CHAP. XIV. 1793. 34. ance with a masterstroke in politics. A long alliance between the rival monarchies was anticipated from the propitious union which seemed to unite their destinies. It led to a war more terrible than any which had yet shaken these Fatal effects powers; to the repeated capture of both capitals by of her allihostile armies; to mutual exasperation unprecedented Louis. between their people. So uncertain are the conclusions of political wisdom, when founded on personal interests or connexions, and not on the great and permanent principles which govern human affairs. The manners of the Queen accelerated the Revolution: her foreign descent exasperated the public discontent; her undeserved death was one means of bringing about its punishment. The justice of Heaven did not slumber. Slow, but sure, came the hour of Germany's revenge. On the day twenty years from that on which she ascended the scaffold, commenced the fatal rout of France on the field of Leipsic.* 35. Singular Robespierre On the day of the execution of the Queen, Barère regaled Robespierre, St Just, and some others of their party, at a tavern. Robespierre condemned the proceed- banquet of ings against the Queen, and in particular Hébert's and Barère. monstrous evidence, with so much vehemence that he broke his plate during the violence of his gesticulation. But Barère and the others defended the proceedings, and announced more extensive plans of carnage. vessel of the Revolution," said he, "cannot be wafted into port but on waves of blood. We must begin with the members of the Constituent and Legislative Assem- xxviii. 124. blies. That rubbish must be swept away." "1 "The 1 Hist. Parl. 36. death of Nov. 11. This intention was not long of being carried into effect. The Decemvirs forthwith proceeded to destroy their former Arrest and friends, and the earliest supporters of the Revolution. Bailly. Bailly, mayor of Paris, and president of the Assembly on occasion of the celebrated Jeu-de-Paume, was arrested, and brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. His profound and eloquent scientific researches, his great * On Oct. 16, 1813. She died Oct. 16, 1793. XIV. 1793. CHAP. services in the cause of liberty, his enlightened philanthropy, pleaded in vain before that sanguinary court. The recollection of the Champ-de-Mars, of the red flag, and the courageous stand which he had made with Lafayette against the fury of the multitude, as well at his recent refusal to depone against Marie Antoinette at her trial, were present to the minds of his prosecutors. The witnesses adduced spoke against him with an unusual degree of asperity. His last words to the court were"I have ever executed the law: I will know how to obey it, since you are its organ." He was condemned to die, and in his case, as he had foreseen, a refinement of cruelty was employed. He was first brought to the common place of execution in the Place Louis XV.; but when there, the mob, with savage yells, insisted he should be taken to the Champ-de-Mars, as the place where he had first hoisted the flag of defiance to revolutionary atrocity. Thither he was accordingly led; the guillotine was taken down, and an immense crowd of vindictive Jacobins, among whom was a large proportion of women, and persons whom he had saved from famine during his mayoralty, followed to witness his death. On foot, in the most dreadful weather, the unhappy victim was led behind the guillotine during a tedious passage of three hours, from the Place Louis XV. to the place finally fixed on for his execution on the Champ de Mars near the river, opposite Chaillot. The passage was interrupted by repeated halts at stations to prolong its agony. During its continuance he frequently fell, from the violence to which he was exposed: he was assailed with hisses and pelted with mud; and the first President of the Assembly received several inhuman blows on the face and body from the populace. At the Champ-de-Mars, the red flag, emblematic of the martial law which he had authorised, was burned over his head, and he was there compelled to kneel down and kiss the ground where the blood of the patriots had been shed. He was led XIV. 1793. 1 Lam. Hist. 272, 273. Bull. du again on foot, amidst a drenching fall of snow and sleet, CHAP. to the banks of the river, where, to parody the scene on Calvary, the heavy beams which support the guillotine were placed on his shoulders. He sank under the weight, des Gir. vii. but barbarous blows obliged him again to lift it. He fell a second time, and swooned away; yells of laughter in the crowd, and the execution was postponed till he 322 revived, and could feel its bitterness. But nothing could "You tremble, Bailly," said one of My friend," said the old man, "it is subdue his courage. the spectators. only from cold.”1 66 arose No. 81, p. Trib. Rév. x. 292. Th. x. 394, 396, 397. Toul. Biog. Univ. iv. 130. iii. 242,243. Deux Amis, xi. 249. 