THE TWENTY-TWO.
The twenty-two had literally been under the control of the police,
though not arrested, since May 31st. But as events progressed, their
destruction became almost necessary to the safety of those members of
the Convention, who, obtaining power wholly through the will of the
more violent, could only retain it by a perfect recognition of the
will of those who had given them the victory.
The twenty-two were therefore seized, and placed in a building
converted from a convent into a prison, and here they made full
preparations to die.
To this day, the walls of this place may be seen covered with
mementoes of the prison-days of the victims of the Revolution. They
are chiefly short verses, written in blood, the purple hues of which
many of the inscriptions still retain.
A few days after the Queen’s day of peace arrived, their trial
commenced.
Of what were they accused?
Really, nothing; but they were in the way, and a threatening division
of the masses insisted upon their death.
After four days’ mockery of justice, the twenty-two were declared
guilty of having conspired against the unity and indivisibility of
the republic, and the whole were condemned to die.
A cry of horror burst from the condemned, for many of them could not
believe that innocent men could be sent to the scaffold.
Valasé, one of the youngest, slipped from his seat to the floor.
“What, Valasé! art losing courage now?” cried his friend Brissot,
upholding him.
“No; I am dying!” returned Valasé; and his fingers quivered about
the handle of the poniard with which he had taken his own life.
Silent horror for a moment prevailed; the Girondists blushed and
bowed their heads before their dead companion, who had given them an
example of fearlessness in meeting death.
Only one, named Boileau, showed cowardice. He cast his hat into the
air and screamed, “I don’t belong to these men! I am a Jacobin!”
But instead of pity he only gained contempt.
And now a cry was heard; it came from Camille Desmoulins: “Let me
fly,” he cried; “it is my book which has killed them!”
But the crowd seized Desmoulins, and forced him to remain.
The twenty-two came down from the high seats upon which they had
heard their trial and sentence, and for a moment stood round the
dead body of their friend, who had shown them how to die. Almost
simultaneously they raised their hands and cried, “Innocent! Long
live the republic!”
Then they cast all the money they had with them amongst the crowding,
storming people, who greedily seized it. This was done, not to excite
the mob to revolt, but with the thought that, their death at hand,
they had no farther need of wealth.
There was something strangely classic and Roman-like in their
death. They left the hall singing loudly the celebrated hymn, the
“Marseillaise;” and in reference to their death, they sang with
amazing power the celebrated two lines,
“March on, march on! O children of the land,
The day, the hour of glory, is at hand!”
This terrible hymn they were still singing as they entered their
prison. It was now late in the evening, and they were to suffer on
the following morning.
The tribunal had decreed that the yet warm corpse of Valasé should
be carried back to prison, conveyed in the same cart with his
accomplices to the scaffold, and interred with their bodies. The only
sentence, perhaps, which punished the dead.
Four men-at-arms carried the body upon a litter, and thus the
procession reached the prison.
The twenty-two were to pass the night in the same room, the corpse
in one corner. The twenty-one—even Boileau, who repented of his
momentary cowardice—came, one by one, and kissed the dead man’s hand,
then covered his face, saying, “To-morrow, brother!”
One Bailleul, a Girondist and a Conventionist, but who had escaped
the proscription, yet had not left Paris, had promised that, after
the trial, he would prepare and send to the prison, either a
triumphant or a funereal supper, according to the sentence.
The promise was kept. Upon the oaken table, stretching the length of
their dungeon was set out a supper, royal in its magnificence. Every
luxury to be obtained, every delicate wine with a name, filled those
portions of the table not covered by a wealth of flowers and great
clusters of brilliantly burning wax candles.
To one Abbé Lambert, who lived fifty years after that night, we owe
all we have learnt concerning that final meal. This minister was
waiting to offer consolation to the condemned as they passed to the
scaffold.
The supper lasted from midnight until the dawn of day—at the end of
October, about half-past five. It was the feast of their marriage
with death. No sign was given of their approaching end. All ate with
sobriety, but with appetite; and it was only when the fruit and wine
alone remained on the table that the conversation became excited and
powerful.
Many, especially the younger men, who did not leave families behind
them, were very gay and witty. They had done no great wrong, and were
sacrificed to duty, therefore they met death with cheerful faces.
With solemn break of day, the conversation became graver.
Brissot cried, “now that we, the honest men amongst those who govern,
are about to die, what will become of the republic? How much blood
will it require to wash away the memory of ours?”
“Friends,” cried Vergniaud, “we have killed the tree by over-pruning
it. It was aged—Robespierre cuts it down. Will he be more fortunate
than ourselves? No; the land of France is now too weak for honest
growth. The people play with laws as children with toys; they are
too weak to govern themselves; and they will return to their kings
as children to their toys, after they are tired of having thrown
them away. We thought ourselves at Rome; we were in Paris. But, in
dying, let us leave to the whole of France—the strength of hope. Some
day—some great day—she will be able to govern herself.”
At ten o’clock the executioners arrived to prepare the victims for
the scaffold. Gensomé, picking up a lock of the black, brilliant hair
cut from his head, gave it to Abbé Lambert, and begged him to carry
it to his wife. “Tell her,” he said, “it is all I can send, and that
I die thinking of her.”
Vergniaud drew his watch from his pocket, scratched his initials and
the date in it with a pin, and sent it by the hands of one of the
executioners’ assistants to a young girl whom he loved deeply, and
whom it is said he intended to marry.
Every one sent a something to some one or more in memory of himself,
and it is pleasant to be able to state that every message and
remembrance were faithfully delivered.
When the last lock of hair had fallen, the victims were marshalled,
and they were led out to the carts waiting to receive them.
They sang the “Marseillaise” to the scaffold—they sang it when they
reached it, the song growing fainter and fainter as each head fell;
and the hymn only ceased, as the last head fell—that of their leader,
Vergniaud.
The dead body of their friend was carried with them.
Such was the end of the founders of the French republic.
With them the brightness, beauty, youth, wit, frankness of the
Convention passed away, and their places were filled by sullen,
threatening men.