FATE OF THE GIRONDISTS.
1793
Fate of the Girondists.--Their heroic courage.--The Girondists in
the Conciergerie.--Their miserable condition.--Youthful hopes cut
short.--State of Paris.--Books and friends.--Anecdote of
Vergniaud.--Sentiments of the Girondists inscribed on the prison
walls.--La Source and Sillery.--Their evening dirge.--The day
of trial.--The misnamed Halls of Justice.--Precautions of
the Jacobins.--Demeanor of the prisoners.--The trial and
condemnation.--Death of Valazé.--Various emotions.--Return to the
Conciergerie.--The Girondists exultingly sing the Marseillaise
Hymn.--The Girondists prepare for the last scene.--Brutal
decree.--Last feast of the Girondists.--Strange scene.--The
Abbé Lambert.--His memoranda.--Vergniaud presides at the
feast.--Unnatural gayety.--Last thoughts.--Religion, philosophy, and
infidelity.--Eloquence of Vergniaud.--Argument for immortality.--Last
preparations.--Arrival of the executioners.--Souvenirs to friends.--The
carts of the condemned.--Enthusiasm of the Girondists.--The last
embrace.--The execution.--Fortitude of Vergniaud.--Burial of the
bodies.--Errors of the Girondists.--Escape of Gaudet and others.--The
Jacobins clamor for more blood.--More Girondists executed.--Fate of
Pétion and Buzot.--Mystery attending the death of Pétion and Buzot.
As the fate of the Girondist party, of which Madame Roland was the
soul, is so intimately connected with her history, we must leave her
in the prison, while we turn aside to contemplate the doom of her
companions. The portentous thunders of the approaching storm had given
such warning to the Girondists, that many had effected their escape
from Paris, and in various disguises, in friendlessness and poverty,
were wandering over Europe. Others, however, were too proud to fly.
Conscious of the most elevated patriotic sentiments, and with no
criminations of conscience, except for sacrificing too much in love
for their country, they resolved to remain firm at their post, and to
face their foes. Calmly and sternly they awaited the onset. This
heroic courage did but arouse and invigorate their foes. Mercy had
long since died in France.
Immediately after the tumult of that dreadful night in which the
Convention was inundated with assassins clamoring for blood,
twenty-one of the Girondists were arrested and thrown into the
dungeons of the Conciergerie. Imprisoned together, and fully conscious
that their trial would be but a mockery, and that their doom was
already sealed, they fortified one another with all the consolations
which philosophy and the pride of magnanimity could administer. In
those gloomy cells, beneath the level of the street, into whose deep
and grated windows the rays of the noonday sun could but feebly
penetrate, their faces soon grew wan, and wasted, and haggard, from
confinement, the foul prison air, and woe.
There is no sight more deplorable than that of an accomplished man of
intellectual tastes, accustomed to all the refinements of polished
life, plunged into those depths of misery from which the decencies
even of our social being are excluded. These illustrious statesmen and
eloquent orators, whose words had vibrated upon the ear of Europe,
were transformed into the most revolting aspect of beggared and
haggard misery. Their clothes, ruined by the humid filth of their
dungeons, moldered to decay. Unwashed, unshorn, in the loss almost of
the aspect of humanity, they became repulsive to each other.
Unsupported by any of those consolations which religion affords, many
hours of the blackest gloom must have enveloped them.
Not a few of the deputies were young men, in the morning of their
energetic being, their bosoms glowing with all the passions of this
tumultuous world, buoyant with hope, stimulated by love, invigorated
by perfect health. And they found themselves thus suddenly plunged
from the heights of honor and power to the dismal darkness of the
dungeon, from whence they could emerge only to be led to the scaffold.
All the bright hopes of life had gone down amid the gloom of midnight
darkness. Several months lingered slowly away while these men were
awaiting their trial. Day after day they heard the tolling of the
tocsin, the reverberations of the alarm gun, and the beating of the
insurrection drum, as the demon of lawless violence rioted through the
streets of the blood-stained metropolis. The execrations of the mob,
loud and fiend-like, accompanied the cart of the condemned, as it
rumbled upon the pavements above their heads, bearing the victims of
popular fury to the guillotine; and still, most stoically, they
struggled to nerve their souls with fortitude to meet their fate.
From these massive stone walls, guarded by triple doors of iron and
watched by numerous sentinels, answerable for the safe custody of
their prisoners with their lives, there was no possibility of escape.
