and outrages that a despot would not bear for a fortnight.  How shall we be looked upon?  No! we must avenge ourselves, or become the opprobrium of all the other nations.  We must avenge ourselves by destroying these herds of brigands, or consent to behold faction, conspiracy, and rebellion perpetuated, and the insolence of the aristocrats greater than ever.  They rely on the army at Coblentz,—­in that they put their trust.  If you would at one blow destroy the aristocracy, destroy Coblentz, and the chief of the nation will be compelled to reign, according to the Constitution, with us and through us.”

These words, pronounced by the statesman of the Gironde, awakened an echo in the breast of every man, from the Jacobin Club to the extremity of the country.  The vehement applause of the tribunes was merely the expression of that impatience to know the final decision that pervaded all parties.  Robespierre needed iron nerve and determination to confront his friends, his enemies, and public opinion; and yet he sustained this struggle of a single idea against all this passion for weeks.  Great convictions are indefatigable; and Robespierre, by his own unaided exertions, balanced all France during a month.  His very enemies spoke with respect of his firmness, and those who had not the courage to follow him, yet would have been ashamed not to esteem him.  His eloquence, which had been dry, verbose, and dialectic, now became more elegant and more imposing.  The public journals printed his speeches.  “You, O people, who do not possess the means of procuring the speeches of Robespierre, I promise them to you,” said the Orateur du Peuple, the Jacobin paper.  “Preserve carefully the numbers that contain these speeches; they are masterpieces of eloquence, that should be preserved in every family, in order to teach future generations that Robespierre existed for the public good and the preservation of liberty.”

After having exhausted every argument that philosophy, policy, and patriotism could suggest against an offensive war, commenced by the Gironde, and secretly fomented by the ministers, and carried on by the generals most suspected by the people, he mounted the tribune for the last time, against Brissot, on the night of the 13th January, and declared his conviction against war, in a speech as admirable as it was pathetic.

VI.

“Yes, I am vanquished; I yield to you,” cried he, in a broken voice, “I also demand war.  What do I say?—­I demand a war, more terrible, more implacable than you demand.  I do not demand it as an act of prudence, an act of reason, an act of policy, but as the resource of despair.  I demand it on one condition, which doubtless you have anticipated,—­for I do not think that the advocates of war have sought to deceive us.  I demand it deadly—­I demand it heroic—­I demand it such as the genius of Liberty would declare against all despotism—­such as the people of the Revolution, under their own leaders, would render it;—­not such as intriguing cowards would have it, or as the ambitious and traitorous ministers and generals would carry it on.