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Finally, most fortunate of all, Robespierre, Saint Just and Couthon, the Paris commune and the theorist Jacobins, are guillotined on the 23rd of July, and with them falls despotic socialism. Henceforth, the Jacobin edifice crumbles, owing to great crevices in its walls. The "maximum," in fact, is no longer maintained, while the Convention, at the end of December, 1794, legally abolishes it.
The Girondists had fallen, and the government of France had passed into the hands of Danton and Robespierre, the leaders of the Jacobins. The Reign of Terror was now in full force. The republican constitution had been suspended, and the Convention had assumed despotic powers with bloody proclivities.
There was danger in an open appeal, for, above all things, Robespierre prided himself upon his incorruptibility, and he might consider that to free a prisoner for service rendered to himself would be a breach of his duty to France. He resolved, therefore, to keep silence at present, reserving an appeal to Robespierre's gratitude for the last extremity.
I must explain to you, that the Jacobins have lately been composed of two parties the avowed adherents of Collot, Billaud, &c. and the concealed remains of those attached to Robespierre; but party has now given way to principle, a circumstance not usual; and the whole club of Paris, with several of the affiliated ones, join in censuring the innovating tendencies of the Convention.
Robespierre, Duplay's guest, dined every day with Duplay, a juryman in the revolutionary tribunal and co-operator for the guillotine, at eighteen francs a day. The talk at the table probably turned on the current abstractions; but there must have been frequent allusions to the condemnations of the day, and, even when not mentioned, they were in their minds.
This act of Robespierre led to one good result: the terrified grocers let politics alone until 1830. Descoings's shop was not a hundred yards from Robespierre's lodging. His successor was scarcely more fortunate than himself.
Maximilien Isidore Robespierre, the leader of the most violent of those theorizers who overthrew the French monarchy, the exponent of all that deep-rooted hatred which the commoners of France, as the result of long centuries of oppression, harbored against their king, nobles, and clergy; Robespierre, who ruled the infant republic during her first bold defiance of united Europe, yet whose name has become, even among his countrymen, a symbol of horror, was born at Arras, in 1758.
Speaking, in this paper, of Robespierre the younger, he said: "I was a little touched by the catastrophe, for I loved him and thought him spotless. But were it my own father, I would stab him to the heart if he aspired to become a tyrant." If the letter be genuine, as is probable, the writer was very far-sighted.
To be accused of "conspiring against the State" was instantly fatal, and no one's life was safe. Danton was denounced by Robespierre, and perished; and for three whole years the Reign of Terror lasted. The emigrants, by forming an army and advancing on France, assisted by the forces of Germany, only made matters worse.
Within the space of ten and a half years from the assembling of the Estates-General at Versailles, parliamentary and popular government fell beneath the sword. The predictions of Marat and Robespierre were realized: militarism had supplanted democracy.
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