The World's Greatest Books - Volume 12 Part 16

mingled sedition with respect.

The Convention, unmoved by these shouts, marched in procession towards the cannon by which Henriot, the commandant-general, in the midst of his staff, seemed to await them. Herault de Sech.e.l.les ordered Henriot to withdraw this formidable array, and to grant a free pa.s.sage to the national representations. Henriot, who felt in himself the omnipotence of armed insurrection, caused his horse to prance, while receding some paces, and then said in an imperative tone to the Convention, "You will not leave this spot until you have delivered up the twenty-two!"

"Seize this rebel!" said Herault de Sech.e.l.les, pointing with his finger to Henriot. The soldiers remained immovable.

"Gunners, to your pieces! Soldiers, to arms!" cried Henriot to the troops. At these words, repeated by the officers along the line, a motion of concentration around the guns took place. The Convention retrograded.

Barbaroux, Lanjuinais, Vergniaud, Mollevault, and Gardien remained, vainly expecting the armed men who were to secure their persons, but not seeing them arrive, they retired to their own homes.

There followed the rising of certain parts of the country in favour of the Girondins and against Paris. It failed. The Girondins were prisoners, and after this failure of the insurrection the revolutionary government proceeded to their trial. When their trial was decided on, this captivity became more strict. They were imprisoned for a few days in the Carmelite convent in the Rue de Vaugeraud, a monastery converted into a prison, and rendered sinister by the b.l.o.o.d.y traces of the ma.s.sacres of September.

_III.--The Judges at the Bar_

On October 22, their _acte d'accusation_ was read to them, and their trial began on the 26th. Never since the Knights Templars had a party appeared more numerous, more ill.u.s.trious, or more eloquent. The renown of the accused, their long possession of power, their present danger, and that love of vengeance which arises in men's hearts at mighty reverses of fortune, had collected a crowd in the precincts of the revolutionary tribunal.

At ten o'clock the accused were brought in. They were twenty-two; and this fatal number, inscribed in the earliest lists of the proscription, on May 31, at eleven o'clock, entered the _salle d'audience,_ between two files of _gens d'armes,_ and took their places in silence on the prisoners' bench.

Ducos was the first to take his seat: scarcely twenty-eight years of age, his black and piercing eyes, the flexibility of his features, and the elegance of his figure revealed one of those ardent temperaments in whom everything is light, even heroism.

Mainveille followed him, the youthful deputy of Ma.r.s.eilles, of the same age as Ducos, and of an equally striking but more masculine beauty than Barbaroux. Duprat, his countryman and friend, accompanied him to the tribunal. He was followed by Duchatel, deputy of Deux Sevres, aged twenty-seven years, who had been carried to the tribunal almost in a dying state wrapped in blankets, to vote against the death of the "Tyrant," and who was termed, from this act and this costume, the "Spectre of Tyranny."

Carra, deputy of Saone and Loire at the Convention, sat next to Duchatel. His vulgar physiognomy, the stoop of his shoulders, his large head and disordered attire contrasted with the beauty and stature of Duchatel Learned, confused, fanatic, declamatory, impetuous alike in attack or resistance, he had sided with the Gironde to combat the excesses of the people.

A man of rustic appearance and garb, Duperret, the involuntary victim of Charlotte Corday, sat next to Carra. He was of n.o.ble birth, but cultivated with his own hands the small estate of his forefathers.

Gensonne followed them: he was a man of five-and-thirty, but the ripeness of his intellect, and the resolution that dictated his opinions gave his features that look of energy and decision that belongs to maturer age.

Next came Lasource, a man of high-flown language and tragical imagination. His unpowdered and closely-cut hair, his black coat, his austere demeanour, and grave and ascetic features, recalled the minister of the Holy Gospel and those Puritans of the time of Cromwell who sought for G.o.d in liberty, and in their trial, martyrdom.

Valaze seemed like a soldier under fire; his conscience told him it was his duty to die, and he died.

The Abbe Fauchet came immediately after Valaze. He was in his fiftieth year, but the beauty of his features, the elevation of his stature, and the freshness of his colour, made him appear much younger. His dress, from its colour and make, befitted his sacred profession, and his hair was so cut as to show the tonsure of the priest, so long covered by the red bonnet of the revolutionist.

Brissot was the last but one.

Last came Vergniaud, the greatest and most ill.u.s.trious of them all. All Paris knew, and had beheld him in the tribune, and was now curious to gaze not only on the orator on a level with his enemies, but the man reduced to take his place on the bench of the accused. His prestige still followed him, and he was one of those men from whom everything, even impossibilities, are expected.

_IV.--The Banquet of Death_

The jury closed the debate on October 30, at eight o'clock in the evening. All the accused were declared guilty of having conspired against the unity and indivisibility of the republic, and condemned to death. One of them, who had made a motion with his hand as though to tear his garments, slipped from his seat on to the floor. It was Valaze.

"What, Valaze, are you losing your courage?" said Brissot, striving to support him.

"No, I am dying," returned Valaze. And he expired, his hand on the poignard with which he had pierced his heart.

