The life of Napoleon Buonaparte, emperor of the French. By Sir Walter Scott.

146 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
made a speech, entirely addressed to the bystanders, imaginary, and only invented by Robespierre, to
without a Aword either of prayer or invocation. His represent his person as endangered by the plots of
acknowledgment of a divinity was, it seems, limited the aristocracy, and attach to himsdlf a part at least
to a mere admission in pointof fact, and involved no of the consequence, which Marat had acquired by
worship of the great Being, whose existence he at the act of Charlotte Corday.
length condescended to own. He had no sooner A few weeks brought on a sterner encounter than
made his offering, than fire was set to some figures that of the supposed female assassin. The terrordressed up to resemble atheism, ambition, egotism, ists were divided among themselves. The chosen
and other evil principles. The young men then and ancient bands ofthe 10th August, 2d Septenlber,
brandished their weapons, the old patted them on 31st May, and other remarkable periods of' the Rethe head, the girls flung aboult their flowers, and the volution, continued attached to the jacohins, and
matrons flourished aloft their children, all as it had the majority of the Jacobin Club adhered to Robeen set down in David's programme. And this bespierre; it was there his strength consisted. On
scene of masking was to pass for the repentance of a the other hand, Tallien, Barras, Legendre, Fouch6,
great people turning themselves again to the Deity, and other of the Mountain party, remellbered Danwhose worship they had forsaken, and whose being ton, and feared for a similar fate.'i'he Con\ention
they had denied! at large were sure to enmbrace any course which
I will appeal-not to a sincere christian-but to promised to free them from their pl)est nt thraldotil.
any philosopher formning such idea of the nature of The people themselves were begi,)ning to be less
the Deity; as even mere unassisted reason can attain passive. They no longer saw the train of' victims
to, whether there does not appear more impiety in pass daily to the guillotine, in the Place de la WRvoRobespierre's mode of acknowledging the divinity, lution, with stupid wonder, or overwhelliniug fear,
than iln H-Ibert's horrible avowal of direct atheism? but, on the contrary, with the sullenness of manifest
The procession did not, in common phrase, take resentment, that waited but an opportunity to
with the people; it produced no striking effect- display itself. The citizens in the Rtue St-tlonore
awakened no deep feeling. By catholics it was re- shut up their shops at the hours when the fhtal
garded with horror; by wise men of every or no prin- tumbrils passed to the scene of death, and that
ciple as ridiculous; and there were politicians, who, whole quarter of the city was covered with gloomi.
tnder the disguise of this religious ceremony, pre- These ominous feelings were observed, and the
tended to detect further and deeper schemes of the fatal engine was removed to a more obscure situation
dictator Robespierre. Even in the course of the at the Barriere du Trone, near the Faubourg Stprocessionl, threats and murmurs had reached his Antoine, to the inhabitants of which it was thought a
ears, wlhich the impatient resentment of the friends daily spectacle of this nature must be an interesting
of Danton vwas unable to suppress; and he saw relieffromlabour. But even the people ol'f that turpl:inly that lie must again betake himself to the task bulent suburb had lost some of their republican zeal
of murder, and dispose ofTallien, Collotd'Herbois, -the men's feelings were altered. They saw, inand others, as he had done successively of HWbert deed, blood stream in such quantities, that it was
and D)anton himself, or else his former victories necessary to make an artificial conduit to carry it
would hbet lead to his final ruin. off; but they did not feel that they, or those belongMeanwhile the despot, whose looks made even ing to them, received any advantages firom the
the democrats of the Mountain tremble, when direct. number of victims, daily immolated, as they were
ed upon them, shrunk himself before the apprehend- assured, in their behalf. The constant effusion of
ed presence of a young female. CUcile Regnaud, blood, without plunder or license to give it zest,
a girl, and, as it would seeni, unarmed, came to his disgusted them, as it would have disgusted all but
house and demanded to see Robespierre. Herman- literal cannibals, to whose sustenance, indeed, the
ner exciting some suspicion, she was seized upon by Revolutionary Tribunal would have contributed
the body-guard of jacobins, who day and night plentifully.
watched the den of the tyrant, amidst riot and Robespierre saw all this increasing unpopul!arity
blasphlemy, while lie endeavoured to sleep under with much anxiety. He plainly perceived that,
the security of their neighbourhood. When the strong as its impulse was, the stimulus of terror
young woman was brought before the Revolutionary began to lose its effect on the popular mnind; and he
Tribunal, she would return no answer to the question resolved to give it novelty, not by changing the
respecting her purpose, excepting that she wished character of his system, but by varying the mode
to see "whllat a tyrant was like." She was con- of its application. Hitherto, men had only been
demned to the guillotine of coturse; and about sixty executed for political crimes, although the circle had
persons were executed as associates of a conspiracy, been so vaguely drawn, and capable of such extenwhich was never proved, by deed or word, to have sion when desired, that the law regarding suspected
existed at all. The victims were drawn at hazard persons was alone capable of desolating a whole
out of the prisons, where most of them had been country. But if the penalty of death were to be
confined for months previous to the arrest of Cecile inflicted for religious and moral delinquencies, as
Regnaud, on whose account they were represented well as for crimes directed against the state, it would
as suffering. * Many have thought the crime entirely at once throw the lives of thousands at his disposal,
* This unheard-of iniquity is stated in the report of the venture, there appeared, at a masked ball at London, a
committee appointed to examine Robespierre's papers, of character dressed like the spectre of Charlotte Corday,
which Courtois was the reporter. It is rat-her a curious come, as she said, to seek Robespierre, and inflict on him
circumstance that, about the time of C&eile Regnaud's ad- the doom of Marat.