XI. 1793. mission. I have avenged many victims, prevented others. CHAP. The people will one day acknowledge the service I have rendered my country. For your sake I wished to remain incognita, but it was impossible; I only trust you will not be injured by what I have done. Farewell, my beloved papa; forget me, or rather rejoice at my fate : it has sprung from a noble cause. Embrace my sister for me, whom I love with all my heart, as well as all my relations. Never forget the words of Corneille 'The crime makes the shame, and not the scaffold."" She then said to her counsel-"You have defended me in a delicate and generous manner: the only one which was fitting. I thank you for it; it has made me conceive for you an esteem of which I wish to give you a proof. These gentlemen," looking to the judges, “have informed me that my effects are confiscated: I owe some debts in the prison-I charge you to acquit them." Not the slightest appearance of emotion was visible on her countenance, even when the court shook with the applause 1 Prudhom. 209. Parl. I list. xxvii. 334, 335. of the multitude at her condemnation. When she was Rév, de Rev. conducted back to her cell, a confessor presented himself Paris, No: "Thank you," said she, "for your kindness; but have no need of your assistance. The blood which have shed, and that which I am about to offer, are the 217, 263. only sacrifices I can present to the Eternal."1 I Lam. Hist. des Gir. vi. tion. 78. The crowd which assembled to witness her execution exceeded anything yet seen in Paris; her youth, her Her execu beauty, her astonishing courage, the magnitude of the deed for which she was to suffer, produced universal and thrilling interest. When the executioners bound her hands and cut off her long hair, she said, "This is the toilet of death, arranged by somewhat rude hands, but it leads to immortality." A young stranger named Adam Lux, from Mayence, saw her pass in the car at the entrance of the Rue St Honoré; with devout admiration he followed it to the place of execution, and wit VOL. II. 2 P XI. 1793. CHAP. nessed her death. Such were his feelings at the sight that he soon after published a vindication of her memory. She was drawn in a car, dressed in a scarlet robe-the colour assigned by law to assassins. As she passed along, at half-past seven in the evening, to the place of execution in the Place Louis XV., "her manner," says the revolutionary journal, "had that exquisite grace which is above beauty, which art cannot imitate, nor language depict. She voluntarily held out her hands to be bound; but when they began to attach her feet to the plank, she shuddered, conceiving they were going to insult her. When the object was explained, she consented with a smile. A blush of virgin modesty overspread her beautiful face and neck when the executioner undid the clasp from her bosom; but it took nothing from her serenity of manner, and she herself placed and adjusted her head under the terrible axe. The immense multitude awaited the stroke in deathlike silence. When the guillotine de Paris, had fallen, the executioner lifted the head, still perfectly 1793. Hist. beautiful, but pale; and struck it with his hand. A 334, 335. universal shudder was felt in the crowd: he raised it, x. 376, 377. and struck it again; the blood then suffused the cheeks, Th86 and restored their lovely carnation. Cries of 'Vive la République!' arose on all sides; but the beauty and courage of Charlotte Corday had made a profound im209. Lam. pression on every heart." Vergniaud said, on hearing Gir. vi. 265. the particulars of her execution, "She has destroyed us, but taught us how to die."1 1 Chronique Juillet 19, Parl. xxviii. Deux Amis, 87. Lac. ii. 82, 83. Rév. de Hist. des. 79. Funeral honours and to defeat its own purpose. apotheosis But crime is never expedient. Murder, even when prompted by the most generous intentions, seldom fails The dagger of Charlotte of Marat. Corday only caused more blood to flow over France. It killed Marat as a man; but, in the excited state of the public mind, it made him a god. Robespierre pronounced an eloquent eulogium on his virtues in the Convention. "If I speak to-day," added he, "it is because I am bound to do so. Poniards were here used: I should have CHAP. XI. 1793. received the fatal blow. Chance alone made it light on that great patriot. Think no longer, therefore, of vain declamations or the pomp of burial; the best way to avenge Marat is to prosecute his enemies with relentless vigour. The vengeance which is satisfied with funeral honours is soon appeased, and loses itself in worthless projects. Renounce, then, these useless discussions, and avenge him in the only manner worthy of his name." His obsequies were celebrated with extraordinary pomp ; a band of young women, and deputies from the sections of Paris, were invited to throw flowers on the body, and the president of the Popular Societies, who pronounced his funeral oration, said-"Let us not pronounce his eulogy it is to be found in his conduct, his writings, his ghastly wound, his death. Citizens! cast your flowers on the pale body of Marat. He was our friend-the friend of the people; it was for the people that he lived, for the people that he died. Enough has now been given to lamentation listen to the great soul of Marat, which rises from the grave, and says-Republicans, put an end to your tears: Republicans should weep but for a moment, and then devote themselves to their country. It was not me whom they wished to assassinate; it was the Repub- 1 Journal lic. It is not I who cry for vengeance: it is the Repub- bins, 14 lic; it is the people; it is yourselves!"" His remains Juillet. were consigned with funeral pomp to the Pantheon; and laMontagne, monuments were raised to him in every town and village Hist. Parl. of France. Posterity has reversed the sentence: it has Mig. ii-279. consigned Marat to eternal execration, and associated Th. v. 88-91. Charlotte Corday with Timoleon and Brutus.1 des Jaco Journal de No. 47. xxviii. 