Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/99

LEFT ROBESPIERRE 73 ROBESPIERRE opposed vigorously the Girondist idea of a special appeal to the people on the king's death, and his execution (Jan. 21, 1793) opened up the final stage of the struggle, which ended in a complete tri- umph of the Jacobins on June 2 of the same year. The first Committee of Public Safety — a permanent Cabinet of Revolution — was decreed in April, 1793, but Robespierre was not elected till July 27. He was now for the first time one of the actual rulers of France, but it is open to question whether for the whole 12 months from this time to the end he was not merely the stalking horse for the more resolute party within the Twelve. His vaunted respectability, his great popu- larity with the mob, and his gift of fluent, if vague and windy, oratory, made an admirable cover for the truculent de- signs of strong and completely unscrupu- lous men like Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois and at least it is certainly the case that Couthon and Saint-Just were the only members whose political and social ideals coincided with his own. The next scenes in the dark drama of Revolution were the intrigues and des- perate struggles that sent Hebert and his friends to the scaffold on March 24, 1794, and Danton and Robespierre's school-fellow, Camille Desmoulins, on April 5. Danton he at once hated and feared with that fierce and spiteful hat- red he ever felt instinctively for men with natural gifts beyond his own. The next three months he reigned supreme, but his supremacy prepared the way for his in- evitable fall. He nominated all the mem- bers of the government committee, placed his creatures in all places of influence in the commune of Paris, sent his hench- man Saint-Just on a mission to the armies on the frontier, assumed supreme con- trol of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and completely revolutionized its method of operation by the atrocious measure intro- duced by his creature Couthon on the 22d Prairial (June 10), to the effect that neither counsel nor witnesses need be heard if the jury had come otherwise to a conclusion. But, in accordance with the law that governs all human things, as Robes- pierre's power increased his popularity decreased. His declaration on May 7 of a new religion for the State — the founda- tion of a new regime of public morality ' — awakened in the mind of Paris the slumbering sense of humor. The Con- vention at Robespierre's instance agreed to compliment the Supreme Being with an acknowledgment of His existence and themselves with the Consolatory Principle of the Immortality of the Soul, to be celebrated in 36 annual festivals. The first of these was held on June 8, when Robespierre, glorious in a new light-blue coat, walked in front of the procession and delivered his soul of a vapid harangue, and set fire to pasteboard figures repre- senting Atheism, Selfishness, Annihila- tion, Crime, and Vice. Meantime the pace of the guillotine grew faster, though apparently Robes- pierre hoped to bring it to a close as soon as all his more dangerous enemies, like Tallien, Fouche, and Vadier, were cut off. At the same time the public finance and the work of government generally drifted to ruin, and Saint-Just openly demanded the creation of a dictatorship in the per- MAXIMILIEN M. I. ROBESPIERRE son of Robespierre as alone possessing intellect, energy, patriotism, and revolu- tionary experience enough. On July 26 (8th Thermidor), after about a month's absence, the dictator delivered a long harangue complaining that he was being accused of crimes unjustly. He was lis- tened to in deep unsympathetic silence, and the Convention, after at first obe- diently passing his decrees, next rescinded them and referred his proposals to that committee, and the sitting ended without anything being concluded. That night at the Jacobin Club his party again tri- umphed, and the Tallien party in despair hurried to the members of the Right, the Girondist remnant, and implored their help against the common enemy at this desperate juncture. Next day at the Con- vention Saint-Just could not obtain a hearing. Tallien, Billaud-Varennes, and Vadier vehemently attacked Robespierre, and the voice of the dictator himself was drowned with cries of "Down with the tyrant." Turning to the Right, "I appeal