Aupres d’un corps aussi avili que la Convention, il restait des
chances pour que Robespierre sortit vainqueur de cette lutte.
Lacretelle, volume xii.
(Amongst a body so debased as the Convention, there still
remained some chances that Robespierre would come off victor in
the struggle.)
As Robespierre left the hall, there was a dead and ominous silence in
the crowd without. The herd, in every country, side with success;
and the rats run from the falling tower. But Robespierre, who wanted
courage, never wanted pride, and the last often supplied the place
of the first; thoughtfully, and with an impenetrable brow, he passed
through the throng, leaning on St. Just, Payan and his brother following
him.
As they got into the open space, Robespierre abruptly broke the silence.
“How many heads were to fall upon the tenth?”
“Eighty,” replied Payan.
“Ah, we must not tarry so long; a day may lose an empire: terrorism must
serve us yet!”
He was silent a few moments, and his eyes roved suspiciously through the
street.
“St. Just,” he said abruptly, “they have not found this Englishman
whose revelations, or whose trial, would have crushed the Amars and the
Talliens. No, no! my Jacobins themselves are growing dull and blind. But
they have seized a woman,--only a woman!”
“A woman’s hand stabbed Marat,” said St. Just. Robespierre stopped
short, and breathed hard.
“St. Just,” said he, “when this peril is past, we will found the Reign
of Peace. There shall be homes and gardens set apart for the old. David
is already designing the porticos. Virtuous men shall be appointed to
instruct the young. All vice and disorder shall be NOT exterminated--no,
no! only banished! We must not die yet. Posterity cannot judge us till
our work is done. We have recalled L’Etre Supreme; we must now remodel
this corrupted world. All shall be love and brotherhood; and--ho! Simon!
Simon!--hold! Your pencil, St. Just!” And Robespierre wrote hastily.
“This to Citizen President Dumas. Go with it quick, Simon. These eighty
heads must fall TO-MORROW,--TO-MORROW, Simon. Dumas will advance their
trial a day. I will write to Fouquier-Tinville, the public accuser.
We meet at the Jacobins to-night, Simon; there we will denounce the
Convention itself; there we will rally round us the last friends of
liberty and France.”
A shout was heard in the distance behind, “Vive la republique!”
The tyrant’s eye shot a vindictive gleam. “The republic!--faugh! We did
not destroy the throne of a thousand years for that canaille!”
THE TRIAL, THE EXECUTION, OF THE VICTIMS IS ADVANCED A DAY! By the
aid of the mysterious intelligence that had guided and animated him
hitherto, Zanoni learned that his arts had been in vain. He knew that
Viola was safe, if she could but survive an hour the life of the
tyrant. He knew that Robespierre’s hours were numbered; that the 10th of
Thermidor, on which he had originally designed the execution of his
last victims, would see himself at the scaffold. Zanoni had toiled, had
schemed for the fall of the Butcher and his reign. To what end? A single
word from the tyrant had baffled the result of all. The execution
of Viola is advanced a day. Vain seer, who wouldst make thyself the
instrument of the Eternal, the very dangers that now beset the tyrant
but expedite the doom of his victims! To-morrow, eighty heads, and
hers whose pillow has been thy heart! To-morrow! and Maximilien is safe
to-night!