Paine saw them all--Ronsin, Hebert, Momoro, Chaumette, Clootz, Gobel,
the crazy and the vile, mingled together, the very men he had cursed in
his garden at St. Denis--pass before him like the shadows of a
magic-lantern, entering at one side and gliding out at the other,--to
death. A few days later came Danton, Camille, Desmoulins, and the few
who remained of the moderate party. Paine was standing near the wicket
when they were brought in. Danton embraced him. "What you have done for
the happiness and liberty of your country I have in vain tried to do
for mine. I have been less fortunate, but not more culpable. I am sent
to the scaffold." Turning to his friends.--"_Eh, bien! mes amis, allons
y gaiement._" Happy Frenchmen! What a consolation it was to them to be
thus always able to take an attitude and enact a character! Their
fondness for dramatic display must have served them as a moral
anaesthetic in those scenes of murder, and have deadened their
sensibility to the horrors of their actual condition.
In July, the carnage had reached its height.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187