Collot-d’Herbois, and, secretly and as far as he dared, Barere, formed an opposition.  Not that the latter were more moderate or merciful than Robespierre, but because, in the nature of things, there could be but one Dictator, and it became a question of the survival of the fittest.  Carnot took little or no part in active politics.  He devoted himself to the war, but he disapproved of the Terror and came to a breach with Saint-Just.  Robespierre’s power culminated on June 10, 1794, with the passage of the Law of 22 Prairial, which put the life of every Frenchman in his hand, and after which, save for some dozen or two of his most intimate and devoted adherents like Saint-Just, Couthon, Le Bas, Fouquier, Fleuriot the Mayor of Paris, and Henriot, the commander of the national guard, no one felt his head safe on his shoulders.  It needed but security on the northern frontier to cause the social centre of gravity to shift and Robespierre to fall, and security came with the campaign of Fleurus.

Jourdan and Pichegru were in command on the Belgian border, and on June 26, 1794, just sixteen days after the passage of the Law of Prairial, Jourdan won the battle of Fleurus.  This battle, though not decisive in itself, led to decisive results.  It uncovered Valenciennes and Conde, which were invested, closing the entrance to France.  On July 11, Jourdan entered Brussels; on July 16, he won a crushing victory before Louvain and the same day Namur opened its gates.  On July 23, Pichegru, driving the English before him, seized Antwerp.  No Frenchman could longer doubt that France was delivered, and with that certainty the Terror ended without a blow.  Eventually the end must have come, but it came instantly, and, according to the old legend, it came through a man’s love for a woman.

John Lambert Tallien, the son of the butler of the Marquis of Bercy, was born in 1769, and received an education through the generosity of the marquis, who noticed his intelligence.  He became a journeyman printer, and one day in the studio of Madame Lebrun, dressed in his workman’s blouse, he met Therezia Cabarrus, Marquise de Fontenay, the most seductive woman of her time, and fell in love with her on the instant.  Nothing, apparently, could have been more hopeless or absurd.  But the Revolution came.  Tallien became prominent, was elected to the Convention, grew to be influential, and in September, 1793, was sent to Bordeaux, as representative of the Chamber, or as proconsul, as they called it.  There he, the all-powerful despot, found Therezia, trying to escape to Spain, in prison, humble, poor, shuddering in the shadow of the guillotine.  He saved her; he carried her through Bordeaux in triumph in a car by his side.  He took her with him to Paris, and there Robespierre threw her into prison, and accused Tallien of corruption.  On June 12 Robespierre denounced him to the Convention, and on June 14, 1794, the Jacobins struck his name from the list of the club.  When Fleurus was fought Therezia lay in La Force, daily expecting death, while Tallien had become the soul of the reactionary party.  On the 8 Thermidor (July 26,1794) Tallien received a dagger wrapped in a note signed by Therezia,—­“To-morrow they kill me.  Are you then only a coward?"[41]