339. Lac. ii. 83. 80. three mem. Robespierre and the Decemvirs made the assassination of Marat the ground for increased severity towards the Arrest of broken remains of the Girondist party. Many of their seventy friends remained in the Convention; with generous con-bers of the stancy they still sat on the benches to the right, thinned by the proscription of so many noble members. During the trial of Charlotte Corday, a secret protest, signed by Convention. XI. 1793. CHAP. seventy-three deputies, against the usurpation of 2d June, was discovered; they were all immediately arrested, and thrown into prison. The Convention, after their removal, contained no elements whatever of resistance to the tyrants. Adam Lux, the ardent stranger who had witnessed the execution of Charlotte Corday, and published an apology for her crime, was soon afterwards arrested for doing so, and condemned. On entering the prison, he exclaimed, "I am then about to die for her;" and he did 1 Lam. Hist. die in effect, hailing with his last breath the scaffold, as the altar of patriotism and devotion which her blood had consecrated.1 des Gir. vi. 268. 81. Thus perished the party of the Gironde, reckless in its Reflections measures, culpable for its rashness, but illustrious from throw of the its talents, glorious in its fall. It embraced all the men Girondists. who were philanthropists from feeling, or republicans from on the over principle the brave, the humane, and the benevolent. But with them were also combined within its ranks numbers of a baser kind; many who employed their genius for the advancement of their ambition, and were careless of their country provided they elevated their party. It was overthrown by a faction of coarser materials, but more determined character; with less remains of conscientious feeling, but more acquaintance with practical wickedness. Adorned by the most splendid talents, supported by the most powerful eloquence, actuated at times by the most generous intentions, it perished the victim of a base and despicable faction-of men sprung from the dregs of the populace, and impelled by guilty and selfish ambition. Such ever has, and ever will be, the result of revolutionary convulsions in society, when not steadily opposed in the outset by a firm union of the higher classes of the community. In the collision of opposite factions, the virtuous and the moderate will, unless bold and united, be always overcome by the reckless and the daring.* * So true in all ages is the opinion of Petrarch "Che chi discerne, e vinto da chi vuole." "He who discerns, is conquered by him who wills." XI. Prudence clogs their enterprise; virtue checks their CHAP. ambition; humanity paralyses their exertions. They fall, because they recoil from the violence which becomes essential to success in revolutions. 1793. 82. their failure. sur Louis 221. Buzot, The principles of this celebrated party disqualified them from taking an energetic or successful part in public Causes of affairs. Their aversion to violence, their horror at blood, rendered them totally unfit to struggle with their determined antagonists. They deemed it better to suffer than to commit violence; to die in the attempt to preserve freedom, rather than live by the atrocities which would subvert it. Their principles in the end, when driven to extremities, were those so finely expressed by Louis XVIII. when urged to assassinate Napoleon-"In our family we are murdered, but we never commit murder."1 1 Mémoires Their greatest fault, and it is one which all their sub- XVIII. i. sequent misfortunes could not expiate, consisted in the 10. agitation which, partly from philosophic delusion, partly from ignorance of the world, partly from selfish ambition, they so sedulously maintained in the public mind. The storm which their eloquence created, it was beyond the power of their wisdom to allay. They roused the people against the throne on the 10th August; they failed in saving the monarch on the 21st January, and fell on the 31st May before the power of the populace, whose furious passions they had awakened. Such is the natural progress of revolution, and the means provided by Providence for its termination and punishment. Its early leaders become themselves the objects of jealousy when their rule is established; the turbulent and the ambitious combine against an authority which they are desirous of supplanting; stronger flattery to popular licentiousness, more extravagant protestations of public zeal, speedily arouse the multitude against those who have obtained the influence which they desire for themselves. Power falls into the hands of the most desperate; they gain everything, because they scruple at nothing. |