XIV. 1794. that sends me to the grave." The president rang his CHAP. bell, but Danton's voice of thunder drowned the noise. "Do you not hear me?" said the president. "The voice of a man," replied Danton, "who defends his honour and his life, may well overcome your clamours. Individual audacity may well be coerced; but national audacity, of which I have so often given proofs, that is necessary it is permitted in revolutions. When I see myself so grievously, so unjustly accused, I am no longer 21, p. 84. master of my indignation.1 1 Bull. du Trib. Rév. Vol. iii. No. 101. defence. "Is it for a revolutionist such as me, so strongly pronounced, so irrecoverably implicated, to defend myself Danton's against such charges as are now brought against me? Me sold to the court! - me the accomplice of Mirabeau, of d'Orléans, of Dumourier! Does not all the world know that I combated Mirabeau, thwarted all his plans, defeated all his attempts against liberty? You, St Just, shall answer to posterity for such declamations, directed against the best friend of the people-against the most ardent defender of liberty. In looking over this list of horror, I feel my very soul shudder.” Marat," interrupted the court, "was reduced to defend himself; but he did so without calumniating his accuser." "Have I not," resumed Danton, "done more in behalf of freedom than could be expected from any citizen? Did I not show myself, when they wished to withdraw the tyrant, by removing him to St Cloud? Have I not placarded, in the district of the Cordeliers, invitations to insurrection? Let my accusers appear, and I will plunge them into the obscurity from which they never should have been dragged. Vile impostors, appear! I will Bull. du soon tear from you the mask which shields you from the Vol. iii. Nos. public indignation. It is truly an astonishing thing the 96. Hist. long blindness of the National Convention till this day 144, 156. on my conduct, and their sudden illumination! "2 After continuing in this manner for three days, during which his voice was sometimes so loud that it was heard 2 Trib. Rév. 24,25, p. 92, Parl. xxxii. CHAP. 1794. 102. tion of Dan his party. 14th April. across the Seine on the Quai de la Ferraille,* Robespierre deemed it high time to bring the prosecution to a conclusion. The method adopted was the same as that Condemna- which had proved fatal to the Girondists-viz., the ton and all taking advantage of his influence in the Convention, which authorised the public accuser to obtain at the moment a decree, authorising the Revolutionary Tribunal to declare hors des débats-in other words, to condemn, without further hearing any accused party whom they deemed wanting in respect to the court. The austere indignation of Danton, the nerve of Desmoulins, the measured ability of Lacroix, rendered the judges apprehensive of a movement among the populace; to prevent which, the Convention, without hesitation, adopted the proposal. No sooner was this decree passed, than Amar hastened with it to the Tribunal, where Danton and his friends were prolonging their indignant defence.+ "Here are the means," said Amar, "for stifling these wretches." Fouquier Tinville, the public accuser, seized it with avidity, and read it to the court, demanding, at the same time, the instant condemnation of the accused. Danton rose and called the audience to witness that they had not been wanting in respect to the judges. "The time will come," said he, "when the truth will be known: I foresee the greatest calamities to France: here is the dictator unveiled." On the day following, the debates were closed before they had begun their defence, notwithstanding the most energetic remonstrance from Camille Desmoulins, who called the audience to witness that they * "Les fenêtres du tribunal étaient ouvertes, et Danton poussait par momens de tels éclats de voix qu'ils parvinrent au delà de la Seine jusqu'aux curieux qui encombraient le Quai de la Ferraille."-The Trial was in the Palais de Justice.)-Hist. Parl. xxii. 164. "L'accusateur public a invité le greffier à faire lecture d'un décret tout récemment rendu par la Convention Nationale qui met hors des débats tout accusé qui ne saurait pas respecter le Tribunal."-Hist. Parl. xxxii. 160. The decree itself was in these terms: "La Convention Nationale décrète que tout prévenu de conspiration, qui resistera ou insultera à la justice nationale, sera mis hors des débats." - Décret, 14 Avril 1794; Hist. Parl. xxxii. 187. XIV. 1794. were murdered. On the ground that the jury were now СНАР. sufficiently enlightened, and that the third day of the trial had commenced, the public accuser refused to allow the witnesses whom Lacroix proposed to call to be examined, on the ground that, being members of the Convention, they could not be at once witnesses and accusers. "We are about," said Danton and Lacroix, "to be judged without being heard in our defence: deliberation is at an end. Well! we have lived long enough to go to rest on the bosom of glory: let them lead us to the scaffold." The jury were enclosed, and soon after the president returned, and, with a savage joy, declared the verdict was guilty. The court instantly pronounced sentence after they were removed, which was read to them in their cells in the evening. "We are sacrificed," said Danton, "to the ambition of a few dastardly brigands; but they will not long enjoy their triumph I drag Robespierre after me in my fall." Lucile, the youthful wife of Camille Desmoulins, earnestly besought Madame Danton, a young woman of eighteen, to throw herself at Robespierre's feet, and pray for the lives of both their husbands, but she refused. "I will willingly," said she, "follow Danton to the scaffold, I will not degrade his memory before his rival. If he owed his life to Robespierre he would never pardon me, .146. Th. in this world or the next. He has bequeathed to me Hist. Parl." his honour-I will preserve it entire." Camille Des- xxxii. 