The rigor of their imprisonment was, consequently, somewhat softened
as weeks passed on, and they were occasionally permitted to see their
friends through the iron wicket. Books, also, aided to relieve the
tedium of confinement. The brother-in-law of Vergniaud came to visit
him, and brought with him his son, a child ten years of age. The
features of the fair boy reminded Vergniaud of his beloved sister, and
awoke mournfully in his heart the remembrance of departed joys. When
the child saw his uncle imprisoned like a malefactor, his cheeks
haggard and sunken, his matted hair straggling over his forehead, his
long beard disfiguring his face, and his clothes hanging in tatters,
he clung to his father, affrighted by the sad sight, and burst into
tears.
"My child," said Vergniaud, kindly, taking him in his arms, "look well
at me. When you are a man, you can say that you saw Vergniaud, the
founder of the Republic, at the most glorious period, and in the most
splendid costume he ever wore--that in which he suffered unmerited
persecution, and in which he prepared to die for liberty." These words
produced a deep impression upon the mind of the child. He remembered
them to repeat them after the lapse of half a century.
The cells in which they were imprisoned still remain as they were left
on the morning in which these illustrious men were led to their
execution. On the dingy walls of stone are still recorded those
sentiments which they had inscribed there, and which indicate the
nature of those emotions which animated and sustained them. These
proverbial maxims and heroic expressions, gleaned from French
tragedies or the classic page, were written with the blood which they
had drawn from their own veins. In one place is carefully written,
"Quand il n'a pu sauver la liberté de Rome,
Caton est libre encore et suit mourir en homme."
"_When he no longer had power to preserve the liberty of Rome
Cato still was free, and knew how to die for man._"
Again,
"Cui virtus non deest
Ille nunquam omnino miser."
_"He who retains his integrity
Can never be wholly miserable."_
In another place,
"La vraie liberté est celle de l'ame."
_"True liberty is that of the soul."_
On a beam was written,
"Dignum certe Deo spectaculum fortem virum cum calamitate
colluctantem."
_"Even God may look with pleasure upon a brave man struggling against
adversity."_
Again,
"Quels solides appui dans le malheur suprême!
J'ai pour moi ma vertu, l'équité, Dieu même."
_"How substantial the consolation in the greatest calamity
I have for mine, my virtue, justice, God himself."_
Beneath this was written,
"Le jour n'est pas plus pur que le fond de mon coeur."
_"The day is not more pure than the depths of my heart."_
In large letters of blood there was inscribed, in the hand-writing of
Vergniaud,
"Potius mori quam foedari."
_"Death is preferable to dishonor."_
But one sentence is recorded there which could be considered strictly
of a religious character. It was taken from the "Imitation of Christ."
"Remember that you are not called to a life of indulgence and
pleasure, but to toil and to suffer."
La Source and Sillery, two very devoted friends, occupied a cell
together. La Source was a devoted Christian, and found, in the
consolations of piety, an unfailing support. Sillery possessed a
feeling heart, and was soothed and comforted by the devotion of his
friend. La Source composed a beautiful hymn, adapted to a sweet and
solemn air, which they called their evening service. Night after night
this mournful dirge was heard gently issuing from the darkness of
their cell, in tones so melodious and plaintive that they never died
away from the memory of those who heard them. It is difficult to
conceive of any thing more affecting than this knell, so softly
uttered at midnight in those dark and dismal dungeons.
"Calm all the tumults that invade
Our souls, and lend thy powerful aid.
Oh! source of mercy! soothe our pains,
And break, O break our cruel chains!
To Thee the captive pours his cry,
To Thee the mourner loves to fly.
The incense of our tears receive--
'Tis all the incense we can give.
"Eternal Power! our cause defend,
O God! of innocence the friend.
Near Thee forever she resides,
In Thee forever she confides.
Thou know'st the secrets of the breast:
Thou know'st the oppressor and the oppress'd.
Do thou our wrongs with pity see,
Avert a doom offending thee.
"But should the murderer's arm prevail;
Should tyranny our lives assail;
Unmoved, triumphant, scorning death,
We'll bless Thee with our latest breath.
The hour, the glorious hour will come,
That consecrates the patriots' tomb;
And with the pang our memory claims,
Our country will avenge our names."
