But the end of this system drew near.  The committees opposed Robespierre in their own way.  They secretly strove to bring about his fall by accusing him of tyranny.

Naturally sad, suspicious, and timid, he became more melancholy and mistrustful than ever.  He even rose against the committee itself.  On Thermidor 8 (July 25, 1794), he entered the Convention at an early hour.  He ascended the tribunal, and denounced the committee in a most skilful speech.  Not a murmur, not a mark of applause welcomed this declaration of war.

The members of the two committees thus attacked, who had hitherto remained silent, seeing the Mountain thwarted and the majority undecided, thought it time to speak.  Vadier first opposed Robespierre’s speech and then Robespierre himself.  Cambon went further.  The committees had also spent the night in deliberation.  In this state of affairs the sitting of Thermidor 9 (July 27) began.

Robespierre, after attempting to speak several times, while his voice was drowned by cries of “Down with the tyrant!” and the bell which the president, Thuriot, continued ringing, now made a last effort to be heard.  “President of assassins,” he cried, “for the last time, will you let me speak?”

Said one of the Mountain:  “The blood of Danton chokes you!” His arrest was demanded, and supported on all sides.  It was now half-past five, and the sitting was suspended till seven.  Robespierre was transferred to the Luxembourg.  The commune, after having ordered the gaolers not to receive him, sent municipal officers with detachments to bring him away.  Robespierre was liberated, and conducted in triumph to the Hotel de Ville.  On arriving, he was received with the greatest enthusiasm.  “Long live Robespierre!  Down with the traitors!” resounded on all sides.  But the Convention marched upon the Hotel de Ville.

The conspirators, finding they were lost, sought to escape the violence of their enemies by committing violence on themselves.  Robespierre shattered his jaw with a pistol shot.  He was deposited for some time at the Committee of Public Safety before he was transferred to the Conciergerie; and here, stretched on a table, his face disfigured and bloody, exposed to the looks, the invectives, the curses of all, he beheld the various parties exulting in his fall, and charging upon him all the crimes that had been committed.

On Thermidor 10, about five in the evening, he ascended the death-cart, placed between Henriot and Couthon, mutilated like himself.  His head was enveloped in linen, saturated with blood; his face was livid, his eyes were almost visionless.  An immense crowd thronged round the cart, manifesting the most boisterous and exulting joy.  He ascended the scaffold last.  When his head fell, shouts of applause arose in the air, and lasted for some minutes.

Thermidor 9 was the first day of the revolution it which those fell who attacked.  This indication alone manifested that the ascendant revolutionary movement had reached its term.  From that day the contrary movement necessarily began.