Los Angeles herald., 1891-05-17

last delegate from the commune OF Paris
to the national convention. Meanwhile
the despised Left had become the Mount
ain. The monarchy goes to pieces. King
and queen are guillotined. Robespierre
rises to leadership. Already at the kings
trial his voice had been heard for death;
but it was death by casuistry He said:
st is with regret that l pronounce the
fatal truth; LOUIS ought to perish rather
than hundred thousand virtuous cit
Pens. Louis must die that the country
may live."
Robespierre's actual accession to power
may be dated from July, 1913, when he be-
came member of the committee of public
safety. In that body he succeeded Danton,
who resigned to make way for his friend.
The committee consisted of twelve mem
|. bers, of whom at first Robespierre was per-
haps the most timid, and certainly the most
despised. 1t has been noted with surprise by
historians that he was never able to COM
mand majority of the tribunal, but
nevertheless he became its king Such was
his attitude at the beginning of the year of
terror. When that movement of audacity
and blood was started it was the work of
Danton, the man of affairs, rather than of
Robespierre, the cautious politician with
his formula
In course of time Robesperre managed
to get his colleagues sent off on various
missions, and then with Couthon and St.
Just he organized an inner circle, which
soon became supreme. From this vantage
he put down first the Hebertists, who were
the EXTREMIST radicals of the convention,
and then the Dantonists, who had become
in some sense the conservatives of the Re.
nuhIicou partv With tho fiop
of both, the party of Robespierre was left
in supreme power, and the Red Terror
proper began. The axe of the guillotine
rose and fell with ever increasing rapidity.
The whole thing had become terrible
machine, which even they who started it,
and in some sense still directed its bloody
work, could no longer control, much less
succeed in stopping. The Revolution and
the guillotine, which was the jaw of the
Revolution, seemed to have become auto
matte by sort of internal malignityl
Robespierre himself knew well the nat
ure of the machine and of the work in
which the revolutionary tribunal was en-
gagged, and with his usual subtlety he
twice Withdrew from the scenes of horror,
of which he was nevertheless the director
general 1t was in the nature of the man
that he could not think except in solitude.
In the spring of 1894 he left the arena for
whole month to mature his plans When
he returned it was to attack and destroy
the Dantonists This he did without COM
Function. He went in person to the Place
de la Revolution, saw the gigantic Danton
mount the scaffold, saw the ak fall on the
neck of his old school fellow the witty
and brilliant Camille Desmoulins, and
rubbed his hands in glee as he turned
away from the atrocious tragedy He had
now convinced himself that thousands
more must die in order that pure democ-
racy might triumph and the gospel of Jean
Jacques prevail.
came ever more rapid, Robespierre became
the very crisis of the Terror, he procured
the passage of decree recognizing the ex-
istence and dominion of the Etre Supreme,
or the Supreme Being; but on the Sth OF
June feast in honor of the Etre Supreme
was held, Robespierre walking at the head
of the procession in a suit of sky blue,
which he had ordered for the occasion.
This done, the guillotine worked faster
than ever. After the 10th of June there
was no longer the semblance of justice in
the trials. The prisons were gorged with
suspects, and each day an appalling tale
was made out of that days victims. Dur
ing the last forty days Of the Terror
1885 men and women perished under the
shining ak of old Samson and his assist
ants
But the end was at hand. 1t is in the
nature of such crises to rise and break like
a storm wave on the infuriated sea.