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He went home to bed, after midnight, taking no further measures of precaution, and persuaded that he would recover the majority at the next sitting. Collot and Billaud, both members of the supreme governing body, went to their place of meeting, after the stormy scene at the Club, and found St. Just writing intently.
I learned afterwards that he did not get a settlement of the business until after a great deal of trouble. M. Collot once said to me, "If he had asked me for as much money as would have built a frigate he should have had it. All I want now is to be paid, and to get rid of the business." M. Collot had reason and honour on his side; but there was nothing but shuffling on the other.
In return, during the discussions between France and England in the summer of 1801, and in the spring of 1802, Collot was continued Joseph's private agent, and shared with his patron, within twelve months, a clear gain of thirty-two millions of livres.
The Club, divided at first, went over to him, gave him an ovation, and expelled Collot and Billaud-Varennes with violence and contumely. Robespierre, encouraged by his success, exhorted the Jacobins to purify the Convention by expelling bad men, as they had expelled the Girondins. It was his first appeal to the popular forces. Coffinhal, who was a man of energy, implored him to strike at once.
"Bagatelle!" said the Chevalier. "Tschu! Collot, if you give him time, is as safe as the Bank of France, and Louvier knows it. Louvier will not trouble you Louvier, the best fellow in the world! I'll call on him and explain matters."
If I were not sure of my own resolution, I would tear out this heart, and cast it into the fire." Here anger almost choked his utterance, and he made a motion with his hand as if tearing his breast. When this violent paroxysm had somewhat subsided M. Collot withdrew; but before he went away Bonaparte invited him to breakfast on the following morning.
The Committee of Public Safety feel amazingly magnanimous towards Boulogne; a proclamation embodying the amnesty and the pardon is at once drawn up and signed by Robespierre and his bloodthirsty Council of Ten, it is entrusted to Citizen Collot d'Herbois to be read out at every corner of the ramparts as an inducement to the little town to do its level best.
Collot D'Herbois had come back in hot haste from Lyons, where, along with Fouché, he had done his best to carry out the decree of the Convention, that not one stone of the city should be left on the top of another, and that even its very name should cease from the lips of men.
People would station themselves at the windows of houses overlooking the Temple gardens, and evince by gestures their loyal affection, and some of the sentinels showed, even by tears, that their duty was painful to them. On the 21st September the National Convention was constituted, Petion being made president and Collot d'Herbois moving the "abolition of royalty" amidst transports of applause.
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.
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