muttering; he returned,--the stranger was still there. “Mille
tonnerres,” he said to him, “I thank thee; the poltroon had my name in
his list for the guillotine.”
With that the Jacobin Aristides sprang upon the table and shouted,
“Death to the Tyrant!”