III + 

And now the picture becomes still more poignant. It is painted in colours more vivid, more glowing than and again the Hall of the Convention is crowded to the roof, with Tallien and his friends, in a close phalanx, early at their post! + 

Tallien is there, pale, resolute, the fire of his hatred kept up by anxiety for his beloved. The night before, at the corner of a dark street, a surreptitious hand slipped a scrap of paper into the pocket of his coat. It was a message written by Theresia in prison, and written with her own blood. How it ever came into his pocket Tallien never know; but the few impassioned, agonised words, seared his very soul and whipped up his courage: + 

“The Commissary of Police has just left me,” Theresia wrote. “He came to tell me that tomorrow I must appear before the tribunal. This means the guillotine. And I, who thought that you were a man⁠ ⁠… !” + 

Not only is his own head in peril, not only that of his friends; but the life of the woman whom he worships hangs now upon the thread of his own audacity and of his courage. + 

St. Just on this occasion is the first to mount the tribune; and Robespierre, the very incarnation of lustful and deadly Vengeance, stands silently by. He has spent the afternoon and evening with his friends at the Jacobins’ Club, where deafening applause greeted his every word, and wild fury raged against his enemies. + 

It is then to be a fight to the finish! To your tents, O Israel! + 

To the guillotine all those who have dared to say one word against the Chosen of the People! St. Just shall thunder Vengeance from the tribune at the Convention, whilst Henriot, the drunken and dissolute Commandant of the Municipal Guard, shall, by the might of sword and fire, proclaim the sovereignty of Robespierre through the streets of Paris. That is the picture as it has been painted in the minds of the tyrant and of his sycophants: a picture of death paramount, and of Robespierre rising like a new Phoenix from out the fire of calumny and revolt, greater, more unassailable than before. + 

And lo! One sweep of the brush, and the picture is changed. + 

Ten minutes⁠ ⁠… less⁠ ⁠… and the whole course of the world’s history is altered. No sooner had St. Just mounted the tribune than Tallien jumped to his feet. His voice, usually meek and cultured, rises in a harsh crescendo, until it drowns that of the younger orator. + 

“Citizens,” he exclaims, “I ask for truth! Let us tear aside the curtain behind which lurk concealed the real conspirators and the traitors!” + 

“Yes, yes! Truth! Let us have the truth!” One hundred voices⁠—not forty⁠—have raised the echo. + 

The mutiny is on the verge of becoming open revolt, is that already, perhaps. It is like a spark fallen⁠—who knows where?⁠—into a powder magazine. Robespierre feels it, sees the spark. He knows that one movement, one word, one plunge into that magazine, foredoomed though it be to destruction, one stamp with a sure foot, may yet quench the spark, may yet smother the mutiny. He rushes to the tribune, tries to mount. But Tallien has forestalled him, elbows him out of the way, and turns to the seven hundred with a cry that rings far beyond the Hall, out into the streets. + 

“Citizens!” he thunders in his turn. “I begged of you just now to tear aside the curtains behind which lurk the traitors. Well, the curtain is already rent. And if you dare not strike at the tyrant now, then ’tis I who will dare!” And from beneath his coat he draws a dagger and raises it above his head. “And I will plunge this into his heart,” he cries, “if you have not the courage to smite!” + 

His words, that gleaming bit of steal, fan the spark into a flame. Within a few seconds, seven hundred voices are shouting, “Down with the tyrant!” Arms are waving, hands gesticulate wildly, excitedly. Only a very few shout: “Behold the dagger of Brutus!” All the others retort with “Tyranny!” and “Conspiracy!” and with cries of “Vive la Liberté!” + 

At this hour all is confusion and deafening uproar. In vain Robespierre tries to speak. He demands to speak. He hurls insults, anathema, upon the President, who relentless refuses him speech and jingles his bell against him. + 

“President of Assassins,” the falling tyrant cries, “I demand speech of thee!” + 

But the bell goes jingling on, and Robespierre, choked with rage and terror, “turns blue” we are told, and his hand goes up to his throat. + 

“The blood of Danton chokes thee!” cries one man. And these words seem like the last blow dealt to the fallen foe. The next moment the voice of an obscure Deputy is raised, in order to speak the words that have been hovering on every lip: + 

“I demand a decree of accusation against Robespierre!” + 

“Accusation!” comes from seven hundred throats. “The decree of accusation!” + 

The President jingles his bell, puts the question, and the motion is passed unanimously. + 

Maximilien Robespierre⁠—erstwhile master of France⁠—is decreed accused. + 