A hollow murmur, like an echo of the vaults beneath, repeated the concluding words.  The murmur had scarcely subsided when this extraordinary apparition, flinging round him a long white cloak, which he had hitherto carried on his arm, and which, in the dim light, gave him the look of one covered with a shroud, cried out in a voice of still deeper solemnity, “George Jacques Danton, you have this night pronounced the death of your king—­I now pronounce your own.  By the victims of the 20th of June—­by the victims of the 10th of August—­by the victims of the 2d of September—­by the thousands whom your thirst of blood has slain—­by the tens of thousands whom your treachery has sent to perish in a foreign grave—­by the millions whom the war which you have kindled will lay in the field of slaughter—­I cite you to appear before a tribunal, where sits a judge whom none can elude and none can defy.  Within a year and a month, I cite you to meet the spirits of your victims before the throne of the Eternal.”

He stopped; not a voice was heard.  He descended the steps of the Tribune, and stalked slowly through the hall; not a hand was raised against him.  He pursued his way with as much calmness and security as if he had been a supernatural visitant, until he vanished in the darkness.

This singular occurrence threw a complete damp on the regicidal ardour; and, as no one seemed inclined to mount the Tribune, the club would probably have broken up for the night, when a loud knocking at one of the gates, and the beating of drums, aroused the drowsy sitters on the benches.  The gallery was as much awake as ever; but seemed occupied with evident expectation of either a new revolt, or a spectacle; pistols were taken out to be new primed, and the points and edges of knives duly examined.  The doors at length were thrown open, and a crowd, one half of whom appeared to be in the last stage of intoxication, and the other half not far from insanity, came dancing and chorusing into the body of the building.  In the midst of their troop they carried two busts covered with laurels—­the busts of the regicides Ravaillac and Clement, with flags before them, inscribed, “They were glorious; for they slew kings!” The busts were presented to the president, and their bearers, a pair of poissardes, insisted on giving him the republican embrace, in sign of fraternization.  The president, in return, invited them to the “honours of a sitting;” and thus reinforced, the discussion on the death of the unhappy monarch commenced once more, and the vote was carried by acclamation.  The National Convention was still to be applied to for the completion of the sentence; but the decree of the Jacobins was the law of the land.