Summer had come and gone while these distinguished prisoners were
awaiting their doom. World-weary and sick at heart, they still
struggled to sustain each other, and to meet their dreadful fate with
heroic constancy. The day for their trial at length arrived. It was
the 20th of October, 1793. They had long been held up before the mob,
by placards and impassioned harangues, as traitors to their country,
and the populace of Paris were clamorous for their consignment to the
guillotine. They were led from the dungeons of the Conciergerie to the
misnamed Halls of Justice. A vast concourse of angry men surrounded
the tribunal, and filled the air with execrations. Paris that day
presented the aspect of a camp. The Jacobins, conscious that there
were still thousands of the most influential of the citizens who
regarded the Girondists with veneration as incorruptible patriots,
determined to prevent the possibility of a rescue. They had some cause
to apprehend a counter revolution. They therefore gathered around the
scene of trial all that imposing military array which they had at
their disposal. Cavalry, with plumes, and helmets, and naked sabers,
were sweeping the streets, that no accumulations of the multitude
might gather force. The pavements trembled beneath the rumbling wheels
of heavy artillery, ready to belch forth their storm of grape-shot
upon any opposing foe. Long lines of infantry, with loaded muskets and
glittering bayonets, guarded all the avenues to the tribunal, where
rancorous passion sat enthroned in mockery upon the seat of justice.
The prisoners had nerved themselves sternly to meet this crisis of
their doom. Two by two, in solemn procession, they marched to the bar
of judgment, and took their seat upon benches surrounded by gens
d'armes and a frowning populace, and arraigned before judges already
determined upon their doom. The eyes of the world were, however, upon
them. The accused were illustrious in integrity, in rank, in talent.
In the distant provinces there were thousands who were their friends.
It was necessary to go through the formality of a trial. A few of the
accused still clung to the hope of life. They vainly dreamed it
possible that, by silence, and the abandonment of themselves to the
resistless power by which they were crushed, some mercy might be
elicited. It was a weakness unworthy of these great men. But there are
few minds which can remain firm while immured for months in the
wasting misery of a dungeon. In those glooms the sinews of mental
energy wither with dying hope. The trial continued for a week. On the
30th of October, at eleven o'clock at night, the verdict was brought
in. They were all declared guilty of having conspired against the
Republic, and were condemned to death. With the light of the next
morning's sun they were to be led to the guillotine.
As the sentence was pronounced, one of the accused, M. Valazé, made a
motion with his hand, as if to tear his garment, and fell from his
seat upon the floor. "What, Valazé," said Brissot, striving to support
him, "are you losing your courage?" "No," replied Valazé, faintly, "I
am dying;" and he expired, with his hand still grasping the hilt of
the dagger with which he had pierced his heart. For a moment it was a
scene of unutterable horror. The condemned gathered sadly around the
remains of their lifeless companion. Some, who had confidently
expected acquittal, overcome by the near approach of death, yielded to
momentary weakness, and gave utterance to reproaches and lamentations.
Others, pale and stupefied, gazed around in moody silence. One, in the
delirium of enthusiasm, throwing his arms above his head, shouted,
"This is the most glorious day of my life!" Vergniaud, seated upon the
highest bench, with the composure of philosophy and piety combined,
looked upon the scene, exulting in the victory his own spirit had
achieved over peril and death.
The weakness which a few displayed was but momentary. They rallied
their energies boldly to meet their inevitable doom. They gathered for
a moment around the corpse of their lifeless companion, and were then
formed in procession, to march back to their cells. It was midnight as
the condemned Girondists were led from the bar of the Palace of
Justice back to the dungeons of the Conciergerie, there to wait till
the swift-winged hours should bring the dawn which was to guide their
steps to the guillotine. Their presence of mind had now returned, and
their bosoms glowed with the loftiest enthusiasm. In fulfillment of a
promise they had made their fellow-prisoners, to inform them of their
fate by the echoes of their voices, they burst into the Marseillaise
Hymn. The vaults of the Conciergerie rang with the song as they
shouted, in tones of exultant energy,
"Allons, enfans de la patrie,
Le jour de glorie est arrivé,
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé.
"Come! children of your country, come!
The day of glory dawns on high,
And tyranny has wide unfurl'd
Her blood-stain'd banner in the sky."
It was their death-knell. As they were slowly led along through the
gloomy corridors of their prison to the cells, these dirge-like
wailings of a triumphant song penetrated the remotest dungeons of that
dismal abode, and roused every wretched head from its pallet. The arms
of the guard clattered along the stone floor of the subterranean
caverns, and the unhappy victims of the Revolution, roused from the
temporary oblivion of sleep, or from dreams of the homes of refinement
and luxury from which they had been torn, glared through the iron
gratings upon the melancholy procession, and uttered last words of
adieu to those whose fate they almost envied. The acquittal of the
Girondists would have given them some little hope that they also might
find mercy. Now they sunk back upon their pillows in despair, and
lamentations and wailings filled the prison.