161, moulins had less firmness. He tried to read "Young's Hist. des Night Thoughts," but the book fell from his hands, and 64, 66. he could only articulate, "O my Lucile, O my Horace, what will become of you!"* 1 Bull. du but Trib. Rév. They went to the scaffold with the stoicism so usual at * Hérault de Séchelles, on being conducted to his cell, after his condemnation, read for a while a volume of Rousseau, which he took from his pocket, and, closing it, said, "O mon maître ! tu as souffert pour la vérité, et je vais mourir pour elle: tu as le génie, j'ai le martyre: tu es un plus grand homme, mais lequel est le plus philosophe de nous deux ?"-LAMARTINE, Histoire des Girondins, viii. 63. VOL. III. Q No. 26, p. 102. Mig. ii. 313. Lac. vi. 203-212. 163. Lam. Gir. viii. 42, XIV. CHAP. that period. A numerous escort attended them, and an immense crowd was assembled, which beheld in silence their former leaders led out to execution. Camille Desmoulins exclaimed, when seated on the fatal chariot 1794. 103. Their exe cution. This, then, is the recompense awarded to the first apostle of liberty!" In moving towards the scaffold, he never ceased to address the people, hoping to interest them in his favour. "Generous people, unhappy people," he exclaimed," they mislead you: save me! I am Camille Desmoulins, the first apostle of freedom! It was I who gave you the national cockade; I called you to arms on the 14th July." It was all in vain; the invectives of the mob redoubled as they passed under the windows of Robespierre, who grew pale at the noise. The indignation of Camille Desmoulins at this proof of their mutability was so excessive that he tore his shirt; and though his hands were tied behind his back, his coat came off in venting his feelings on the people. At the Palais Royal he said" It is here that, four years ago, I called the people to arms for the Revolution. Had Marat lived, he would have been beside us." Danton held his head erect, and cast a calm and intrepid look around him. "Do not disquiet yourself," said he, “with that vile mob."* At the foot of the scaffold he advanced to embrace Hérault de Séchelles, who held out his arms to receive him. The executioner interposed. "What!" said he, with a bitter smile, "are you more cruel than death itself? Begone! you cannot at least prevent our lips from soon meeting in that bloody basket." For a moment after, he was softened, and said "O my beloved! O my wife! 0 children! shall I never see you more?" But immediately checking himself, he exclaimed-"Danton, recollect my * "Longus deditorum ordo, septus armatis, per urbem incessit. Nemo supplici vultu, sed tristes et truces adversum plausus ac lasciviam insultantis vulgi immobiles. Nihil quisquam locutus indignum, et quanquam inter adversa salva virtutis fama." How identical are the heroism of the brave and the baseness of the mob in every age! The words of Tacitus applied to the executions of Vitellius, might pass for a description of the last moments of Danton and Camille Desmoulins.-See TACITUS, Hist. iv. 2. 1 СНАР. 1794. 1 Mig.ii.134. yourself; no weakness!" Hérault de Séchelles ascended first, and died firmly. Camille Desmoulins regained his firmness in the last hour. His fingers, with convulsive grasp, held a lock of Lucile's hair, the last relic of this world which he took to the edge of the next. He approached the fatal spot, looked calmly at the axe, yet red with the blood of his friend, and said, "The monsters who assassinate me will not long survive my fall. Convey my hair to my mother-in-law." Danton ascended with a 221. Hist. firm step, and said to the executioner,-" You will show de la Conv. my head to the people, after my death; it is worth the Deux Amis, pains." These were his last words. The executioner Duval, iv. obeyed the injunction after the axe had fallen, and Lam. Hist. carried the head around the scaffold. The people clapped 68, 69. their hands!1 Lac. ii. 146. Th. vi. 216, iii. 347. xii. 134,136. 299, 301. des Gir. viii. 104. in the pri numerous under it. The wife of Camille Desmoulins, a young woman of twenty-three, to whom he was passionately attached, Alleged wandered round the prison of the Luxembourg, in which con her husband was confined, night and day during his sons, and detention. The gardens where she now gave vent to her executions grief had been the scene of their first loves; from his cell windows her husband could see the spot where they had met in the days of their happiness. Her distracted appearance, with some hints dropped in the jails by the prisoners, as to their hopes of being delivered by the aid of the people, during the excitement produced by the trial of Danton and his friends, led to a fresh prosecution for a "conspiracy in the prisons," which was made the means of sweeping off twenty-five persons of wholly different principles and parties at one fell swoop. The apostate bishop Gobel, Chaumette, the well-known and once formidable prosecutor of the municipality, the widow of Hébert, the widow of Camille Desmoulins, Arthur Dillon, a remnant of the Dantonists, and twenty others of inferior note, were indicted together for the crimes of having "conspired together against the liberty and security of the French people, endeavoured to trouble the state by |