The Town Council of Paris declared itself in permanent executive session and came out for Robespierre. Up to the last moment Robespierre did not wish to lead the Town Council in a struggle against the Convention. The Convention had gathered forces from the provinces in Paris. Maximilien hesitated; the insurrection of the Town Council was suppressed; the "decent" bourgeois society, those who had become rich in the Revolution, who had devoured the juiciest morsels for the past four years, the purchasers of the national estates, the profiteers on army contracts, the speculators, etc.,—these were the victors!
Le Bas shot himself; Robespierre was wounded by a gendarme,[1] the younger Robespierre threw himself out of the window of the Town Council and was mortally injured.
On the next day a cart trundled off to the guillotine!
They are wounded and bleeding, masses of flesh rather than men. The hangman has very little to do. This cart on its way to the guillotine is a symbol. The men of the Committee of Public Safety, the friends of Robespierre, died fighting; they accepted death as they had accepted the blows of fate—serious and fighting to the last breath.
All the homes of the wealthy in Paris revealed
- ↑ The name of the gendarme was Merdat, who was promoted for his deed; he died at the Beresina as one of Napoleon's colonels.—TRANSLATOR.
