A British historian might say, that even Robespierre ought to have been heard in his defence; and that such calmness would have done honour to the convention, and dignified their final sentence of condemnation. As it was, they no doubt treated the guilty individual according to his deserts: but they fell short of that regularity and manly staidness of conduct which was due to themselves and to the law, and which would have given to the punishment of the demagogue the effect and weight of a solemn and deliberate sentence, in place of its seeming the result of the hasty and precipitate seizure of a temporary advantage.
Haste was, however, necessary, and must have appeared more so at such a crisis, than perhaps it really was. Much must be pardoned to the terrors of the moment, the horrid character of the culprit, and the necessity of hurrying to a decisive conclusion. We have been told that his last audible words, contending against the exclamations of hundreds, and the bell which the president was ringing incessantly, had uttered in the highest tones which despair could give to a voice naturally shrill and discordant, dwelt long on the memory, and haunted the dreams of many who heard him:--"President of assassins," he screamed, "for the last time I demand privilege of speech!" After this exertion, his breath became short and faint; and while he still uttered broken murmurs and hoarse ejaculations, the members of the mountain called out, that the blood of Danton choked his voice.
The tumult was closed by a decree of arrest against Robespierre, his brother, Couthon, and Saint Just; Le Bas was included on his own motion, and indeed could scarce have escaped the fate of his brother-in-law, though his conduct then, and subsequently, showed more energy than that of the others. Couthon hugging in his bosom the spaniel upon which he was wont to exhaust the overflowing of his affected sensibility, appealed to his decrepitude, and asked whether, maimed of proportion and activity as he was, _he_ could be suspected of nourishing plans of violence or ambition. "Wretch," said Legendre, "thou hast the strength of Hercules for the perpetration of crime." Dumas, president of the revolutionary tribunal, with Henriot, commandant of the national guards, and other satellites of Robespierre, were included in the doom of arrest.
The convention had declared their sitting permanent, and had taken all precautions for appealing for protection to the large mass of citizens, who, wearied out by the reign of terror, were desirous to close it at all hazards. They quickly had deputations from several of the neighbouring sections, declaring their adherence to the national representatives, in whose defence they were arming, and (many undoubtedly prepared beforehand) were marching in all haste to the protection of the convention. But they heard also the less pleasing tidings, that Henriot, having effected the dispersion of those citizens who had obstructed, as elsewhere mentioned, the execution of the eighty condemned persons, and consummated that final act of murder, was approaching the Tuilleries, where they had held their sitting, with a numerous staff, and such of the Jacobinical forces as could hastily be collected.
Happily for the convention, this commandant of the national guards, on whose presence of mind and courage the fate of France perhaps for the moment depended, was as stupid and cowardly as he was brutally ferocious. He suffered himself without resistance, to be arrested by a few gens d'armes, the immediate guards of the convention, headed by two of its members, who behaved in the emergency with equal prudence and spirit.
But fortune, or the demon whom he had served, afforded Robespierre another chance for safety, perhaps even for empire; for moments which a man of self-possession might have employed for escape, one of desperate courage might have used for victory, which, considering the divided and extremely unsettled state of the capital, was likely to be gained by the boldest competitor.