Here, during the night, earnest consultations were held; and the adherents of Robespierre implored him in desperation, as the last chance of safety for them all, to address a rousing proclamation to the sections.  At length, yielding unwillingly to these frantic appeals, he commenced writing the required address; and it was while subscribing his name to this seditious document, that the soldiers of the Convention burst in upon him, and he was shot through the jaw by one of the gendarmes.  At the same moment, Le Bas shot himself through the heart.  All were made prisoners, and carried off—­the dead body of Le Bas not excepted.

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While residing for a short time in Paris in 1849, we were one day conducted by a friend to a large house, with an air of faded grandeur, in the eastern faubourgs, which had belonged to an aged republican, recently deceased.  He wished me to examine a literary curiosity, which was to be seen among other relics of the great Revolution.  The curiosity in question was the proclamation, in the handwriting of Robespierre, to which he was in the act of inscribing his signature, when assaulted and made prisoner in the Hotel de Ville.  It was a small piece of paper, contained in a glass-frame; and, at this distance of time, could not fail to excite an interest in visitors.  The few lines of writing, commencing with the stirring words:  ’Courage, mes compatriotes!’ ended with only a part of the subscription.  The letters, Robes, were all that were appended, and were followed by a blur of the pen; while the lower part of the paper shewed certain discolorations, as if made by drops of blood.  And so this was the last surviving token of the notorious Robespierre!  It is somewhat curious, that no historian seems to be aware of its existence.

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Stretched on a table in one of the anterooms of the Convention; his head leaning against a chair; his fractured jaw supported by a handkerchief passed round the top of his head; a glass with vinegar and a sponge at his side to moisten his feverish lips; speechless and almost motionless, yet conscious!—­there lay Robespierre—­the clerks, who, a few days ago, had cringed before him, now amusing themselves by pricking him with their penknives, and coarsely jesting over his fall.  Great crowds, likewise, flocked to see him while in this undignified posture, and he was overwhelmed with the vilest expressions of hatred and abuse.  The mental agony which he must have experienced during this humiliating exhibition, could scarcely fail to be increased on hearing himself made the object of unsparing and boisterous declamations from the adjoining tribune.