The Death of Robespierre [pp. 304-309]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
And tell wide Europe by our vote this night
That Terror's reign hath ceas'd-that axe and sceptre
Are both alike disown'd, destroyed forever.
Let us impeach him, Frenchmen, with the spirit
That springs from conscious rectitude of purpose.
Patriots arise! and with uplifted hands
Attest your deep abhorrence of this man,
And your consent that he be now arrested!
(meminbers rising in disorder.) Away, away with him arrest him guards!
To the Concigerie-away with him!
(President rising.) The National Convention have
decreed
The-arrest of Maximilien Robespierre.
Robes. (to St. Just.) The day is theirs-with wrath
and with despair
My utterance is chok'd. Oh, were nmy breath
A pestilential gale to sting their lives!
(to the Presidenit.) Order me to be slain where now I
stand,
Or grant me liberty of speech.
(President.) Thy name is Robespierre-it is enough,
And speaks for thee far more than thou wilt tell us.
Robes. (to St. Just.) Come thou with me-I see an
opening yet
To victory, or a funeral pile-lwhose light
Shall dazzle France and terrify the world.
(Robespierre, St. Just and others taken out by the guards.*)
SCENE V.
ROBESPIERRE AND ST. JUST IN A CART CONDUCTED BY
GUARDS TOWARDS THE PLACE DE GREE.
St. Just.-So here ends our part in a tragic farce,
Hiss'd off the stage, my friend-ha, ha! (laughing.)
I am content-I mean I am resignedAs well die now as later. Does your wound
Pain you severely that you look so gravely?
Cheer thee, my comrade, we shall quickly learn
The last dread secret of our fliail existence,
Few moments more will cut our barks adrift
Upon an ocean, boundless and unknown,
Even to ourselves who have despatched so many
To explore for us its dark and fathomless depths.
Give me some wine. (they give him vine.) Here's to a
merry voyage!
What in the fiend's name art thou musing on!
Robes.-My thoughts were with the past-the days
of youth,
And peace, and innocence, and woman's love,
And ardent hope-the blossoms of a life
So baleful in its firuits. This day, the last
Of my career, is the anniversary
Of one, firom which my after life may date
Its withering influence. Wouldst thou not think
That I, whom thou hast known for a few years,
* It may be well to recall to the reader's recollection, that Robespierre subsequently escaped from his guards to the Hotel de
Ville. But such partisans as rallied around him speedily deserted, when a proclamation of outlawry fromti the Convention
was issued against hi i, and enforeed by pointin cannon against
the building. After an ineffectual attempt at suicide he was conveyed in a cart to the guillotine, July 28th, 1794.
The language put into his mouth in the following pages, is of
course inconsistent with historical probability, as he had wounded himself with a pistol ball in the lower part of his face.
Must ever have been, even from my earliest youth,
A hard and cruel man?
St. Just.-Much like myself.
I think you were no saint even when a child.
Robes.-Such is the common blunder of the world
To think me, like the demon they believe in,
From the beginning, "murderer and liar:"
So let it be-I would not change their thoughts.
But I, St. Just, strange as it seems to you,
Even I, whose name, even in this age of crime,
Must stand aloft alone a blood-red beacon
And warning to posterity, was once
Young, warm, enthusiastic, generous,
Candid, affectionate, a son and brother,
But proud and sensitive. I lov'd a maidYes, if entire and all-absorbed devotion
Of life and soul and being to her, were loveIf to be willing to lay down my life,
My hopes of fame and honorable notice,
And all the world holds dear, for her dear sake,
May be call'd love, then I most truly lov'd her.
I was a thriving lawyer, and could raise
My voice without reward to shield the oppress'd,
I lov'd my kind and bore a stainless name.
(a fuineral crosses the street.)
St. Jutst (to the officer.) Whose obsequies are these,
That look as if the dead one had not perished
By trying our Republican proscription,
The guillotine?
Officer.-'Tis Madame de la Harpe.
Your worthy friend there sent his satellites
To bring her to the bar of your tribunal,
The high-soul'd lady sooner than be made
A gaze for all the outcasts in the city,
As you are now, hurl'd herself from a window.
Robes.-FI-ow strange a meeting this! Ah! foolish
woman,
Had she but dar'd to live another day,
She might have died at ninety in her bed,
And I, who sought to escape her threatened doom,
Baffled of self-destruction, could not die.
(they pass on.)
(to St. Jist.) How small a thing may sometimes change
the stream
Of a man's life even to its source, to poison!
A trifle scarcely worthy of a namne,
The sarcasms of a brute, while I was pleading
An orphan's cause, convulsed the court with mirth,
Marr'd all my rhetoric, and snatch'd tiie palm
Of truth and justice fiom my eager graspMy wrath boil'd forth-with loud and fierce reproach
I brav'd the judge, and thunder'd imprecations
On all around. This passion ruin'd rme.
And she too laugh'd among that idiot throngOh, tell not me of jealousy or hate
Or hunger for revenge-no sting so fierce,
So all tormenting to a proud man's soul
As public ridicule fiom lips belov'd.
Have they not rued it? Let yon engine tell:
(poiiiting to the sccffold in the distance.)
VWhat I have been since then mankind have seen,
But could they see the scorpion that hath fed
Where once a heart beat in this breast of mine,
They would not marvel at my past career.
I quit the world with only one regret,
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