The Days of the French Revolution (29 page)

For his part, Robespierre seems to have had little doubt that, with the help of the Commune and of the faithful members of the Jacobin Club, he could survive all attempts to defeat him. By carrying out further purges not only of the Convention but also of both Committees he could ensure himself of sufficient support in all of them. His confidence evidently restored after the doubts that had assailed him on the evening of the Festival of the Supreme Being, he quarrelled with Carnot, with Vadier and with Billaud-Varenne. After one particularly violent altercation with Billaud-Varenne, who described the dictatorship of Couthon, Saint-Just and himself as ‘grotesque’, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind
him and shouting, ‘All right then, save the country without me.’ Thereafter he stopped attending Comittee meetings.

Some of his critics, more cautious than their colleagues and afraid of losing their lives if they failed to overthrow him, attempted to bring about a reconciliation. Paul Barras and Louis Stanislas Fréron who had been jointly responsible for the excesses of the Terror at Toulon and had been recalled to Paris at Robespierre’s instigation, called upon him at the Rue Saint-Honoré. Fréron had been at school with him, and hoped that, at least ‘for old times’s sake’, Robespierre would receive them sympathetically.

Having passed through ‘a long alley which led to an inner yard full of planks, the owner’s stock in trade’, they found Robespierre in his dressing-gown just returned from one of his regular visits to his hairdresser.

He was not wearing his spectacles and his eyes turned on us with a fixed look [Barras recorded]. He seemed quite amazed at our appearance…and did not reply to our greeting. He turned first towards a mirror that hung on the window, then to a smaller mirror, taking his toilet knife, scraping the powder that covered his face and minutely inspecting the arrangement of his hair. He then took off his dressing-gown, putting it on to a chair near us so that we were dusted with the powder that flew off it. He did not apologize, nor show any sign that he had even noticed our presence. He washed himself in a bowl that he held in his hand, brushed his teeth, spat several times on the floor by our feet as though we had not been there…Thinking that he detected a frown on Robespierre’s face and that his continued silence might be due to our use of the revolutionary
tu
, Fréron substituted
vous
in the hope of appeasing this haughty and touchy man. But Robespierre’s expression did not alter. He remained standing…and still said nothing. I have seen no expression as impassive on the icy marble faces of statues or on those of corpses.

Fouché, who had also been recalled to Paris on Robespierre’s orders and knew that he too stood in the shadow of the guillotine, went to see Robespierre and was rebuffed in a different way. His overtures were, it seems, furiously rejected; his activities at Lyons were violently condemned; he was then abruptly told to leave the house. For a time Fouché went into hiding, emerging occasionally
to spread rumours about Robespierre, persuading other members of the Convention that their lives were in as much danger as his own, uniting rivals by a common fear. Robespierre would have had him arrested, but the wily Fouché–like Talleyrand, a born trimmer and survivor – could not be found, and Robespierre had for the moment to be content with using his influence with the Jacobins to have him expelled from the Club.

Elsewhere Robespierre’s influence was waning fast. The moderates in the Convention were growing daily more outspoken in their condemnation of the continuing Terror, no longer justified by the war; and towards the middle of July plans were laid for Robespierre’s overthrow.

