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Just then, Robespierre was taken ill, and from February 19 to March 13 he was confined to his room. Robespierre was a calculator and a tactician, methodical in his ways, definite and measured in his ends. He was less remarkable for determination and courage; and thus two men of uncommon energy now took the lead. They were Billaud-Varennes and St. Just. When St.
They called Boissy d'Anglas, president of the committee of subsistence, Boissy-Famine. Such was the state of the fanatical and exasperated multitude, when its former leaders were brought to trial. On the 12th Ventose, a short time after the return of the remaining Girondists, the assembly had decreed the arrest of Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois, Barrere and Vadier.
The final scene, in which Robespierre is brought under accusation by the Convention, was vastly inferior to the same thing in "Thermidor"; and, what was worse, instead of paraphrasing or translating the speeches of Billaud-Varennes, Tallien, and Robespierre, which he might have found in the "Moniteur," Sardou, or rather Irving, makes the leading characters yell harangues very much of the sort which would be made in a meeting of drunken dock laborers to-day.
Memoirs of Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, Vadier and Barere. He shouted so loud as to collect together a number of citizens on the Tuileries terrace." Finally, "he pushed hypocrisy so far as to shed tears." The nervous machine, I imagine, broke down.
The revolutionary tribunal had its staff quadrupled on the 5th of September; within a few days the sections were given increased police powers; and Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varennes, the two strongest supporters of Hébert in the Convention were elected to the Committee of Public Safety.
Finally, there is the law of hostages, this being atrocious, conceived in the spirit of September, 1792, suggested by the famous motions of Collot d'Herbois against those in confinement, and of Billaud-Varennes against the youth, Louis XVII., but extended, elaborated and drawn up with cool legal acumen, and enforced and applied with the foresight of an administrator.
A deputation indeed went to the Abbaye to try to persuade the murderers to desist; but their voices were drowned in the tumultuous cries. The Commune of Paris openly directed the massacre. Billaud-Varennes went backwards and forwards to superintend the execution of his orders, and promised the executioners twenty-four francs a day. The receipt for the payment of this blood-money still exists.
Nothing that relates to a man like Napoleon can be considered useless or trivial. "What, after all, was the result of this strange business which might have cost Bonaparte his head? for, had he been taken to Paris and tried by the Committee of Public Safety, there is little doubt that the friend of Robespierre the younger would have been condemned by Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois.
Robespierre was the first deputy returned, Danton was second, Collot third, Manuel fourth, Billaud-Varennes fifth, Camille Desmoulins sixth, and Marat seventh, with a majority over Priestley, who was chosen in two departments, but refused the seat. The twentieth and last of the deputies for Paris was the duke of Orleans.
"It is necessary," says Billaud-Varennes, "that the people to which one desires to restore their freedom should in some way be created anew, since old prejudices must be destroyed, old habits changed, depraved affections improved, superfluous wants restricted, and inveterate vices extirpated."
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