Chapter XXXV: Death of Robespierre

Eight months after the events of Thermidor just described, I, John Lebrenn, write this chapter of the story of the Sword of Honor, on the 26th Germinal, year III of the Republic (April 15, 1795).

Escaped from my prison, I lay for several weeks in hiding in a retreat offered me by the friendship of Billaud-Varenne; to him I also owed a passport made out in another name, thanks to which I was enabled to leave Paris, gain Havre, and there take a coasting vessel for Vannes. I chose Vannes as a haven not alone because I was unknown in that retired community, but because it was close by the cradle of our family, towards which, after such excitement and such cruel political deception, I felt myself strongly attracted. At the end of about a month's sojourn in Vannes, certain then that I could continue to dwell there without danger, I wrote to my wife to rejoin me in Brittany, with her mother and our son, whom she had named Marik, and who was born the 7th Vendemiaire, year III. Thus I had the joy of being soon reunited with my family. My wife brought with her the inestimable treasure of our domestic legends, happily preserved from the clutches of Jesuit Morlet. My wound, received at the battle of the Lines of Weissenburg, having reopened, I was for some time almost helpless, and was forced to give up my trade of ironsmith. Madam Desmarais was able to lay out for us some moneys, and Charlotte proposed that they be expended in setting up a linen-drapery and cloth store in Vannes.

This business afforded my wife and mother-in-law an occupation in line with their tastes and aptitudes. For my part I was able, although still very lame, to drive about in a carriage to the various markets and out into the country, to dispose of our cloth. Everything gave me to hope that my obscure name was forgotten in the hurly-burly of the Thermidorean reaction.

A short time after the arrival here of my cherished wife, we made a pilgrimage to the sacred stones of Karnak; we found them as they had lain for so many centuries. You will undertake that same pilgrimage for yourself when you have attained the age of reason, my son Marik, you to whom I bequeath this legend of the Sword of Honor, which I add to the relics of my family.

I conclude my recital of the events of the bourgeois revolution of 1789 with a few words on the last moments of the martyrs of the 9th Thermidor, the words of a hostile eye witness. What could be more touching than his account:

"Robespierre the elder was carried to the City Hall, to the
Committee of Public Safety, on the 10th Thermidor, between the
hours of one and two in the morning. He was carried in on a board,
by several artillerymen and armed citizens. He was placed on a
table in the audience hall which lay in front of the executive
room of the committee. A pine box, which held some samples of bread
sent from the Army of the North, was placed under his head and
served in some sort as a pillow. He lay for the space of nearly an
hour so immobile that one might think he had ceased to live. Then
he began to open his eyes. Blood flowed freely from the wound in
his lower left jaw. The jawbone was shattered by a pistol shot. His
shirt was bloody; he was hatless and cravatless. He wore a sky-blue
coat, and trousers of nankeen; his white stockings were rolled down
to his shoes. Between three and four in the morning they noticed
that he held in his hand a little bag of white skin, inscribed 'At
the Grand Monarch; Lecourt, outfitter to the King and his troops,
St. Honore Street, near Poulies Street, Paris.' This sack he used
to dispose of the clotted blood which came from his mouth. The
citizens surrounded him, observing all his movements. Some of them
even gave him a piece of white linen paper, which he put to the
same use, keeping himself ever propped up on his left elbow, and
using only his right hand. Two or three different times he was
scolded at by citizens, but especially by a cannonier of the same
district as himself, who reproached him, with military vigor, for
his perfidy and scoundrelism. Towards six in the morning a surgeon
who happened to be in the courtyard of the National Palace was
called in to tend him. For precaution he placed a key in
Robespierre's mouth, and found that his jaw was fractured. He drew
two or three teeth, bandaged the wound, and had a hand-basin with
water placed beside him. Robespierre made use of this, and also of
pieces of paper folded several times, to clean out his mouth,
still employing only his right hand. At the moment when it was
least expected, he sat up, raised his stockings, slid quickly from
the table, and ran to seat himself in an arm-chair. As soon as
seated he asked for water and some clean linen. During all the time
he had lain on the table, after he regained consciousness, he
fixedly regarded all who surrounded him, especially those employes
of the Committee of Public Safety whom he recognized. He often
raised his eyes toward the platform; but apart from some almost
convulsive movements, the bystanders constantly remarked in him a
great impassibility, even during the dressing of his wound, which
must have caused him the severest pain. His complexion, habitually
bilious, assumed the pallor of death.

"At nine o'clock in the morning Couthon, and Gombeau, a conspirator
of the Commune, were brought in on stretchers as far as the big
staircase of the Committee, where they were deposited. The citizens
detailed to watch them stood about, while a commissioner and an
officer of the National Guard went to report to Billaud-Varenne,
Barrere and Collot D'Herbois, then sitting in committee. They took
an order to these three calling for Robespierre, Couthon and
Gombeau to be removed at once to the Conciergerie Prison, a decree
which was immediately carried out by the good citizens to whom had
been confided the guard over the three prisoners.

"St. Just and Dumas were taken before the Committee in the audience
hall, and at once taken on to the Conciergerie by those who had
brought them in. St. Just gazed at the large engrossing of the
Declaration of the Rights of Man, and said, as he pointed towards
it, 'Yet it was I who got that passed!'

"Such was the downfall of Robespierre. His agony was more cruel
than his death. His erstwhile colleagues on the committees insulted
him, struck at him, spat in his face; the clerks of the bureau
pricked him with their penknives."

So died Robespierre by the guillotine. Let us glorify, sons of Joel, the memory of this great citizen, the Incorruptible revolutionist. And as sacred for us let the memory be of the other illustrious martyr-victims of Thermidor, like St. Just, Lebas, Couthon, Robespierre the younger; or martyrs obscure, like that throng of patriots whose blood flowed from the scaffold in torrents during the Four Days. The reaction of Thermidor smote with the guillotine without judgment; it assassinated the greater part of the last defenders of the Republic.