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Updated: May 11, 2025
He prepared what is known as the law of the 22nd of Prairial, which was presented by Couthon, and carried without a division on June 10, two days after the procession. It is the most tyrannical of all the acts of the Revolution, and is not surpassed by anything in the records of absolute monarchy. For the decree of Prairial suppressed the formalities of law in political trials.
"In ordinary governments," says Couthon, finally, "the right of electing belongs to the people; you cannot take it away from them.
Couthon, the execrable associate of Robespierre, was mildness itself Robespierre's harangues are in a style of distinguished sensibility and even Carrier, the destroyer of thirty thousand Nantais, is attested by his fellow-students to have been of an amiable disposition.
He said in these little fellows the National representatives were insidiously mimicked, that in particular one could discover caricatures of Couthon, Saint-Just and Robespierre, and he seized the lot. It is a dead loss to me, to say nothing of the grave risks to which I am exposed."
His hearers who have staked their lives on his head, see the naked truth, see it to their horror. He is a man of words, a man of committees, a wind-bag incapable of prompt action, incompetent to lead a Revolution. They draw him into the Hall of Deliberation. Now they are all there, these illustrious outlaws, Lebas, Saint-Just, Couthon. Robespierre has the word.
Is he dreaming of a triumphant return to the Committee of Public Safety, from which he withdrew, weary of being held in check, with Couthon and Saint-Just, by a seditious majority? Behind that impenetrable countenance what hopes are seething or what fears?"
In obedience to those who believed with the market women of Paris, as stated in their famous petition, that "laws should be passed making paper money as good as gold," Couthon, in August, 1793, had proposed and carried a law punishing any person who should sell assignats at less than their nominal value with imprisonment for twenty years in chains, and later carried a law making investments in foreign countries by Frenchmen punishable with death.
The signature of Robespierre, in his own handwriting, is found affixed to many of the resolutions of the Committee of Public Safety, passed Thermidor 5 and 7, and those of St. Just and Couthon after this, up to Thermidor 3, 6 and 7.
The whole world agreed that the Terror should end. But the oldest of those who suffered on the 10 Thermidor was Couthon, who was thirty-eight, Robespierre was thirty-five, and Saint-Just but twenty-seven. So closed the Terror with the strain which produced it.
"Let them know," replied Bourdon de l'Oise "let the members of the committee know that if they are patriots, we are patriots too. Let them know that I shall not reply with bitterness to their reproaches. I esteem Couthon, I esteem the committee; but I also esteem the unshaken Mountain which has saved our liberty." Robespierre, surprised at this unexpected resistance, hurried to the tribune.
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