The condemned, now that their fate was sealed, had laid aside all
weakness, and, mutually encouraging one another, prepared as martyrs
to encounter the last stern trial. They were all placed in one large
room opening into several cells, and the lifeless body of their
companion was deposited in one of the corners. By a decree of the
tribunal, the still warm and bleeding remains of Valazé were to be
carried back to the cell, and to be conveyed the next morning, in the
same cart with the prisoners, to the guillotine. The ax was to sever
the head from the lifeless body, and all the headless trunks were to
be interred together.
A wealthy friend, who had escaped proscription, and was concealed in
Paris, had agreed to send them a sumptuous banquet the night after
their trial, which banquet was to prove to them a funeral repast or a
triumphant feast, according to the verdict of acquittal or
condemnation. Their friend kept his word. Soon after the prisoners
were remanded to their cell, a table was spread, and preparations were
made for their last supper. There was a large oaken table in the
prison, where those awaiting their trial, and those awaiting their
execution, met for their coarse prison fare. A rich cloth was spread
upon that table. Servants entered, bearing brilliant lamps, which
illuminated the dismal vault with an unnatural luster, and spread the
glare of noonday light upon the miserable pallets of straw, the rusty
iron gratings and chains, and the stone walls weeping with moisture,
which no ray of the sun or warmth of fire ever dried away. It was a
strange scene, that brilliant festival, in the midst of the glooms of
the most dismal dungeon, with one dead body lying upon the floor, and
those for whom the feast was prepared waiting only for the early dawn
to light them to their death and burial. The richest viands of meats
and wines were brought in and placed before the condemned. Vases of
flowers diffused their fragrance and expanded their beauty where
flowers were never seen to bloom before. Wan and haggard faces,
unwashed and unshorn, gazed upon the unwonted spectacle, as dazzling
flambeaux, and rich table furniture, and bouquets, and costly dishes
appeared, one after another, until the board was covered with luxury
and splendor.
In silence the condemned took their places at the table. They were men
of brilliant intellects, of enthusiastic eloquence, thrown suddenly
from the heights of power to the foot of the scaffold. A priest, the
Abbé Lambert, the intimate personal friend of several of the most
eminent of the Girondists, had obtained admittance into the prison to
accompany his friends to the guillotine, and to administer to them the
last consolations of religion. He stood in the corridor, looking
through the open door upon those assembled around the table, and, with
his pencil in his hand, noted down their words, their gestures, their
sighs--their weakness and their strength. It is to him that we are
indebted for all knowledge of the sublime scenes enacted at the last
supper of the Girondists. The repast was prolonged until the dawn of
morning began to steal faintly in at the grated windows of the prison
and the gathering tumult without announced the preparations to conduct
them to their execution.
Vergniaud, the most prominent and the most eloquent of their number,
presided at the feast. He had little, save the love of glory, to bind
him to life, for he had neither father nor mother, wife nor child; and
he doubted not that posterity would do him justice, and that his death
would be the most glorious act of his life. No one could imagine, from
the calm and subdued conversation, and the quiet appetite with which
these distinguished men partook of the entertainment, that this was
their last repast, and but the prelude to a violent death. But when
the cloth was removed, and the fruits, the wines, and the flowers
alone remained, the conversation became animated, gay, and at times
rose to hilarity. Several of the youngest men of the party, in sallies
of wit and outbursts of laughter, endeavored to repel the gloom which
darkened their spirits in view of death on the morrow. It was
unnatural gayety, unreal, unworthy of the men. Death is not a jest,
and no one can honor himself by trying to make it so. A spirit truly
noble can encounter this king of terrors with fortitude, but never
with levity. Still, now and then, shouts of laughter and songs of
merriment burst from the lips of these young men, as they endeavored,
with a kind of hysterical energy, to nerve themselves to show to their
enemies their contempt of life and of death. Others were more
thoughtful, serene, and truly brave.
"What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?" said Ducos.
All paused. Religion had its hopes, philosophy its dreams, infidelity
its dreary blank. Each answered according to his faith. "We shall
sleep after the fatigues of the day," said some, "to wake no more."
Atheism had darkened their minds. "Death is an eternal sleep," had
become their gloomy creed. They looked forward to the slide of the
guillotine as ending all thought, and consigning them back to that
non-existence from which they had emerged at their creation. "No!"
replied Fauchet, Carru, and others, "annihilation is not our destiny.
