Art had its monomaniacs; January 21st, while the head of the monarchy was falling in the place de la Revolution, Bézard, representative from l'Oise, went to see a picture by Rubens, found in a garret in Rue Saint-Lazare. Artists, orators, prophets, great men like Danton, petty men like Cloots, gladiators and philosophers, all were striving for the same end,—progress. Nothing disconcerted them. The grandeur of the Convention lay in finding out how much reality there was in what men called impossible. At one extreme, Robespierre had his eye fixed on Law; at the other extreme, Condorcet had his eye fixed on Duty.

  Condorcet was a dreamer and a clear-sighted man; Robespierre was a man of executive ability; and sometimes in the final crises of worn-out societies, execution means extermination. Revolutions have two slopes, ascent and descent, and bear, terraced on these slopes, all the seasons from ice to flowers. Each zone of these slopes produces men suited to its climate, from those who live in the sun to those who live in lightning.

  VII.

  People showed each other the corner of the passage on the left where Robespierre whispered in the ear of Garat, Clavière's friend, this terrible epigram: "Clavière has conspired wherever he has respired." In this same nook, convenient for asides and whispered anger, Fabre and d'Eglantine had quarrelled with Romme, and reproached him for disfiguring his calendar by changing Fervidor to Thermidor.

  People pointed out the corner where the seven representatives of the Haute-Garonne sat, elbow to elbow; the first called to pronounce their verdict on Louis XVI., they replied one after another: Mailhe, "death"; Delmas, "death"; Projean, "death"; Calés, "death"; Ayral, "death"; Julien, "death"; Dasaby, "death."

  An eternal reverberation which has filled all history, and which, since human justice exists, has always given the echo of the grave to the wall of the tribunal. People pointed out, among this riotous crowd of faces, all those men who had been the cause of the hubbub of tragic votes:—Paganel, who said,—

  "Death. A king is of no use until he is dead." Millaud, who said,—

  "If death did not exist to-day, it would be necessary to invent it." The old Raffron du Trouillet, who said,—

  "Death, come quickly!" Goupilleau, who exclaimed,—

  "The scaffold immediately. Slowness aggravates death." Sieyés, who exclaimed with funereal conciseness,—

  "Death." Thuriot, who rejected the appeal to the people proposed by Buzot,—

  "What! primary assemblies! what! forty-four thousand tribunals! Trial without end. The head of Louis XVI. would have time to turn white before it would fall." Augustin-Bon Robespierre, who exclaimed after his brother,—

  "I know nothing of a humanity which slaughters nations, and pardons despots; to ask a reprieve is to substitute an appeal to tyrants for the appeal to the people. Foussedoire, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's substitute, who said,—

  "I have a horror of shedding human blood, but the blood of a king is not the blood of a man. Death." Jean-Bon-Saint-André, who said,—

  "No free people, unless the tyrant dies." Lavicomterie, who proclaimed this formula,—

  "While the tyrant breathes, liberty suffocates. Death." Chateauneuf-Randon, who cried,—

  "The death of Louis the Last." Guyardin, who gave utterance to this wish,—

  "Let the 'Barrière-Renversée' be executed (the Barrière-Renversée, or overthrown barrier, was the Barrière du Trône). Tellier, who said,—

  "Let a cannon of the size of Louis XVL's head be forged, to use against the enemy."

  And the indulgents: Gentil, who said,—

  "I vote for imprisonment. To make a Charles I. is to make a Cromwell." Bancal, who said,—

  "Exile. I want to see the first king of the universe condemned to learn a trade in order to earn his living." Albouys, who said,—

  "Banishment. Let this living spectre go to wander about thrones." Zangiacomi, who said,—

  "Let us keep Capet alive for a scarecrow." Chaillon, who said,—

  "Let him live, I would not put to death one whom Rome would canonize."

  While these sentences were falling from these stern lips, and one after another became historical, in the tribunes, women wearing low-necked dresses and jewels, holding the list, counted the voices and pricked each vote with a pin.

