Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 | Page 7

same decree of proscription with his brother. This wish was readily granted; and St Just, Couthon (who had lost the use of his legs, and was always carried about in an arm-chair), and Le Bas, were added to the number of the proscribed. Rescued, however, from the gendarmes by an insurrectionary force, headed by Henriot, Robespierre and his colleagues were conducted in triumph to the H?tel de Ville. Here, during the night, earnest consultations were held; and the adherents of Robespierre implored him in desperation, as the last chance of safety for them all, to address a rousing proclamation to the sections. At length, yielding unwillingly to these frantic appeals, he commenced writing the required address; and it was while subscribing his name to this seditious document, that the soldiers of the Convention burst in upon him, and he was shot through the jaw by one of the gendarmes. At the same moment, Le Bas shot himself through the heart. All were made prisoners, and carried off--the dead body of Le Bas not excepted.
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While residing for a short time in Paris in 1849, we were one day conducted by a friend to a large house, with an air of faded grandeur, in the eastern faubourgs, which had belonged to an aged republican, recently deceased. He wished me to examine a literary curiosity, which was to be seen among other relics of the great Revolution. The curiosity in question was the proclamation, in the handwriting of Robespierre, to which he was in the act of inscribing his signature, when assaulted and made prisoner in the H?tel de Ville. It was a small piece of paper, contained in a glass-frame; and, at this distance of time, could not fail to excite an interest in visitors. The few lines of writing, commencing with the stirring words: '_Courage, mes compatriotes!_' ended with only a part of the subscription. The letters, Robes, were all that were appended, and were followed by a blur of the pen; while the lower part of the paper shewed certain discolorations, as if made by drops of blood. And so this was the last surviving token of the notorious Robespierre! It is somewhat curious, that no historian seems to be aware of its existence.
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Stretched on a table in one of the anterooms of the Convention; his head leaning against a chair; his fractured jaw supported by a handkerchief passed round the top of his head; a glass with vinegar and a sponge at his side to moisten his feverish lips; speechless and almost motionless, yet conscious!--there lay Robespierre--the clerks, who, a few days ago, had cringed before him, now amusing themselves by pricking him with their penknives, and coarsely jesting over his fall. Great crowds, likewise, flocked to see him while in this undignified posture, and he was overwhelmed with the vilest expressions of hatred and abuse. The mental agony which he must have experienced during this humiliating exhibition, could scarcely fail to be increased on hearing himself made the object of unsparing and boisterous declamations from the adjoining tribune.
At three o'clock in the afternoon (July 28), the prisoners were placed before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and at six, the whole were tied in carts, the dead body of Le Bas included, and conducted to execution. To this wretched band were added the whole family of the Duplays, with the exception of the mother; she having been strangled the previous night by female furies, who had broken into her house, and hung her to the iron rods of her bedstead. They were guiltless of any political crime; but their private connection with the principal object of proscription was considered to be sufficient for their condemnation. The circumstance of these individuals being involved in his fate, could not fail to aggravate the bitterness of Robespierre's reflections. As the dismal _cortège_ wended its way along the Rue St Honoré, he was loaded with imprecations by women whose husbands he had destroyed, and the shouts of children, whom he had deprived of parents, were the last sounds heard by him on earth. Yet he betrayed not the slightest emotion--perhaps he only pitied the ignorance of his persecutors. In the midst of the feelings of a misunderstood and martyred man, his head dropped into the basket!
These few facts and observations respecting the career of Robespierre, enable us to form a tolerably correct estimate of his character. The man was a bigot. A perfect Republic was his faith, his religion. To integrity, perseverance, and extraordinary self-denial under temptation, he united only a sanguine temperament and moderate abilities for the working-out of a mistaken principle. Honest and zealous in his purpose, his conduct was precisely analogous to that of all religious persecutors--sparing no pain or bloodshed to accomplish what