We are immortal. These bodies may perish. These living thoughts, these
boundless aspirations, can never die. To-morrow, far away in other
worlds, we shall think, and feel, and act and solve the problems of
the immaterial destiny of the human mind." Immortality was the theme.
The song was hushed upon these dying lips. The forced laughter fainted
away. Standing upon the brink of that dread abyss from whence no one
has returned with tidings, every soul felt a longing for immortality.
They turned to Vergniaud, whose brilliant intellect, whose
soul-moving eloquence, whose spotless life commanded their reverence,
and appealed to him for light, and truth, and consolation. His words
are lost. The effect of his discourse alone is described. "Never,"
said the abbé "had his look, his gesture, his language, and his voice
more profoundly affected his hearers." In the conclusion of a
discourse which is described as one of almost superhuman eloquence,
during which some were aroused to the most exalted enthusiasm, all
were deeply moved, and many wept, Vergniaud exclaimed,
"Death is but the greatest act of life, since it gives birth to a
higher state of existence. Were it not thus there would be something
greater than God. It would be the just man immolating himself
uselessly and hopelessly for his country. This supposition is a folly
of blasphemy, and I repel it with contempt and horror. No! Vergniaud
is not greater than God, but God is more just than Vergniaud; and He
will not to-morrow suffer him to ascend a scaffold but to justify and
avenge him in future ages."
And now the light of day began to stream in at the windows. "Let us go
to bed," said one, "and sleep until we are called to go forth to our
last sleep. Life is a thing so trifling that it is not worth the hour
of sleep we lose in regretting it."
"Let us rather watch," said another, "during the few moments which
remain to us. Eternity is so certain and so terrible that a thousand
lives would not suffice to prepare for it."
They rose from the table, and most of them retired to their cells and
threw themselves upon their beds for a few moments of bodily repose
and meditation. Thirteen, however, remained in the larger apartment,
finding a certain kind of support in society. In a low tone of voice
they conversed with each other. They were worn out with excitement,
fatigue, and want of sleep. Some wept. Sleep kindly came to some, and
lulled their spirits into momentary oblivion.
At ten o'clock the iron doors grated on their hinges, and the tramp of
the gens d'armes, with the clattering of their sabers, was heard
reverberating through the gloomy corridors and vaults of their
dungeon, as they came, with the executioners, to lead the condemned to
the scaffold. Their long hair was cut from their necks, that the ax,
with unobstructed edge, might do its work. Each one left some simple
and affecting souvenir to friends. Gensonné picked up a lock of his
black hair, and gave it to the Abbé Lambert to give to his wife. "Tell
her," said he, "that it is the only memorial of my love which I can
transmit to her, and that my last thoughts in death were hers."
Vergniaud drew from his pocket his watch, and, with his knife,
scratched upon the case a few lines of tender remembrance, and sent
the token to a young lady to whom he was devotedly attached, and to
whom he was ere long to have been married. Each gave to the abbé some
legacy of affection to be conveyed to loved ones who were to be left
behind. Few emotions are stronger in the hour of death than the desire
to be embalmed in the affections of those who are dear to us.
All being ready, the gens d'armes marched the condemned, in a column,
into the prison-yard, where five rude carts were awaiting them, to
convey them to the scaffold. The countless thousands of Paris were
swarming around the prison, filling the court, and rolling, like ocean
tides, into every adjacent avenue. Each cart contained five persons,
with the exception of the last, into which the dead body of Valazé had
been cast with four of his living companions.
And now came to the Girondists their hour of triumph. Heroism rose
exultant over all ills. The brilliant sun and the elastic air of an
October morning invigorated their bodies, and the scene of sublimity
through which they were passing stimulated their spirits to the
highest pitch of enthusiasm. As the carts moved from the court-yard,
with one simultaneous voice, clear and sonorous, the Girondists burst
into the Marseillaise Hymn. The crowd gazed in silence as this
funereal chant, not like the wailings of a dirge, but like the strains
of an exultant song, swelled and died away upon the air. Here and
there some friendly voice among the populace ventured to swell the
volume of sound as the significant words were uttered,
"Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé."
"And tyranny has wide unfurl'd
Her blood-stain'd banner in the sky."
At the end of each verse their voices sank for a moment into silence.
