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Updated: May 3, 2025
On the day following that on which Billaud had spoken of the waking of the lion in the popular society, there was great agitation throughout Paris. It was wished to take the Jacobin club by assault. Men shouted in the streets "The great Jacobin conspiracy! Outlaw the Jacobins!" At this period the revolutionary committee of Nantes were being tried.
It was men like Collot d'Herbois, Billaud Varenne and Barrère, the bloodiest of the Terrorists, who, to save their own heads, united to cast the odium of the later excesses on Robespierre, and to overthrow him. The Thermidorians had no intention of staying the Terror and the actual consequences of their success were wholly unexpected by them.
A vessel which had been fitted out with great expedition at Rochefort touched at Oléron; and it was announced to Collot and Billaud that they must instantly go on board. They were forthwith conveyed to Guiana, where Collot soon drank himself to death with brandy. Billaud lived many years, shunning his fellow creatures and shunned by them; and diverted his lonely hours by teaching parrots to talk.
I see on the Mountain one of those men who threatened the republic; there he is." "Arrest him! arrest him!" was the general cry. The serjeant seized him, and took him to the committee of general safety. "The time is come for speaking the truth," said Billaud.
But the return of Collot d'Herbois made the situation more intricate. Collot was by his position the ally of Billaud, and to attack him, therefore, was to attack the most powerful member of the Committee of Public Safety. Billaud was too formidable.
When Danton carried through this statute he supposed himself to be at the apex of power and popularity, and to be safe, if any man in France were safe. Very shortly he learned the error In his calculation. Billaud was a member of the Committee of Public Safety, while Danton had allowed himself to be dropped from membership.
If we were writing about any of his colleagues in the Committee of Public Safety, about Carnot, about Robespierre, or St. Just, nay, even about Couthon, Collot, or Billaud, we might feel it necessary to go into a full examination of the arguments which have been employed to vindicate or to excuse the system of Terror.
The press was seething with recovered freedom, and the horrors of Carrier gave the journalists a tremendous text. A long struggle was waged over him. In the Convention, Billaud and Collot, feeling that the attack on Carrier was in reality an attack against them and every other terrorist, tried hard to save him.
The air of "La Carmagnole" was originally composed when the town of that name was taken by Prince Eugene, and was adapted to the indecent words now sung by the French after the 10th of August 1792. Such unusual temerity susprised and alarmed the remains of the Committee, and Billaud Varennes sternly reminded the Convention of the abject state they were so lately released from.
Billaud Varennes, Collot, and other members of the old Committee, view these innovations with sullen acquiescence; but Barrere, whose frivolous and facile spirit is incapable of consistency, even in wickedness, perseveres and flourishes at the tribune as gaily as ever.
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