The French Revolution A History Chapter 3.6.VII. - Go down to.
by Thomas Carlyle
Tallien's eyes beamed bright, on the morrow, Ninth of Thermidor 'about nine
o'clock,' to see that the Convention had actually met. Paris is in rumour:
but at least we are met, in Legal Convention here; we have not been
snatched seriatim; treated with a Pride's Purge at the door. "Allons,
brave men of the Plain," late Frogs of the Marsh! cried Tallien with a
squeeze of the hand, as he passed in; Saint-Just's sonorous organ being now
audible from the Tribune, and the game of games begun.
Saint-Just is verily reading that Report of his; green Vengeance, in the
shape of Robespierre, watching nigh. Behold, however, Saint-Just has read
but few sentences, when interruption rises, rapid crescendo; when Tallien
starts to his feet, and Billaud, and this man starts and that,--and
Tallien, a second time, with his: "Citoyens, at the Jacobins last night, I
trembled for the Republic. I said to myself, if the Convention dare not
strike the Tyrant, then I myself dare; and with this I will do it, if need
be," said he, whisking out a clear-gleaming Dagger, and brandishing it
there: the Steel of Brutus, as we call it. Whereat we all bellow, and
brandish, impetuous acclaim. "Tyranny; Dictatorship! Triumvirat!" And the
Salut Committee-men accuse, and all men accuse, and uproar, and impetuously
acclaim. And Saint-Just is standing motionless, pale of face; Couthon
ejaculating, "Triumvir?" with a look at his paralytic legs. And
Robespierre is struggling to speak, but President Thuriot is jingling the
bell against him, but the Hall is sounding against him like an Aeolus-Hall:
and Robespierre is mounting the Tribune-steps and descending again; going
and coming, like to choke with rage, terror, desperation:--and mutiny is
the order of the day! (Moniteur, Nos. 311, 312; Debats, iv. 421-42; Deux
Amis, xii. 390-411.)
O President Thuriot, thou that wert Elector Thuriot, and from the Bastille
battlements sawest Saint-Antoine rising like the Ocean-tide, and hast seen
much since, sawest thou ever the like of this? Jingle of bell, which thou
jinglest against Robespierre, is hardly audible amid the Bedlam-storm; and
men rage for life. "President of Assassins," shrieks Robespierre, "I
demand speech of thee for the last time!" It cannot be had. "To you, O
virtuous men of the Plain," cries he, finding audience one moment, "I
appeal to you!" The virtuous men of the Plain sit silent as stones. And
Thuriot's bell jingles, and the Hall sounds like Aeolus's Hall.
Robespierre's frothing lips are grown 'blue;' his tongue dry, cleaving to
the roof of his mouth. "The blood of Danton chokes him," cry they.
"Accusation! Decree of Accusation!" Thuriot swiftly puts that question.
Accusation passes; the incorruptible Maximilien is decreed Accused.
"I demand to share my Brother's fate, as I have striven to share his
virtues," cries Augustin, the Younger Robespierre: Augustin also is
decreed. And Couthon, and Saint-Just, and Lebas, they are all decreed; and
packed forth,--not without difficulty, the Ushers almost trembling to obey.
Triumvirat and Company are packed forth, into Salut Committee-room; their
tongue cleaving to the roof of their mouth. You have but to summon the
Municipality; to cashier Commandant Henriot, and launch Arrest at him; to
regular formalities; hand Tinville his victims. It is noon: the Aeolus-
Hall has delivered itself; blows now victorious, harmonious, as one
irresistible wind.
And so the work is finished? One thinks so; and yet it is not so. Alas,
there is yet but the first-act finished; three or four other acts still to
come; and an uncertain catastrophe! A huge City holds in it so many
confusions: seven hundred thousand human heads; not one of which knows
what its neighbour is doing, nay not what itself is doing.--See,
accordingly, about three in the afternoon, Commandant Henriot, how instead
of sitting cashiered, arrested, he gallops along the Quais, followed by
Municipal Gendarmes, 'trampling down several persons!' For the Townhall
sits deliberating, openly insurgent: Barriers to be shut; no Gaoler to
admit any Prisoner this day;--and Henriot is galloping towards the
Tuileries, to deliver Robespierre. On the Quai de la Ferraillerie, a young
Citoyen, walking with his wife, says aloud: "Gendarmes, that man is not
your Commandant; he is under arrest." The Gendarmes strike down the young
Citoyen with the flat of their swords. (Precis des evenemens du Neuf
Thermidor, par C.A. Meda, ancien Gendarme (Paris, 1825).)
Representatives themselves (as Merlin the Thionviller) who accost him, this
puissant Henriot flings into guardhouses. He bursts towards the Tuileries
Committee-room, "to speak with Robespierre:" with difficulty, the Ushers
and Tuileries Gendarmes, earnestly pleading and drawing sabre, seize this
Henriot; get the Henriot Gendarmes persuaded not to fight; get Robespierre
and Company packed into hackney-coaches, sent off under escort, to the
Luxembourg and other Prisons. This then is the end? May not an exhausted
Convention adjourn now, for a little repose and sustenance, 'at five
o'clock?'
