Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/283

 little fellow-lodger, Citoyen AmiralAdmitat [sic], formerly 'a clerk in the Lotteries.' Collot shouts Murder, with lungs fit to awaken all the Rue Favart; Amiral snaps a second time; a second time flashes in the pan; then darts up into his apartment; and, after there firing, still with inadequate effect, one musket at himself and another at his captor, is clutched and locked in Prison. An indignant little man this Amiral, of Southern temper and complexion, of 'considerable muscular force.' He denies not that he meant to 'purge France of a Tyrant'; nay avows that he had an eye to the Incorruptible himself, but took Collot as more convenient!

Rumour enough hereupon; heaven-high congratulation of Collot, fraternal embracing, at the Jacobins and elsewhere. And yet, it would seem, the assassin mood proves catching. Two days more, it is still but the 23d of May, and towards nine in the evening, Cécile RénaultRenault [sic], Paper-dealer's daughter, a young woman of soft blooming look, presents herself at the Cabinet-maker's in the Rue Saint-Honoré; desires to see Robespierre. Robespierre cannot be seen; she grumbles irreverently. They lay hold of her. She has left a basket in a shop hard by: in the basket are female change of raiment and two knives! Poor Cécile, examined by Committee, declares she 'wanted to see what a tyrant was like'; the change of raiment was 'for my own use in the place I am surely going to.'—'What place?'—'Prison; and then the Guillotine,' answered she.—Such things come of Charlotte Corday; in a people prone to imitation, and monomania! Swart choleric men try Charlotte's feat, and their pistols miss fire; soft blooming young women try it, and, only half-resolute, leave their knives in a shop.

O Pitt, and ye Faction of the Stranger, shall the Republic never have rest; but be torn continually by baited springes, by wires of explosive spring-guns? Swart Amiral, fair young Cécile, and all that knew them, and many that did not know them, lie locked, waiting the scrutiny of Tinville.