37. and Condor cet. The eloquent Barnave, one of the most upright members of the Constituent Assembly, was soon after condemned, of Barnave notwithstanding a defence by himself of unrivalled pathos and ability. Duport Dutertre, formerly minister of Louis Oct. 29. XVI., on the same day shared the same fate. Condorcet had fled when the lists of proscription were first prepared by the victors on the 2d June; for eight months he was concealed in Paris, and employed the tedious hours of solitude in composing his celebrated Esquisse des Progrès de l'Esprit Humain," a work in which much learning is illustrated by fervid eloquence; and the warm but visionary anticipations of future improvement were indulged, amidst the deepest circumstances of present disaster. In gratitude to the hostess who had sheltered him, he wrote a poem, containing a sentiment descriptive of the feelings of his party during those melancholy times 66 "Choisi d'être oppresseur ou victime, J'embrassai le malheur et leur laissai le crime." Bull, du Terrified by the numerous lists of persons condemned for concealing the proscribed, he declared to his generous protector his resolution to leave her. "I must not remain any longer with you; I am hors la loi."-" But Trib. Rev. we," replied she, "are not hors de l'humanité." return of spring awoke intensely his desire to see again xi. 21, 22. the fields, the green leaves, the flowers. He set out, No. 72. Th. The ix. 286,287. XIV. 1793. CHAP. accordingly disguised as a common labourer. At the village of Clamart, the fineness of his linen awakened the suspicion of his landlady, who had him arrested and sent to prison, where next morning he was found dead from the effects of a speedy poison, which, like many others in those days of terror, he constantly carried about his person. 38. Duke of Orleans. The Duke of Orleans, the early and interested instiTrial of the gator of the Revolution, was its next victim. Billaud Varennes said in the Convention-" The time has come when all the conspirators should be known and struck. I demand that we no longer pass over in silence a man whom we seem to have forgot, despite the numerous facts which depone against him. I demand that d'Orleans be sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal, with the other conspirators." Loud applauses followed these words; and Robespierre immediately added "There can be no one so blind as not to be enlightened by the flames of Lyons and Marseilles, which the conspirators have lighted; or so deaf as not to hear the cries of the patriots massacred in la Vendée, Belgium, and Toulon ; wherever, in short, that execrable faction have possessed any influence. I demand that we instantly proceed to the vote." The Convention, once his hireling adulators, unanimously supported the proposal. In vain he alleged his accession to the disorders of the 5th October, his sup1 Hist. Parl. port of the revolt of the 10th August, his vote against xxviii. 176, the King on the 17th January. His condemnation was speedily pronounced.1 177. 39. His execution. He demanded only one favour, which was granted, that his execution should be postponed for twenty-four hours. In the interval, he had a repast prepared with care, on which he feasted with more than usual avidity. When led out to execution, he gazed for a time, with a smile on his countenance, on the Palais Royal, the scene of his former orgies. He was detained above a quarter of an hour in front of that palace by order of Robespierre, who had in vain asked his daughter's hand in marriage, XIV. 1793. and had promised, if he would relent in that extremity, CHAP. to excite a tumult which would save his life. Depraved as he was, he had too much honourable feeling left to consent to such a sacrifice, and remained in expectation of death, without giving the expected signal of acquiescence, for twenty minutes, when he was permitted to continue his journey to the scaffold. He met his fate with stoical fortitude; and it is pleasing to have to record one redeeming trait at the close of a life stained by so much selfish passion and guilty ambition-he preferred death to sacrificing his daughter to the tyrant. Never was more strongly exemplified the effect of materialism and infidelity, in rendering men callous to futurity, and degrading a naturally noble disposition. The multitude applauded his execution; not a voice was raised in his favour, though it was mainly composed of the very men who had been instigated by his adulators, and fed by his extravagance. The destruction of Bailly, Barnave, and the Duke of Orleans, annihilated the party attached to a constitutional monarchy. The early objects of the Revolution were thus frustrated, its first supporters destroyed by the passions they had awakened among the people. The overthrow of the Girondists extinguished the hope 1 Hist. de la of a republic; the massacre of the Constitutionalists, that Conv. iii. of a limited monarchy. The prophecy of Vergniaud was xi. 289, 290. rapidly approaching its accomplishment: the Revolution, 121, 122. like Saturn, was successively devouring all its progeny.1 These sanguinary proceedings were followed by a measure as unnecessary as it was barbarous-the viola- Violation of tion of the tombs of St Denis, and the profanation of St Denis. the sepulchres of the kings of France. By a decree of Destruction the Convention, on 3d August, these venerable asylums of ments over departed greatness were ordered to be destroyed -a measure never adopted by the English parliament during * * "Les tombeaux et mausolées des ci-devant rois, élevés dans l'église de St Denis, dans le Temple, et autres lieux dans toute l'étendue de la République, seront détruits le 10 Août prochain."-Décret, 3 Août 1793. Hist. Parl. xxviii. 397. 180. Lac. Toul. iv. 40. the tombs of of monu all France. |