An exhausted Convention did it; and repented it. The end was not come;
only the end of the second-act. Hark, while exhausted Representatives sit
at victuals,--tocsin bursting from all steeples, drums rolling, in the
summer evening: Judge Coffinhal is galloping with new Gendarmes to deliver
Henriot from Tuileries Committee-room; and does deliver him! Puissant
Henriot vaults on horseback; sets to haranguing the Tuileries Gendarmes;
corrupts the Tuileries Gendarmes too; trots off with them to Townhall.
Alas, and Robespierre is not in Prison: the Gaoler shewed his Municipal
order, durst not on pain of his life, admit any Prisoner; the Robespierre
Hackney-coaches, in confused jangle and whirl of uncertain Gendarmes, have
floated safe--into the Townhall! There sit Robespierre and Company,
embraced by Municipals and Jacobins, in sacred right of Insurrection;
redacting Proclamations; sounding tocsins; corresponding with Sections and
Mother Society. Is not here a pretty enough third-act of a natural Greek
Drama; catastrophe more uncertain than ever?
The hasty Convention rushes together again, in the ominous nightfall:
President Collot, for the chair is his, enters with long strides, paleness
on his face; claps on his hat; says with solemn tone: "Citoyens, armed
Villains have beset the Committee-rooms, and got possession of them. The
hour is come, to die at our post!" "Oui," answer one and all: "We swear
it!" It is no rhodomontade, this time, but a sad fact and necessity;
unless we do at our posts, we must verily die! Swift therefore,
Robespierre, Henriot, the Municipality, are declared Rebels; put Hors la
Loi, Out of Law. Better still, we appoint Barras Commandant of what Armed-
Force is to be had; send Missionary Representatives to all Sections and
quarters, to preach, and raise force; will die at least with harness on our
back.
What a distracted City; men riding and running, reporting and hearsaying;
the Hour clearly in travail,--child not to be named till born! The poor
Prisoners in the Luxembourg hear the rumour; tremble for a new September.
They see men making signals to them, on skylights and roofs, apparently
signals of hope; cannot in the least make out what it is. (Memoires sur
les Prisons, ii. 277.) We observe however, in the eventide, as usual, the
Death-tumbrils faring South-eastward, through Saint-Antoine, towards their
Barrier du Trone. Saint-Antoine's tough bowels melt; Saint-Antoine
surrounds the Tumbrils; says, It shall not be. O Heavens, why should it!
Henriot and Gendarmes, scouring the streets that way, bellow, with waved
sabres, that it must. Quit hope, ye poor Doomed! The Tumbrils move on.
But in this set of Tumbrils there are two other things notable: one
notable person; and one want of a notable person. The notable person is
Lieutenant-General Loiserolles, a nobleman by birth, and by nature; laying
down his life here for his son. In the Prison of Saint-Lazare, the night
before last, hurrying to the Grate to hear the Death-list read, he caught
the name of his son. The son was asleep at the moment. "I am
Loiserolles," cried the old man: at Tinville's bar, an error in the
Christian name is little; small objection was made. The want of the
notable person, again, is that of Deputy Paine! Paine has sat in the
Luxembourg since January; and seemed forgotten; but Fouquier had pricked
him at last. The Turnkey, List in hand, is marking with chalk the outer
doors of to-morrow's Fournee. Paine's outer door happened to be open,
turned back on the wall; the Turnkey marked it on the side next him, and
hurried on: another Turnkey came, and shut it; no chalk-mark now visible,
the Fournee went without Paine. Paine's life lay not there.--
Our fifth-act, of this natural Greek Drama, with its natural unities, can
only be painted in gross; somewhat as that antique Painter, driven
desperate, did the foam! For through this blessed July night, there is
clangour, confusion very great, of marching troops; of Sections going this
way, Sections going that; of Missionary Representatives reading
Proclamations by torchlight; Missionary Legendre, who has raised force
somewhere, emptying out the Jacobins, and flinging their key on the
Convention table: "I have locked their door; it shall be Virtue that re-
opens it." Paris, we say, is set against itself, rushing confused, as
Ocean-currents do; a huge Mahlstrom, sounding there, under cloud of night.
Convention sits permanent on this hand; Municipality most permanent on
that. The poor Prisoners hear tocsin and rumour; strive to bethink them of
the signals apparently of hope. Meek continual Twilight streaming up,
which will be Dawn and a To-morrow, silvers the Northern hem of Night; it
wends and wends there, that meek brightness, like a silent prophecy, along
the great Ring-Dial of the Heaven. So still, eternal! And on Earth all is
confused shadow and conflict; dissidence, tumultuous gloom and glare; and
Destiny as yet shakes her doubtful urn.
