decree that the sections of Paris have deserved well of the country in maintaining tranquillity on this critical day, and that you should invite them to continue the same surveillance until every conspiracy is developed." This proposition, admitting two senses, was decreed through weariness by the two parties, each of the two thinking it voted against the other.

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"If

But fresh petitioners came unexpectedly, who demanded more imperiously that the deputies-traitors to the countryshould be delivered up to the blade of justice: they demanded a revolutionary army of Paris, levied and paid at the rate of forty sous per diem; the arrest of twenty-two Girondists; the price of bread fixed at three sous per pound at the expense of the republic; and the general armament of the sans culottes. After these petitioners, the members composing the administration of Paris came to read a denunciatory address against the Girondists. They have desired the destruction of Paris," said Lhuillier, their president. Paris should disappear from the face of the globe, it will be from having defended the unity of the republic against them! Posterity will avenge us! It is time, legislators, to terminate this combat. The reason of the people is weary of so much apathy. Let their enemies tremble! jestic anger is ready to break out. Let them tremble! The universe will quake from their vengeance. Isnard has excited civil war and the annihilation of the capital! We demand from you the decree of accusation against him and his accomplices, Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Buzot, Barbaroux, Roland, Lebrun, and Clavière. Avenge yourselves on Isnard and Roland, and make a great example!"

Their ma

XVII. Hardly was this address heard, when the crowd which followed the deputation seated themselves upon the benches of La Montagne. Vergniaud and Doulcet exclaimed against a confusion which stopped all discussion, and annulled the law. "Well, then," said Levasseur de la Sarthe, "let the deputies of La Montagne pass, en masse, on this side, (pointing to the empty benches on the right), "our places will be well kept by the petitioners!" La Montagne obeyed, and precipitated themselves to the side of the Girondists, in the right division of the hall. Vergniaud demanded that the

commandant of the armed force should be summoned to receive the orders of the president. Valazé protested, in the name of four hundred thousand souls whom he represented, against any deliberation adopted under the dictation of insurrection.

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Vergniaud arose. "The "cannot deliberate in its

Robespierre desired to speak. National Convention," said he, present state; let us go and join the armed force, and place ourselves under the protection of the people."

Vergniaud, at these words, went out with some friends, but returned soon afterwards, either repulsed by the multitude, or having regretted leaving the tribune to his enemies. Robespierre already occupied it, and reproached the Assembly with the hesitation of its attitude, and the insignificance of its resolutions. Vergniaud, who heard these last words of the orator, demanded leave to speak.

Robespierre, regarding Vergniaud from the height of the tribune with disdain, said, "I will not occupy the Assembly with the flight and return of those who have deserted their posts. It is not by insignificant measures that one can save the country. Your Committee of Public Safety, the organ of Barrère, has made you many propositions. There is one which I adopt-it is that of the suppression of the Commission of Twelve. But do you believe that is sufficient to satisfy our disquieted friends of the safety of the country? No! Already has this commission been suppressed, and the course of treason has not been interrupted. Take against its members those vigorous measures which the petitioners have just indicated to you. There are men here who would desire to punish this insurrection as a crime! You would place, then, an armed force in the hands of those who desire to direct it against the people!" Here Robespierre appeared to desire to oppose, without explaining himself clearly, the different measures proposed under the circumstances. Vergniaud, weary of awaiting the blow which Robespierre thus balanced over his head, cried out, in a tone of impatience, "Conclude, then!" Violent murmurs broke out against Vergniaud at this apostrophe. Robespierre regarded his interrupter with a disdainful smile. "Yes, I am about to conclude," said he, "and against you! against you, who,

after the revolution of the 10th of August, desired to conduct those to the scaffold who caused it! against you, who have incessantly provoked the destruction of Paris! against you, who desired to save the tyrant! against you, who conspired with Dumouriez! against you, who have persecuted with bitterness those same patriots, whose heads Dumouriez demanded! against you, whose criminal vengeance has provoked this insurrection, which you desire now to make the crime of your victims! My conclusion is the decree of accusation against the accomplices of Dumouriez, and against all those who have been designated by the petitioners."

Each of the conclusions of Robespierre, applauded by La Montagne, the petitioners, and the tribunes, deprived Vergniaud of every idea of replying. All the weight of the Convention and of the people seemed to crush the Girondists. They were silent. The decree proposed by Barrère was put to the vote. This decree contained, with the suppression of the twelve, some measures of hypocritical independence, which might save appearances in the eyes of the departments. It was voted without debate by La Plaine, as well as by La Montagne.