The strain was then again renewed, loud and sonorous. On arriving at
the scaffold, they all embraced in one long, last adieu. It was a
token of their communion in death as in life. They then, in concert,
loudly and firmly resumed their funereal chant. One ascended the
scaffold, continuing the song with his companions. He was bound to the
plank. Still his voice was heard full and strong. The plank slowly
fell. Still his voice, without a tremor, joined in the triumphant
chorus. The glittering ax glided like lightning down the groove. His
head fell into the basket, and one voice was hushed forever. Another
ascended, and another, and another, each with the song bursting loudly
from his lips, till death ended the strain. There was no weakness. No
step trembled, no cheek paled, no voice faltered. But each succeeding
moment the song grew more faint as head after head fell, and the
bleeding bodies were piled side by side. At last one voice alone
continued the song. It was that of Vergniaud, the most illustrious of
them all. Long confinement had spread deathly pallor over his
intellectual features, but firm and dauntless, and with a voice of
surpassing richness, he continued the solo into which the chorus had
now died away. Without the tremor of a nerve, he mounted the scaffold.
For a moment he stood in silence, as he looked down upon the lifeless
bodies of his friends, and around upon the overawed multitude gazing
in silent admiration upon this heroic enthusiasm. As he then
surrendered himself to the executioner, he commenced anew the strain,
"Allons! enfans de la patrie,
Le jour de glorie est arrivé."
"Come! children of your country, come!
The day of glory dawns on high."
In the midst of the exultant tones, the ax glided on its bloody
mission, and those lips, which had guided the storm of revolution, and
whose patriotic appeals had thrilled upon the ear of France, were
silent in death. Thus perished the Girondists, the founders of the
Republic and its victims. Their votes consigned Louis and Maria to the
guillotine, and they were the first to follow them. One cart conveyed
the twenty-one bodies away, and they were thrown into one pit, by the
side of the grave of Louis XVI.
[Illustration: EXECUTION OF THE GIRONDISTS.]
They committed many errors. Few minds could discern distinctly the
path of truth and duty through the clouds and vapors of those stormy
times. But they were most sincerely devoted to the liberties of
France. They overthrew the monarchy, and established the Republic.
They died because they refused to open those sluice-ways of blood
which the people demanded. A few of the Girondists had made their
escape. Pétion, Buzot, Barbaroux, and Gaudet wandered in disguise,
and hid themselves in the caves of wild and unfrequented mountains. La
Fayette, who was one of the most noble and illustrious apostles of
this creed, was saved from the guillotine by weary years of
imprisonment in the dungeons of Olmutz. Madame Roland lingered in her
cell, striving to maintain serenity, while her soul was tortured with
the tidings of carnage and woe which every morning's dawn brought to
her ears.
The Jacobins were now more and more clamorous for blood. They strove
to tear La Fayette from his dungeon, that they might triumph in his
death. They pursued, with implacable vigilance, the Girondists who had
escaped from their fury. They trained blood-hounds to scent them out
in their wild retreats, where they were suffering, from cold and
starvation, all that human nature can possibly endure. For a time,
five of them lived together in a cavern, thirty feet in depth. This
cavern had a secret communication with the cellar of a house. Their
generous hostess, periling her own life for them, daily supplied them
with food. She could furnish them only with the most scanty fare, lest
she should be betrayed by the purchase of provisions necessary for so
many mouths. It was mid-winter. No fire warmed them in their damp and
gloomy vault, and this living burial must have been worse than death.
The search became so rigid that it was necessary for them to disperse.
One directed his steps toward the Pyrenees. He was arrested and
executed. Three toiled along by night, through cold, and snow, and
rain, the keen wind piercing their tattered garments, till their
sufferings made them reckless of life. They were arrested, and found,
in the blade of the guillotine, a refuge from their woes. At last all
were taken and executed but Pétion and Buzot. Their fate is involved
in mystery. None can tell what their sufferings were during the days
and the nights of their weary wanderings, when no eye but that of God
could see them. Some peasants found among the mountains, where they
had taken refuge, human remains rent in pieces by the wolves. The
tattered garments were scattered around where the teeth of the
ferocious animals had left them. They were all that was left of the
noble Pétion and Buzot. But how did they die? Worn out by suffering
and abandoned to despair, did they fall by their own hands? Did they
perish from exposure to hunger and exhaustion, and the freezing blasts
of winter? Or, in their weakness, were they attacked by the famished
wolves of the mountains? The dying scene of Pétion and Buzot is
involved in impenetrable obscurity. Its tragic accompaniments can only
be revealed when all mysteries shall be unfolded.