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Updated: May 3, 2025
In one of them was Billaud, attended by two officers; in the other two more officers were waiting to receive Barere. Collot was already on the road. At Orleans, a city which had suffered cruelly from the Jacobin tyranny, the three deputies were surrounded by a mob bent on tearing them to pieces.
It was voted that his speech should be printed; and that it should be posted in all the communes of France. For a moment it looked as though the iron yoke were immovably fixed. Then Cambon went to the tribune, and ventured to discuss Robespierre's views. Billaud followed. And presently the Convention, hardly realizing what it had done, rescinded the second of its two votes.
Tallien, bravely taking his life in his hand, led the onset. Billaud followed; and then all that infinite hatred which had long been kept down by terror burst forth, and swept every barrier before it. When at length the voice of Robespierre, drowned by the President's bell, and by shouts of "Down with the tyrant!" had died away in hoarse gasping, Barere rose.
We see him as president of the Jacobin Club, president of the Convention, and member of the Committee of Public Safety; he drags the Girondists to the scaffold: he drags the queen thither, and his former patron, Danton, said of him, `Billaud has a dagger under his tongue. He approves of the cannonades at Lyons, the drownings at Nantes, the massacres at Arras; he organises the pitiless commission of Orange; he is concerned in the laws of Prairial; he eggs on Fouquier-Tinville; on all decrees of death is his name, often the first; he signs before his colleagues; he is without pity, without emotion, without enthusiasm; when others are frightened, hesitate, and draw back, he goes his way, speaking in turgid sentences, `shaking his lion's mane' for to make his cold and impassive face more in harmony with the exuberance that surrounds him he now decks himself in a yellow wig which would make one laugh were it on any but the sinister head of Billaud-Varenne.
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.
The tumult was suppressed: and it was decreed that same evening that Collot, Billaud, and Barere should instantly be removed to a distant place of confinement. The next day the order of the Convention was executed. The account which Barere has given of his journey is the most interesting and the most trustworthy part of these Memoirs.
Had he like the great body of deputies who meant well, but who had not the courage to expose themselves to martyrdom, crouched quietly under the dominion of the triumphant minority, and suffered every motion of Robespierre and Billaud to pass unopposed, he would have incurred no peculiar ignominy. But it is probable that this course was not open to him.
It is said that the marshal claimed them, but General Marquez replied that if he wanted them he might come and fetch them. * Commandant Billaud was censured by his superior officers for having, in his retreat from Mexico to Puebla, beaten back a body of Liberal troops who had taken possession of the town of Chalco. See D'Hericault, loc. cit., p. 41.
Saved by young men, by the National Guard, it becomes courageous through fear, and, in its turn, it terrorizes the terrorists. The Faubourg Saint-Antoine is disarmed, ten thousand Jacobins are arrested, and more than sixty Montagnards are decreed under indictment; Collot, Billaud, Barere and Vadier are to be deported; nine other members of former committees are to be imprisoned.
To the Abbey! and Le Bas was driven from the tribune. This was the beginning of the tempest. Robespierre's enemies knew that they were fighting for their lives, and this inspired them with a strong and resolute power that is always impressive in popular assemblies. He still thought himself secure. Billaud pursued his accusations.
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