About three in the morning, the dissident Armed-Forces have met. Henriot's
Armed Force stood ranked in the Place de Greve; and now Barras's, which he
has recruited, arrives there; and they front each other, cannon bristling
against cannon. Citoyens! cries the voice of Discretion, loudly enough,
Before coming to bloodshed, to endless civil-war, hear the Convention
Decree read: 'Robespierre and all rebels Out of Law!'--Out of Law? There
is terror in the sound: unarmed Citoyens disperse rapidly home; Municipal
Cannoneers range themselves on the Convention side, with shouting. At
which shout, Henriot descends from his upper room, far gone in drink as
some say; finds his Place de Greve empty; the cannons' mouth turned towards
him; and, on the whole,--that it is now the catastrophe!
Stumbling in again, the wretched drunk-sobered Henriot announces: "All is
lost!" "Miserable! it is thou that hast lost it," cry they: and fling
him, or else he flings himself, out of window: far enough down; into
masonwork and horror of cesspool; not into death but worse. Augustin
Robespierre follows him; with the like fate. Saint-Just called on Lebas to
kill him: who would not. Couthon crept under a table; attempting to kill
himself; not doing it.--On entering that Sanhedrim of Insurrection, we find
all as good as extinct; undone, ready for seizure. Robespierre was sitting
on a chair, with pistol shot blown through, not his head, but his under
jaw; the suicidal hand had failed. (Meda. p. 384. (Meda asserts that it
was he who, with infinite courage, though in a lefthanded manner, shot
Robespierre. Meda got promoted for his services of this night; and died
General and Baron. Few credited Meda in what was otherwise incredible.).)
With prompt zeal, not without trouble, we gather these wretched
Conspirators; fish up even Henriot and Augustin, bleeding and foul; pack
them all, rudely enough, into carts; and shall, before sunrise, have them
safe under lock and key. Amid shoutings and embracings.
Robespierre lay in an anteroom of the Convention Hall, while his Prison-
escort was getting ready; the mangled jaw bound up rudely with bloody
linen: a spectacle to men. He lies stretched on a table, a deal-box his
pillow; the sheath of the pistol is still clenched convulsively in his
hand. Men bully him, insult him: his eyes still indicate intelligence; he
speaks no word. 'He had on the sky-blue coat he had got made for the Feast
of the Etre Supreme'--O reader, can thy hard heart hold out against that?
His trousers were nankeen; the stockings had fallen down over the ankles.
He spake no word more in this world.
And so, at six in the morning, a victorious Convention adjourns. Report
flies over Paris as on golden wings; penetrates the Prisons; irradiates the
faces of those that were ready to perish: turnkeys and moutons, fallen
from their high estate, look mute and blue. It is the 28th day of July,
called 10th of Thermidor, year 1794.
Fouquier had but to identify; his Prisoners being already Out of Law. At
four in the afternoon, never before were the streets of Paris seen so
crowded. From the Palais de Justice to the Place de la Revolution, for
thither again go the Tumbrils this time, it is one dense stirring mass; all
windows crammed; the very roofs and ridge-tiles budding forth human
Curiosity, in strange gladness. The Death-tumbrils, with their motley
Batch of Outlaws, some Twenty-three or so, from Maximilien to Mayor
Fleuriot and Simon the Cordwainer, roll on. All eyes are on Robespierre's
Tumbril, where he, his jaw bound in dirty linen, with his half-dead
Brother, and half-dead Henriot, lie shattered; their 'seventeen hours' of
agony about to end. The Gendarmes point their swords at him, to shew the
people which is he. A woman springs on the Tumbril; clutching the side of
it with one hand; waving the other Sibyl-like; and exclaims: "The death of
thee gladdens my very heart, m'enivre de joie;" Robespierre opened his
eyes; "Scelerat, go down to Hell, with the curses of all wives and
mothers!"--At the foot of the scaffold, they stretched him on the ground
till his turn came. Lifted aloft, his eyes again opened; caught the bloody
axe. Samson wrenched the coat off him; wrenched the dirty linen from his
jaw: the jaw fell powerless, there burst from him a cry;--hideous to hear
and see. Samson, thou canst not be too quick!
Samson's work done, there burst forth shout on shout of applause. Shout,
which prolongs itself not only over Paris, but over France, but over
Europe, and down to this Generation. Deservedly, and also undeservedly. O
unhappiest Advocate of Arras, wert thou worse than other Advocates?
Stricter man, according to his Formula, to his Credo and his Cant, of
probities, benevolences, pleasures-of-virtue, and such like, lived not in
that age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled age, to have become one of
those incorruptible barren Pattern-Figures, and have had marble-tablets and
funeral-sermons! His poor landlord, the Cabinetmaker in the Rue Saint-
Honore, loved him; his Brother died for him. May God be merciful to him,
and to us.
This is end of the Reign of Terror; new glorious Revolution named of
Thermidor; of Thermidor 9th, year 2; which being interpreted into old
slave-style means 27th of July, 1794. Terror is ended; and death in the
Place de la Revolution, were the 'Tail of Robespierre' once executed; which
service Fouquier in large Batches is swiftly managing.
