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There then remained the cliques of Danton and Robespierre; the former claiming the name of moderates, and telling men to be calm, the latter with no principle but devotion to a person who claimed to be the regenerator of society. These hero-worshipers were for a time victorious. Danton, like Hébert, was foully murdered, and Robespierre remained alone, virtually dictator.
But Chauvelin did not flinch beneath that gaze which could make every cheek in France blanch with unnamed terror, and after that slight moment of hesitation Robespierre said quietly: "You shall have the complete power of a military dictator in every town or borough of France which you may visit.
They experienced the lurking fear that the men of the Convention must have felt whom the vague speeches of Robespierre threatened with the guillotine, and who, under the influence of this fear, invariably yielded to him. It is all to the interest of the leaders to indulge in the most improbable exaggerations.
IV. The Statesmen. Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Couthon and Saint-Just. Conditions of this rule. Dangers to which they are subject. Their dissensions. Pressure of Fear and Theory. If such are the ravages which are made in an upright, firm and healthy personality, what must be the havoc in corrupt or weak natures, in which bad instincts already predominate!
The infamous Carrier, who was the execrable agent of his still more execrable employer, Robespierre, was left afterwards to join Tallien in a conspiracy against him, merely to save himself; but did not long survive his atrocious crimes or his perfidy.
If men like Tallien and Foucher, monsters gorged with blood and rapine, triumph, France is overwhelmed in a welter of crime and infamy ... Robespierre, awake; when criminals, drunken with fury and affright, plan your death and the death of freedom! Couthon, Saint-Just, make haste; why tarry ye to denounce the plots?
Yet Robespierre began his public life with aspirations of humanity, which never deserted him; and resolutions as to conduct, to which he adhered with a constancy never surpassed. What shall we say are the qualifications for a great and good man? Honesty. In spite of his infamy, Robespierre's honesty has become proverbial.
Buonaparte, knowing now that he had trodden dangerous ground in his unauthorized and secret dealings with the younger Robespierre, and probably foreseeing the coming storm, began to shorten sail immediately upon reaching Nice.
The king and the dauphin were imprisoned in the second story, and the queen, her young daughter, and the Princess Elizabeth in the story above. The power swiftly passed from Girondists to Jacobins, and a Revolutionary Tribunal was created in charge of the terrible triumvirate Robespierre, Marat, and Danton.
From the moment of his appearance at the Hôtel de Ville, the day after the fight was over, Robespierre became the ruling spirit and the organiser, and it was felt at once that, behind the declamations and imprecations of Marat, there was a singularly methodical, consistent, patient, and systematic mind at work, directing the action of the Commune.
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