He demanded, not only that the harangue should be printed, but sent to all the communes and all the armies.  It was necessary to soothe a wronged and ulcerated heart.  Deputies, the most faithful, had been accused of shedding blood.  “Ah! if he had contributed to the death of one innocent man, he should immolate himself with grief.”  Beautiful tenderness!—­and while he spoke, he fondled the spaniel in his bosom.  Bravo, Couthon!  Robespierre triumphs!  The reign of Terror shall endure!  The old submission settles dovelike back in the assembly!  They vote the printing of the Death-speech, and its transmission to all the municipalities.  From the benches of the Mountain, Tallien, alarmed, dismayed, impatient, and indignant, cast his gaze where sat the strangers admitted to hear the debates; and suddenly he met the eyes of the Unknown who had brought to him the letter from Teresa de Fontenai the preceding day.  The eyes fascinated him as he gazed.  In aftertimes he often said that their regard, fixed, earnest, half-reproachful, and yet cheering and triumphant, filled him with new life and courage.  They spoke to his heart as the trumpet speaks to the war-horse.  He moved from his seat; he whispered with his allies:  the spirit he had drawn in was contagious; the men whom Robespierre especially had denounced, and who saw the sword over their heads, woke from their torpid trance.  Vadier, Cambon, Billaud-Varennes, Panis, Amar, rose at once,—­all at once demanded speech.  Vadier is first heard, the rest succeed.  It burst forth, the Mountain, with its fires and consuming lava; flood upon flood they rush, a legion of Ciceros upon the startled Catiline!  Robespierre falters, hesitates,—­would qualify, retract.  They gather new courage from his new fears; they interrupt him; they drown his voice; they demand the reversal of the motion.  Amar moves again that the speech be referred to the Committees, to the Committees,—­to his enemies!  Confusion and noise and clamour!  Robespierre wraps himself in silent and superb disdain.  Pale, defeated, but not yet destroyed, he stands,—­a storm in the midst of storm!

The motion is carried.  All men foresee in that defeat the Dictator’s downfall.  A solitary cry rose from the galleries; it was caught up; it circled through the hall, the audience:  “A bas le tyrant!  Vive la republique!” (Down with the tyrant!  Hurrah for the republic!)

CHAPTER 7.XII.

     Aupres d’un corps aussi avili que la Convention, il restait des
     chances pour que Robespierre sortit vainqueur de cette lutte. 
     Lacretelle, volume xii.

     (Amongst a body so debased as the Convention, there still
     remained some chances that Robespierre would come off victor in
     the struggle.)

As Robespierre left the hall, there was a dead and ominous silence in the crowd without.  The herd, in every country, side with success; and the rats run from the falling tower.  But Robespierre, who wanted courage, never wanted pride, and the last often supplied the place of the first; thoughtfully, and with an impenetrable brow, he passed through the throng, leaning on St. Just, Payan and his brother following him.