University of Virginia Library

XIV.—THE FALL OF KING GUILLOTINE.

Let us take one bold look, into the Hall of the National Assembly, on
the next day! What see we here?

Here are the best, the bravest, aye and the bloodiest of all France, sitting
silent—speechless—awed, before that orange-visaged dandy, who crouches
on the Tribune, yonder!

Not a man in that crowd, dares speak! Robespierre—the Guillotine,
Terror, have taken fast hold upon their hearts! Every man in that densely-throunged
hall looks upon his neighbor with suspicion; for every other
man, there is already singled out as the victim of the orange-faced King, in
the snow-white vest! It is not known who the next victim shall be;
where the tyrant will next strike and kill!

Robespierre has carried his list of death; has made his fiery speech:
France, the people, the bloody and the brave, sit crouching in that hall,
before that slender man, with blood-shot eyes!

Robespierre in fact is King—do you see, that biting smile stealing over
his withered face! There is triumph in that mockery of a smile!

At this awful moment, when all is silence in the crowded hall—behold—
that unknown man, rising yonder, far from the Tribune—that unknown man,
who trembling from head to foot, pale as a frozen corpse,—rises and speaks
a word that turns all eyes upon him:

“Room!” he whispers; and yet his whisper is heard in every heart—
“Room there ye dead!”

He pauses, with his eye fixed on vacancy.—All is still—the Convention
hold their breath—even Robespierre listens—

“Room there ye dead!”[3] again whispers that unknown man; and then
pointing to the white-vested Tyrant, his voice rises in a shriek—“Room ye
dead! Room there—Room ye ghosts—room in hell for the soul of Maximilien
Robespierre!”

Like a voice from the grave, that word startles the Convention—look!
Robespierre has risen—coward as he is, that voice has palsied his soul.

But the unknown man does not pause! In that some deep tone, he heaps
up the crimes of Robespierre in short and fiery words, he calls the dead
from their graves to witness the atrocities of the Tyrant; trembling with
the great deed he has taken upon himself, he shrieks, Go, tyrant, go!
Go, and wash out your crimes on the gory sawdust of King Guillotine!”

From that hour, Robespierre the Tyrant was Robespierre, the convicted
criminal! Look! Covered with shames and scorns, he rushes from the
hall—Hark! The report of a pistol! What does it mean?

Let us away to King Guillotine and ask him!

Ha! Give way there Paris, give way, who is it that comes here—comes
through the maddened crowd; who is it, that more dead than living, comes
on, shrinking, crouching, trembling, to the feet of Holy King Guillotine?

Ah! That horror-stricken face, yes, that face with that bloody cloth
bound around the broken jaw—look! even through that cloth, the blood
drips slowly; he bleeds, it is Robespierre!

Grasped in the arms of men, whom the joy of this moment has maddened
into devils, he is dragged up to the scaffold—

One look over the crowd—great Heaven, in all that mass of millions,
there is no blessing for Maximilien Robespierre!

“Water!” shrieks the Tyrant, holding his torn jaw, “Water, only a cup
of water!”

Look—his cry is answered! A woman rushes up the scaffold—a woman
who yesterday was a mother, but now is widowed, because Robespierre and
Death have grasped her boy.

“Water?” she echoes; “Blood, tyrant, blood! You have given France
blood to drink—you have drank her blood! Now drink your own!”

Look—oh, horror—she drags the bandage from his broken jaw—he is
bathed in a bath of his own blood. Down on the block, tyrant! One
gleam of the axe—hurrah for brave King Guillotine!

There is a head on the scaffold—and there, over the headless corse,
stands that Widow, shrieking the cry she heard in the Convention to-day:
“Room ye dead! Room—for the Soul of Maximilien Robespierre!”