A feigned joy on one side, cruel on the other, broke out in the Assembly, and communicated itself from the tribunes to the exterior of the assemblage, which filled the hall. Bazire proposed to the Convention to go and fraternise with the people, and to mingle in the concord of all the citizens. This proposition was adopted with enthusiasm. Fear has also its alleviations. The Commune instantly caused Paris to be illuminated. The Convention proceeded, and, surrounded by torch-bearers, traversed, during the night, the principal quarters of the capital, followed by the sectionaries, and answering by their shouts to cries of "Vive la Republique!" The Girondists, trembling to signalise themselves by their absence, followed the cortége, and were present, with signs of forced joy, at the triumph over themselves. Condorcet, Pétion, Gensonné, Vergniaud, and Fonfrède were there. Louis XVI. was avenged the conspirators of the 10th of August had their 20th of June.

This humiliating triumph, to which the people drew them already in chains, was the presage of their approaching fall, and the first derision cast on their long punishment. "Which

do you prefer, this ovation, or the scaffold?" said Fonfrède, loudly enough to be heard, to Vergniaud, who walked with downcast brow by his side. "It is all the same to me," replied Vergniaud, with stoical indifference; "there is no choice between this walk and the scaffold; it conducts us to it."

BOOK XLII.

I. WHILST the Girondists thus followed the cortége of their defeat, the revolutionary committee sent armed agents to arrest Roland at his house. The genius and beauty of his wife, popular report, which converted his abode into the focus of conspiracy against the Montagne, the invectives of Marat, the insinuations of Robespierre, the perpetual allusions of the Jacobite journals to the occult influence of this family, and the name of Rolandists given to the Girondists, thus confounding the pretended crimes of Roland with those attributed to his friends, all prevented the people from forgetting the fallen minister. They feared him too much to pardon him, and believed that they arrested in his person a whole conspiracy against the republic.

At six in the evening, whilst his friends were yet struggling in the Convention, the sectionaries presented themselves at his abode, and ordered him to follow them, in the name of the revolutionary committee, exhibiting at the same time a written order. "I do not recognise the authority of this warrant," returned Roland, "and I will not voluntarily obey orders emanating from an illegal authority. If you employ violence, I can only oppose the resistance of a man of my age; but I will protest against it with my last breath." "I have no orders to employ violence," replied the bearer of the warrant. "I shall refer to the council of the Commune, and leave my men here to assure themselves of your person."

II. Madame Roland, equally indignant at this violation of the law, and the danger to which her husband was exposed, hastily wrote a letter to the Convention to demand redress. She, moreover, sent a note to the president, requesting

admittance to the bar of the house, got into a hackney coach, and drove to the Tuileries. A deputy of La Plaine named Rozé, procured her an interview with Vergniaud. "Obtain entrance for me, and a hearing," said this courageous woman. "I will declare truths which will be useful to the republic, and arouse the Convention from its stupor, an example of courage may shame the nation." Vergniaud persuaded her to relinquish her design, pressed her hand as if for a last farewell, and returned, touched and invigorated, to reply to Robespierre. Madame Roland quitted the Tuileries; and on her return home, the concierge informed her that her husband, freed from the surveillance of the sectionaries, had taken refuge in an adjoining house. She hastened thither, but found that he had already quitted this asylum: she followed him, threw herself into his arms, informed him of what she had already attempted, rejoiced at his safety, and again quitted him to endeavour to obtain admittance to the Convention.

III. It had been dark for the last two hours, and Madame Roland traversed the brilliantly lighted streets, without knowing of which party these illuminations celebrated the triumph. On her arrival at the Carrousel, where forty thousand men had so lately thronged, she found it silent and deserted. The sitting was ended, and a few sentinels only remained to guard the doors of the national palace. She questioned a group of sans culottes, who watched by a piece of cannon. They informed her that the Committee of Twelve was overthrown; that this sacrifice had reconciled the patriots; Paris had saved the republic; the reign of the traitors was at an end, and that the victorious municipality would soon order the arrest of the twenty-two. She returned home, stunned by this intelligence, embraced her sleeping daughter, and deliberated whether she should save herself from arrest by flight. The place where her husband had taken refuge could not conceal them both, and the only abode open to her would have given rise to calumnies which she dreaded more than death; and she resolved to await her doom at her own hearth. She had long steeled her heart against persecution, and even assassination; and, full of a double passion, love devoid of weakness, and despairing patriotism, she beheld in death only a refuge for her virtue,