On 22 July (4
Thermidor
) he was persuaded to attend a joint meeting of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security. He appeared there in a far from repentant or conciliatory mood, pacing about the room as he charged both Committees with all manner of misdemeanours and betrayals of the trust that the people reposed in them. After he had left, the Committees agreed to Saint-Just’s issuing a statement indicating that some sort of understanding with Robespierre had been reached and that, as Couthon assured the Jacobin Club, while there might be differences of personality there was ‘none of principle’. But, if Couthon and Saint-Just were prepared to compromise with their colleagues, Robespierre was not. He declined ‘to adjust his principles for the sake of the Committees’ and he refused to discuss them privately with the leaders of the Plain. He made up his mind to deliver a speech to the Convention in which he would clearly set forth his views and denounce all his enemies, all those ‘perfidious rogues’ who were responsible for the ills of the nation. He did not discuss his speech with either Couthon or Saint-Just. In long and solitary walks through the woods at Ville d’Avray and in contemplation, sometimes in tears, of the tomb of Rousseau, whose
Contrat social
was always by his bedside, he composed his stinging indictment. And on 26 July (8
Thermidor
) he marched in to confront the deputies resplendent in nankeen silk breeches, white cotton stockings and the sky-blue coat which he had worn for the Festival of the Supreme Being six weeks before. He mounted the rostrum and remained there speaking for over two
hours. Without actually naming any of them except Pierre Joseph Cambon, the Superintendent of Finance, he characterized and anathematized his opponents on the Committees, referring in particular and unmistakably to Billaud-Varenne and Carnot. He attacked Fouché, Collot d’Herbois and Vadier as well as Jean Lambert Tallien, who, while representative
en mission
at Bordeaux, had fallen in love with one of his prisoners, the divorced wife of the Comte de Fontenay, and who was consequently, despite his protestations of revolutionary zeal, suspected of having come under her moderating influence. Robespierre castigated Tallien with particular vehemence before turning upon all the deputies who had derided the Festival of the Supreme Being. He spoke darkly of purifying the Committee of Public Safety and dismissing the members of the Committee of General Security. He accused those responsible for military affairs of having dealings with the enemy, and Cambon of ruining the poor, depriving the people of national assets and disrupting the economy. He described himself, as he so often did when elaborating upon his own virtues, as ‘a slave of freedom, a living martyr to the Republic, the victim as well as the enemy of crime’. ‘Every scoundrel insults me,’ he cried in growing indignation and sequential confusion. ‘Let them prepare hemlock for me. I will wait for it on these sacred seats. I have promised to leave a formidable testament to the oppressors of the people. I bequeath to them truth…and death.’

His words, which had been listened to in silence, were at first greeted with that applause to which he had long been accustomed. But then Cambon, a brave as well as scrupulous man, infuriated by the unjust accusations made against him, strode to the rostrum to declare, ‘Before I am dishonoured, I will speak to the French nation. It is time to tell the whole truth. One man alone is paralysing the will of the National Convention.
And that man is Robespierre
.’

Obviously taken aback by this furious counter-attack and the enthusiasm with which it was welcomed, Robespierre became apologetic rather than assertive. Encouraged by his faltering, other deputies, including Billaud-Varenne, rose to defend themselves vigorously and to assail Robespierre as heatedly as he had assailed them. ‘The mask must be torn away,’ Billaud-Varenne shouted. ‘I would rather my corpse served as the throne of an ambitious man
than that by my silence I should become the accomplice of his crimes.’ Other deputies, fearing that their names were on the list of men whom Robespierre was condemning by implication, demanded that the names be announced. ‘The list! The list!’ numerous voices shouted. But Robespierre refused to divulge it. The time was not ripe, he said, thus alarming those who felt they might perhaps be on it as much as those who were sure they were and bringing them all in closer opposition to him. When the session was brought to a noisy conclusion it was clear that Robespierre’s fall was imminent.

He himself still did not believe it so. That evening he went to the Jacobin Club of whose support he felt confident. Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois were already there, demanding to be allowed to speak first. But most members refused to listen to them and to cries of ‘
À la guillotine!
’ they were both expelled from the hall. As they passed through the door the red-haired and red-faced René Dumas, now President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, shouted at their retreating backs that he would be waiting for them to appear before him next morning. To loud cheers Robespierre then rose to deliver the speech he had made in the Convention that afternoon, ending with the promise that, if they supported him, the ‘new traitors’ would share the fate of the old, but if they deserted him he would take hemlock and die with calm resignation. ‘If you drink it I will drink it, too,’ promised David, close to hysteria. ‘Yes, yes,’ others protested, they would all drink it; they swore to do so.

‘What’s new at the Jacobin Club, then?’ asked Saint-Just tauntingly when Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois, his clothes torn and face scratched, returned to the offices of the Committee of Public Safety.

‘How dare you ask that?’ Collot yelled at him. ‘You should know bloody well. You and Robespierre and Couthon are planning to have us guillotined. Why, you’re drawing up an accusation against us now.’

‘You may be right,’ said Saint-Just who had, in fact, been doing so. He turned to Carnot who was also in the room and added, ‘I shan’t forget you, either. I’ve dealt with you in a masterly way.’

Collot then threw himself upon Saint-Just, grabbing him by the throat. Carnot pushed the two men apart, and Saint-Just, his norm
ally icy composure evidently ruffled by Collot’s fury, agreed not to deliver his report to the Convention until he had read it to the other members of the Committee. He was then left alone to complete it in the heat of the sultry night.

