I + 

Forty names! Found on a list in the pocket of Robespierre’s coat! + 

Forty names! And every one of these that of a known opponent of Robespierre’s schemes of dictatorship: Tallien, Barrère, Vadier, Cambon, and the rest. Men powerful today, prominent Members of the Convention, leaders of the people, too⁠—but opponents! + 

The inference was obvious, the panic general. That night⁠—it was the 8th Thermidor, July the 26th of the old calendar⁠—men talked of flight, of abject surrender, of appeal⁠—save the mark!⁠—to friendship, camaraderie, humanity! Friendship, camaraderie, humanity? An appeal to a heart of stone! They talked of everything, in fact, save of defying the tyrant; for such talk would have been folly. + 

Defying the tyrant? Ye gods! When with a word he could sway the Convention, the Committees, the multitude, bend them to his will, bring them to heel like any tamer of beasts when he cracks his whip? + 

So men talked and trembled. All night they talked and trembled; for they did not sleep, those forty whose names were on Robespierre’s list. But Tallien, their chief, was nowhere to be found. ’Twas known that his fiancée, the beautiful Theresia Cabarrus, had been summarily arrested. Since then he had disappeared; and they⁠—the others⁠—were leaderless. But, even so, he was no loss. Tallien was ever pusillanimous, a temporiser⁠—what? + 

And now the hour for temporising is past. Robespierre then is to be dictator of France. He will be dictator of France, in spite of any opposition led by those forty whose names are on his list! He will be dictator of France! He has not said it; but his friends have shouted it from the housetops, and have murmured under their breath that those who oppose Robespierre’s dictatorship are traitors to the land. Death then must be their fate. + 

When then, ye gods? What then? + 