  Wherever tragedy enters in, horror and pity remain.

  To see the Convention during any period of its reign was to see the judgment of the last Capet over again; the legend of January 21st seemed mingled with all its proceedings; the dreadful assembly was full of those fatal breaths, which had blown over the old torch of monarchy lighted for eighteen centuries, and had put it out; the decisive trial for all kings in one king was like the crises in the great war on the Past; at whatever session of the Convention one was present, the shadow cast by the scaffold of Louis XVI. seemed to brood over it; the spectators related to each other the resignation of Kersaint, the resignation of Roland, how Duchâtel, the deputy of the Deux-Sèvres, being ill, was brought on his bed, and, while dying, voted for the king's life, which caused Marat to laugh; people looked around for the representative, forgotten by history to-day, who, after that session of thirty-seven hours, dropped on his bench overcome with weariness and sleep, and, awakened by the usher when it was his turn to vote, opened his eyes, said "Death!" and fell asleep again.

  At the time Louis XVI. was condemned to die, Robespierre had eighteen months longer to live; Danton, fifteen months; Vergniaud, nine months; Marat, five months and three weeks; Lepelletier-Saint-Fargeau, one day. Short and terrible breath from human mouths!

  VIII.

  The people had one window opening on the Convention, the public tribunes, and when this was insufficient they opened the door, and the street entered the Assembly.

  These invasions of the multitude into the senate are one of the most extraordinary sights of history. These irruptions were usually cordial. The street-crossing fraternized with the curule-chair. But it was a terrible cordiality which the people showed one day when in three hours they took the cannon and forty thousand guns, from the Invalides.

  Each instant the session was interrupted by a march of men; deputations, petitions, homages, offerings were received at the bar. The pike of honor from the Faubourg-Saint-Antoine entered, borne by women. The English offered twenty thousand shoes to our bare-footed soldiers.

  "Citizen Arnoux," said the Moniteur, "priest of Aubignan, commandant of the battalion de la Drôme, asks to march to the frontiers, and to have his parish preserved for him."

  Delegates came from the sections, bringing on hand-barrows, dishes, patens, chalices, monstrances, piles of gold, silver, and silver-gilt, as offerings to the country from this multitude in rags, and asked as a recompense permission to dance the carmagnole, or Revolutionary dance, before the Convention. Chenard, Narbonne, and Vallière came singing verses in honor of the Mountain.

  The Section of Mont-Blanc brought the bust of Lepelletier, and a woman placed a red cap on the head of the president, who kissed it; "the citizenesses of the Section du Mail" threw flowers to "the legislators"; the "pupils of the country" came, to the sound of music, to thank the Convention for having "prepared the prosperity of the age"; the women from the Section of the Gardes-Françaises offered roses; the women from the Section of the Champs-Elysées offered a wreath of oak leaves; the women from the Section of the Temple came to the bar to take the oath "to marry none but true Republicans"; the Section of Molière presented a medal of Franklin, which was decreed to be suspended from the crown of the statue of Liberty; the Enfants-Trouvés, declared "children of the Republic" filed in, dressed in the national uniform; the young girls from the Section of Ninety-two came in long, white dresses, and the following day the Moniteur contained this line: "The president received a bouquet from the hands of a young beauty."

  The orators saluted the crowds; sometimes they flattered them, they said: "You are infallible, you are irreproachable, you are sublime"; the people have a childish side, they like these sugarplums. Sometimes the disturbance went through the Assembly, entering in a rage and going out peacefully, as the Rhône passes through Lake Leman, looking like mud when it enters, and deep blue when it leaves it.

  Sometimes it was less pacific, and Henriot had gridirons for heating the cannon balls brought to the door of the Tuileries.

  IX.

  At the same time the Assembly freed itself from the revolution; it produced civilization. A furnace, but a forge. In this vat where terror boiled, progress fermented. Out of this chaos of shadow and this stormy flight of clouds, shone immense rays of light parallel to the eternal laws. Rays which have remained on the horizon and forever visible in the sky of the people, and which are justice, toleration, goodness, reason, truth, love.

