Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume I

518

"Robespierre had been a studious youth and a respectable man, and his character contributed not a little to the ascendency which he obtained over rivals, some of whom were corrupt, others impudently profligate, and of whom there were few who had any pretensions to morality. He became bloody, because a revolutionist soon learns to consider human lives as the counters with which he plays his perilous game; and he perished after he had cut off every man who was capable of directing the republic, because they who had committed the greatest abominations of the Revolution united against him, that they might secure themselves, and wash their hands in his blood." —Quarterly Review, vol. vii., p. 432.

Robespierre wrote, in 1785, an Essay against the Punishment of Death, which gained the prize awarded by the Royal Society of Metz.

519

520

Mercier, in his Nouveau Tableau de Paris, has devoted a chapter to this personage. "What a man," he says, "is that Samson! Insensible to suffering, he was always identified with the axe of execution. He has beheaded the most powerful monarch in Europe, his Queen, Couthon, Brissot, Robespierre – and all this with a composed countenance. He cuts off the head that is brought to him, no matter whose. What does he say? What does he think? I should like to know what passes in his head, and whether he has considered his terrible functions only as a trade. The more I meditate on this man, the president of the great massacre of the human species, overthrowing crowned heads like that of the purest republican, without moving a muscle, the more my ideas are confounded. How did he sleep, after receiving the last words, the last looks of all these severed heads? I really would give a trifle to be in the soul of this man for a few hours. He sleeps, it is said, and, very likely, his conscience may be at perfect rest. He is sometimes present at the Vaudeville: he laughs, looks at me; my head has escaped him, he knows nothing about it; and as that is very indifferent to him, I never grow weary of contemplating in him the indifference with which he has sent that crowd of men to the other world."

521

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 204; Chateaubriand, Etud. Hist., tom. i., p. 102; Prudhomme, Victimes de la Rév., tom. ii., p. 274. On the scaffold, when the red shirt was thrown over him, he exclaimed, "It is not I who should put it on: it should be sent to the Convention, for I have only executed their orders." —Biog. Mod., vol. ii., p. 267.

522

She was the daughter of Count Cabarus. During her imprisonment, she had formed a close intimacy with Josephine Beauharnais, afterwards the wife of Napoleon. These ladies were the first to proscribe the revolutionary manners, and seized every opportunity of saving those whom the existing government wished to immolate. The marriage of Madame Fontenai with Tallien was not a happy one. On his return from Egypt, a separation took place, and in 1805 she married M. de Caraman, prince of Chemai.

523

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 131.

524

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 138.

525

"In the space of eight or ten days, out of ten thousand suspected persons, not one remained in the prisons of Paris." – Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 145.

526

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 147.

527

Toulongeon, tom. v., p. 119; Thiers, tom. vii., p. 117; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 162; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 301.

528

"Briser leurs membres, et boire leur sang." – Thiers, tom. vii., p. 121. "Nager dans leur sang." – Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 157.

529

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 154.

530

Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 177.

531

Fouquier-Tainville made an able defence, which he concluded with saying, "I was but the axe of the Convention, and would you punish an axe?" Mercier says, "while standing before the Tribunal, from which he had condemned so many victims, he kept constantly writing; but, like Argus, all eyes and ears, he lost nothing that was said or done. He affected to sleep during the public accuser's recapitulation, as if to feign tranquillity, while he had hell in his heart. When led to execution, he answered the hisses of the populace by sinister predictions. At the foot of the scaffold he seemed, for the first time, to feel remorse, and trembled as he ascended it." In early life, Fouquier scribbled poetry for the journals. Some verses of his, in praise of Louis XVI., will be found in the notes to Delille's "La Pitié."

532

Vadier contrived to conceal himself in Paris, and thereby avoided his sentence. He continued to reside in the capital up to the law of the 12th January, 1816, when he was compelled to quit France. He died at Brussels, in 1828, at the age of ninety-three.

533

Barrère contrived to be left behind, at the isle of Olèron, when his colleagues sailed for Cayenne; upon which Boursault observed, that "it was the first time he had ever failed to sail with the wind." He also remained in France, till the law of January, 1816, compelled him to leave it.

534

M. Piton, who, in 1797, was himself transported to Cayenne by the Directory gives, in his "Voyage à Cayenne," the following account of the death of Collot d'Herbois: – "He was lying upon the ground, his face exposed to a burning sun, in a raging fever – the negroes, who were appointed to bear him from Kouron to Cayenne, having thrown him down to perish; a surgeon, who found him in this situation, asked him what ailed him, he replied, 'J'ai la fièvre, et une sueur brulante!' – 'Je le crois bien, vous suez le crime,' was the bitter rejoinder. He expired, vomiting froth and blood, calling upon that God whom he had so often renounced!" M. Piton describes Collot as not naturally wicked, – "Il avait d'excellentes qualités du coté du cœur, beaucoup de clinquant du coté de l'esprit; un caractère faible et irascible à l'excès; généreux sans bornes, bon ami, et ennemi implacable. La Révolution a fait sa perte."

535

"After Billaud-Varennes reached Cayenne, his life was a continued scene of romantic adventures. He escaped to Mexico, and entered, under the name of Polycarpus Varennes, the Dominican convent at Porto Ricco. Obliged to flee the continent for the part he took in the disputes between the Spanish colonies and the mother country, Pethion, then president of Hayti, not only afforded him an asylum, but made him his secretary. After Pethion's death, Boyer refusing to employ him, he went to the United States, and died at Philadelphia in 1819." —Biog. Univ.

536

"They held up to him the bloody head of Ferraud; he turned aside with horror: they again presented it, and he bowed before the remains of the martyr; nor would he quit the chair till compelled by the efforts of his friends; and the insurgents, awed with respect, allowed him to retire unmolested." – Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 221.

537

Mignet, tom. ii., p. 370; Thiers, tom. vii., p. 371; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 220.

538

Romme, Bourbotte, Duquesnoy, Duroi, Soubrani, and Goujon. Five out of the six had voted for the death of the King. – See Mignet, tom. ii., p. 373; Montgaillard, tom. iv., p. 335; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 230.

539

At the theatres the favourite air "Le Reveil du Peuple," was called for several times in the course of an evening. The law of the maximum, and the prohibitions against Christian worship were repealed; and this was followed by an act restoring to the families of those executed during the Revolution such part of their property as had not been disposed of. – Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 182.

540

Mignet, tom. ii., p. 356; Lacretelle, tom. xii., p. 174.

541

542

Jomini, tom. iv., p. 22; Mignet, tom. ii., p. 287.

543

Dumouriez, vol. i., p. 398.

544

Such was the fate of Moreau, who, on the eve of one of his most distinguished victories, had to receive the news that his father had been beheaded. – S.

545

The risk was considered as a matter of course. Madame La Roche-Jacquelein informs us that General Quentineau, a Republican officer who had behaved with great humanity in La Vendée, having fallen into the hands of the insurgents, was pressed by L'Escure, who commanded them, not to return to Paris. "I know the difference of our political opinions," said the Royalist, "but why should you deliver up your life to those men with whom want of success will be a sufficient reason for abridging it?" – "You say truly," replied Quentineau; "but as a man of honour, I must present myself in defence of my conduct wherever it may be impeached." He went, and perished by the guillotine accordingly. – S. —Mémoires, p. 130.

546

Carnot's Mémoires, p. 230.

547

Carnot, p. 255; Thibaudeau, tom. i., p. 37.