At this spectacle silence instantly prevailed, and the example of Valaze made the young Girondists blush for their momentary weakness.

It was eleven o'clock at night. After a moment's pause, occasioned by the unexpectedness of the sentence and the emotion of the prisoners, the sitting was closed amidst cries of "Vive la Republique!"

The Girondists, as they quitted their places, cried simultaneously. "We die innocent! Vive la Republique!"

They were all confined for this their last night on earth in the large dungeon, the waiting room of death.

The deputy Bailleul, their colleague at the a.s.sembly, proscribed like them, but who had escaped the proscription, and was concealed in Paris, had promised to send them from without on the day of their trial a last repast, triumphant or funeral, according to the sentence. Bailleul, though invisible, kept his promise through the agency of a friend. The funeral supper was set out in the large dungeon; the daintiest meats, the choicest wines, the rarest flowers, and numerous flambeaux decked the oaken table--prodigality of dying men who have no need to save aught for the following day.

The repast was prolonged until dawn. Vergniaud, seated at the centre of the table, presided, with the same calm dignity he had presided at the Convention on the night of August 10. The others formed groups, with the exception of Brissot, who sat at the end of the table, eating but little, and not uttering a word. For a long time nothing in their features or conversation indicated that this repast was the prelude to death. They ate and drank with appet.i.te, but sobriety; but when the table was cleared, and nothing left except the fruit, wine, and flowers, the conversation became alternately animated, noisy and grave, as the conversation of careless men, whose thoughts and tongues are freed by wine.

Towards the morning the conversation became more solemn. Brissot spoke prophetically of the misfortunes of the republic, deprived of her most virtuous and eloquent citizens. "How much blood will it require to wash out our own?" cried he. They were silent, and appeared terrified at the phantom of the future evoked by Brissot.

"My friends," replied Vergniaud, "we have killed the tree by pruning it.

It was too aged. Robespierre cuts it. Will he be more fortunate than ourselves? No, the soul is too weak to nourish the roots of civic liberty; this people is too childish to wield its laws without hurting itself. We were deceived as to the age in which we were born, and in which we die for the freedom of the world."

A long silence followed this speech of Vergniaud's, and the conversation turned from earth to heaven.

"What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?" said Ducos, who always mingled mirth with the most serious subjects. Each replied according to his nature.

Vergniaud reconciled in a few words all the different opinions. "Let us believe what we will," said he, "but let us die certain of our life and the price of our death. Let us each sacrifice what we possess, the one his doubt, the other his faith, all of us our blood, for liberty. When man offers himself a victim to Heaven, what more can he give?"

When all was ready, and the last lock of hair had fallen on the stones of the dungeon, the executioners and _gens d'armes_ made the condemned march in a column to the court of the palace, where five carts, surrounded by an immense crowd, awaited them. The moment they emerged from the Conciergerie, the Girondists burst into the "Ma.r.s.eillaise,"

laying stress on these verses, which contained a double meaning:

_Contre nous de la tyrannie L'etendard sanglant est leve._

From this moment they ceased to think of themselves, in order to think of the example of the death of republicans they wished to leave the people. Their voices sank at the end of each verse, only to rise more sonorous at the first line of the next verse. On their arrival at the scaffold they all embraced, in token of community in liberty, life, and death, and then resumed their funeral chant.

All died without weakness. The hymn became feebler at each fall of the axe; one voice still continued it, that of Vergniaud. Like his companions, he did not die, but pa.s.sed in enthusiasm, and his life, begun by immortal orations, ended in a hymn to the eternity of the revolution.

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

The Modern Regime

The early life of Hippolyte Adolphe Taine is notable for its successes and its disappointments. Born at Vouziers, in Ardennes, on April 21, 1838, he pa.s.sed with great distinction through the College de Bourbon and the ecole Normale. Until he was twenty-five he filled minor positions at Toulon, Nevers, and Poitiers; and then, hopeless of further promotion, he abandoned educational work, returned to Paris, and devoted himself to letters. During 1863-64 he produced his "History of English Literature," a work which, on account of Taine's uncompromising determinist views, raised a clerical storm in France. About 1871 Taine conceived the idea of his great life work, "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine," in which he proposed to trace the causes and effects of the revolution of 1789. The first of the series, "The Ancient Regime," appeared in 1875; the second, "The Revolution," in 1878-81-85; and the third, "The Modern Regime," in 1890-94. As a study of events arising out of the greatest drama of modern times the supremacy of the last-named is unquestioned. It stands apart as a trenchant a.n.a.lysis of modern France, Taine's conclusions being that the Revolution, instead of establis.h.i.+ng liberty, destroyed it. Taine died on March 5, 1893.

_I.--The Architect of Modern France_

In trying to explain to ourselves the meaning of an edifice, we must take into account whatever has opposed or favoured its construction, the kind and quality of its available materials, the time, the opportunity, and the demand for it; but, still more important, we must consider the genius and taste of the architect, especially whether he is the proprietor, whether he built it to live in himself, and, once installed in it, whether he took pains to adapt it to his own way of living, to his own necessities, to his own use.