  The Convention promulgated this great axiom: "The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins," which comprises in two lines the entire law of human society. It declared indigence sacred; it declared infirmity sacred, in the blind and the deaf-mutes who became wards of the State; maternity sacred, in the girl-mother, whom it consoled and relieved; childhood sacred, in the orphan that it caused to be adopted by the country; innocence sacred, in the acquittal of the accused, whom it indemnified. It branded the slave trade; it abolished slavery. It proclaimed civic joint responsibility. It decreed gratuitous instruction. It organized national education: by the normal school in Paris, by the central school in the principal towns, and primary schools in the Commune. It created conservatories and museums. It decreed unity of the Code, unity of weights and measures, unity of calculation by the decimal system. It established the finances of France, and caused public credit to follow the long monarchical bankruptcy. It brought the telegraph into use, gave endowed hospitals for the aged, clean hospitals to the sick, the Polytechnic school to instruction, the Bureau of Longitudes to science, the institute to the human mind.

  It was cosmopolitan as well as national. Of the eleven thousand two hundred and ten decrees passed by the Convention, one third have a political aim, two thirds have a humanitarian aim. It declared morals to be the universal foundation of society, and conscience the universal foundation of law. And all this—slavery abolished, brotherhood proclaimed, humanity protected, human conscience rectified, the law of work transformed to a privilege, and from being onerous made helpful, national wealth strengthened, childhood brightened and assisted, letters and science propagated, light shed on every summit, help for all the wretched, encouragement of all principals,—all this the Convention brought about, having in its vitals that hydra, la Vendée, and on its shoulders that pile of tigers, the kings.

  X.

  Tremendous stage! All types; human, inhuman, and superhuman were there. Epic gathering of antagonism; Guillotine avoidmg David, Bagire insulting Chabot, Gaudet jeering at Saint-Just, Vergniaud scorning Danton, Louvet attacking Robespierre, Buzot denouncing Egalité, Chambon branding Pache,—all execrating Marat.

  And how many other names ought to be recorded still! Armonville, called Bonnet-Rouge, because he would only sit in a Phrygian cap, a friend of Robespierre, and wishing "after Louis XVI. to have Robespierre guillotined" from a love of equilibrium; Massieu, a colleague and double of that good Lamourette, a bishop made to leave his name to a kiss; Lehardy du Morbihan stigmatizing the priests of Brittany; Barère, the man of majorities, who presided when Louis XVI. appeared at the bar, and who was to Paméla what Louvet was to Lodoïska: the orator Daunou, who said, "Let us gain time;" Dubois Crancé, in whose ear Marat stooped to whisper; the Marquis de Chateauneuf; Laclos, Hérault de Séchelles, who drew back before Henriot, exclaiming, "Gunners, to your guns!" Julien who compared the Mountain to Thermopylæ; Gamon, who wished to have one of the public tribunes reserved solely for women; Laloy, who bestowed the honors of the session on bishop Gobel, who came to the Convention to lay down the mitre and to don the red cap; Lecomte, who exclaimed, "So the honors are for any who will lay down his priestly robes!" Féraud, whose head Boissy-d'Anglas saluted, leaving it an open question to history, whether Boissy-d'Anglas saluted the head, that is to say the victim, or tbe pike, that is to say the assassins; the two brothers Duprat, one a Montagnard, the other, a Girondist, who hated each other, as did the two brothers Chénier.

  At this tribune were spoken those giddy words which sometimes, though unknown to him who has uttered them, produce the prophetic accent of revolutions, and in consequence of which material facts seem abruptly to assume a strange discontent and passion, as if they had taken offence at the things they had just heard; passing events seem incensed at what is spoken; catastrophes arise full of wrath, and as if exasperated by the words of men. So a voice in the mountain is enough to let loose an avalanche. A word too much may be followed by a caving in. If the word had not been spoken, it would not have happened. It seems sometimes as if events were irascible.