The atmosphere next day in the Convention was quite as emotional as it had been at the Jacobin Club and in the offices of the Committee of Public Safety the night before. Saint-Just, having broken his promise to return to the Committee first, rose to name the people that Robespierre had attacked by implication in his long speech the previous afternoon. But Tallien rushed up to the rostrum to interrupt him, to accuse both him and Robespierre of aggravating the ills of the nation. Tallien was followed by Billaud-Varenne, still enraged by Robespierre’s remarks and by his expulsion from the Jacobin Club ‘at the instigation of its most disreputable members’ who planned ‘to slaughter the Convention’ and who ‘spat out the vilest calumnies against men who had never once deviated from the true path of the Revolution’.

Robespierre attempted to reply, but his words were lost in the clangour of the President’s bell. As he rushed to the rostrum, there were howls of protest and shouts of ‘Down with the tyrant!
À la guillotine!
’ Tallien, waving a dagger above his head, threatened to kill him if the Convention did not order his arrest. Refused permission to speak, Robespierre was compelled to listen while Vadier accused him of having hidden himself on the great
journée
of 10 August and of having deserted the Committee of Public Safety, by whose efforts the country was saved, at a time when the French armies were in danger of defeat.

As though driven frantic by these words, Robespierre rushed from side to side beneath the rostrum, and up and down the steps, shouting, ‘Death! Death!’ Pointing at Thuriot who was now in the President’s chair repeatedly ringing his bell, he yelled ‘For the last time will you give me permission to speak, President of murderers!’ Then, in attempting to make further accusations, his voice failed him. ‘Ah!’ someone called out with satisfaction, ‘Danton’s blood chokes you.’ ‘President,’ another voice shouted. ‘Is this man to be master of the Convention a moment longer?’ Robespierre was about to sit down in exhaustion when he was violently pushed
away, ‘Monster! How dare you! That was Vergniaud’s seat.’ He found another place and slumped down with a gesture of helpless defeat.

His arrest was proposed, immediately seconded and voted without a dissentient voice. His brother, Augustin, a handsome, pleasure-loving man whose tastes and temperament were so unlike his, courageously insisted on being arrested too. So did the Duplays’ son-in-law, Philippe Lebas, when the Convention also decreed the arrest of his friend, Saint-Just, and that of Couthon. An usher, too frightened to hand the decree directly to Robespierre, placed it on the seat next to him. Robespierre ignored it. Eventually he and Saint-Just were escorted from the Convention by a party of gendarmes, one of whom carried the crippled Couthon on his shoulders.

As the prisoners were being marched away to the offices of the Committee of General Security a meeting of the Commune was urgently called at the Hôtel de Ville. It was agreed at this meeting that the Commune should declare itself in a state of revolt against both Committees and the Convention in protest against the arrest of the Robespierrists, and orders were issued calling upon the National Guard to muster on the Place de Grève. Less than half the Guard obeyed the summons. And when Hanriot, their commander, followed by a few of his men, drunkenly rode his horse through the streets of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, brandishing a sword and calling out ‘To arms! To arms!’, his pleas were ignored. A man out walking with his wife heard Hanriot’s loud, slurred shouts: ‘Today must be another 31 May. Three hundred bastards sitting in the Convention must be exterminated!’ ‘You aren’t a general anymore, Hanriot,’ the man called back. ‘You’re a brigand. Don’t listen to him. He’s under arrest.’

At this moment [recorded Charles-André Merda, one of Hanriot’s men] the General’s aide-de-camp struck the citizen a blow with his sabre, ordering him to be taken to the guard-room of the Commune. And we pursued our course at the gallop [to the Committee of General Security]…knocking down a lot of citizens with our horses…and spreading terror around us…Hanriot rode into the courtyard and, dismounting with his aides-de-camp, advanced towards the offices. The guards refused
to let us in; and so he marched up to us in a fury, shouting ‘Dismount! Come on! Help me release the patriots from these fucking bastards.’…Six or seven of us followed the General. The guards crossed their bayonets in front of us; and a fight was on the point of breaking out when an usher from the Convention threw himself in front of us and said, ‘Stop! He’s no longer your General. He’s under arrest. Here is the law. Obey it.’ These words brought Hanriot to a halt.