  It was in this way, by the chance word of an orator misunderstood, that Madame Elizabeth's head was made to fall. At the Convention, intemperance of language was allowable. Threats flew and crossed each other in a discussion like firebrands in a conflagration.

  Pétion. Robespierre come to the point.

  Robespierre. The point is yourself, Pétion. I will come to it, and you will see it.

  A Voice. Death to Marat.

  Marat. The day Marat dies there will be no more Paris, and the day Paris perishes, there will be no more Republic.

  Billaud-Varennes rises and says: "We are willing."—Barère interrupts him: "You speak like a king." Another day Phillipeaux said: "A member has drawn his sword on me."

  Audouin. President, call the assassin to order.

  The President. Attention.

  Audouin. President, I call you to order myself.

  The people laughed rudely.

  Lecointre. The priest of Chant-de-Bout complains of Fauchet, his bishop, who forbids him to marry.

  A Voice. I don't see why Fauchet, who has his mistresses, wishes to prevent others from having wives.

  Another Voice. Priest take a wife!

  The tribunes joined in the conversation. They addressed the Assembly familiarly. One day Representative Ruamps went up into the tribune. One of his hips was much larger than the other. One of the spectators cried out to him: "Turn that to the right side, for you have a cheek like David." Such were the liberties that people took with the Convention. Once, however, in the tumult of April 11th, 1793, the president caused a disorderly spectator in the tribune to be arrested.

  One day the session had old Buonarotti for a witness. Robespierre takes the floor and speaks two hours, looking at Danton, sometimes straight in the eye, which was serious, sometimes askance, which was worse. He thundered to the end, however. He ended in an explosion of indignation, full of ominous words: "We know the intriguers, we know the corrupters and the corrupted, we know the traitors; they are in this assembly. They hear us, we see them and our eyes do not leave their faces. Let them look above their heads, and they will see the sword of the law; let them look into their consciences and they will see their infamy. Let them be on their guard." And when Robespierre had ended, Danton with his face turned to the ceiling, his eyes half-closed, one arm over the back of his seat, throws himself back and is heard to hum,—

  "Cadet Roussel fait des discours

  Qui ne sont pas longs quand ils sont courts."

  The imprecations called for retorts.—Conspirator!—Assassin!—Villain!—Factionist!—Moderate!—They denounced each other to the bust of Brutus which was there. Apostrophes, insults, challenges. Angry looks from one side to the other, threatening fists, pistols half shown, daggers half drawn. Tremendous blazing of the tribune. Some talked as if they were leaning against the guillotine. Heads wagged, ominous and terrible. Montagnards, Giroudins, Feuillants, Modérantistes, Terroristes, Jacobins, Cordeliers, eighteen regicide priests.

  All these men! A mass of smoke driven in every direction.

  XI.

  Minds, a prey to the wind.

  But this wind a miraculous wind.

  To be a member of the Convention was to be a billow of the ocean. And this was true of the greatest. The impelling force came from above. In the Convention there was a will power belonging to all and belonging to none. This will power was an idea, indomitable and boundless, wliich blew from the height of heaven into the darkness below. We call this the Revolution. When this idea passed, it overcame one and lifted up another; it carried away some on the top of the wave, and shipwrecked others. This idea knew where it was going, and drove the gulf before it. To impute the Revolution to men is to impute the tide to the billows.

  Revolution is an action of the Unknown. Call it good action or bad, according as you aspire to the future or the past, but leave it to whatever has caused it. It seems the common work of great events and great individuals combined, but it is in reality the resultant of events. Events spend, men pay. Events dictate, men sign. July 14 is signed Caraille Desmoulins, August 10 is signed Danton, September 2 is signed Marat, September 21 is signed Grégoire, January 21 is signed Robespierre; but Desmoulins, Danton, Marat, Grégoire, and Robespierre are mere clerks. The immense and awful author of these great pages has a name, God; and a mark, Fate. Robespierre believed in God. Of course!