MEMOIRS OF ROBESPIERRE.

(Concluded from Page 214.)

Nevertheless, after several accusations, which gave time for the principal part of the leaders to descend from the Montagne, and go about the hall to make sure of a majority, and to conquer the fear and uncertainty of the Plaine, the decree of arrest was at last put to the vote, and carried against Robespierre, his brother, St. Just, Couthon, and Lebas, who, not choosing, he said, to share in the shame of a decree passed against his friends, earnestly requested to be included in it. It was then that Robespierre, turning towards the conquerors, cried, "The ruffians triumph." But, in the night, the committee of general security was attacked, Robespierre and his accomplices were carried off from the Luxembourg, and conducted to the commune, where they were received, and where the commander of the national guard, Hanriot, the mayor, Fleuriot, the agent of the commune, Payan, and the rest of their friends, swore to defend them, and declared themselves in state of insurrection against the convention. Robespierre then, for a short time, entertained the hope of triumphing; he even declared that he should march to the convention in two hours, and he, in conjunction with St. Just, wrote the following note to Couthon, who was not yet with him :-" Couthon, all the patriots are proscribed; the whole nation is risen; it would be betraying it not to come to the commune where we are." But Robespierre and his party lost their time in talking. The Parisians, resolved to declare for the conquerors, were waiting to know to which side the victory would fall, and who would be the masters whom it would be necessary to obey. The convention took the lead; it outlawed Robespierre and his partisans, and ap

pointed Barras and eleven commissioners to direct the armed force; then that part of the troops which had at first ranged itself on Hanriot's side, abandoned him, and at three o'clock in the morning the town-hall, Robespierre, and his friends, were in the power of the conventionalists. At the moment when he saw that he was going to be seized, he tried to destroy himself with a pistol-shot; but he only shattered his under jaw. (Others have thought that he had made use of his brother's hand to deprive himself of life, and others again have said, that the shot was given by the gendarme Médal, who had sprung upon him to arrest him, and against whom he was defending himself.) He was immediately led into the lobby of. the meeting-hall, then shut up in the Conciergerie, and executed on the same day, 10th Thermidor, (28th July, 1794). Whilst he was in the antichamber of the committee, a slight dressing was put on his wound; he wished to wipe away the blood with which his mouth was filled: they gave him a cloth already bloody, and as he pushed it away, they said to him, " It is blood, it is what thou likest." He looked with an expression of disdain and pity at the person who addressed this speech to him, aud continued to wipe his mouth with an appearance of tranquillity. What is worthy of remark is, that during his short confinement, he occupied the same dungeon that Hébert, Danton, and Chaumette, had successively inhabited. The gaolers knocked him about without ceremony, while he, with a stupified air, was examining his sad abode; and when he made a sign to one of them, (for he could no longer speak,) to bring him a pen and ink," What dost thou want with it?" said the man to him, " is it to write to thy Maker? Thou wilt see him without delay!" When he went out to go to execution, the prisoners obstructing the passage, the gaoler cried out, " Make way, make way,

I say,

I say, for the incorruptible man." He was carried in a cart, placed between Hanriot and Couthon: the shops, the windows, the roofs, were filled with spectators, and cries of joy accompanied him all the way. His head was wrapt in a bloody cloth, which supported his under jaw, so that his pale and livid countenance was but half seen. The horsemen who escorted him showed him to the spectators with the point of their sabres. The mob stopped him before the house where he lived; some women danced before the cart, and one of them cried out to him, "Thy exe. cution intoxicates me with joy! De. scend to hell, with the curses of all wives, and of all mothers!" The executioner, when about to put him to death, roughly tore the dressing-off his wound: he uttered a horrible cry, his under jaw separated from the upper; the blood spouted out, and his head presented a most hideous spectacle. He died at the age of 35. The following epitaph was written for him :-" Pas senger, lament not his fate, for, were he living, thou would'st be dead." Of all the men whom the French revolution brought into notice, not one has deft a name so abhorred as Robespierre. We are certainly far from wishing to diminish the horror that he inspires; yet, would it not be easy to prove that, like those impure animals which the ancients loaded with all the iniquities of a nation at the moment of sacrificing them, he, at the moment of his fall, was loaded, overwhelmed with the iniquities, the crimes of his accomplices, and even of his enemies, who chose (if we may use the expression) to purify themselves at his expense. Robespierre, devoured by ambition, believed that blood would be useful to his schemes, and he made it flow in torrents; but it would be absurd to imagine that he ever could have invented and directed all those little details of cruelty that were the delight of Fouquier, Dumas, Collot, Carrier, Billaud, &c. and all the throng of proconsuls and members

of committees, who, less vast in their ambition, but more vile, were some as cruel, and others still more barbarous than he. They afterwards threw their own crimes on Robespierre, and consented to be deemed far more base than they were, in order to appear less guilty; but though the overthrown tyrant could not answer their accusations, facts answer them for him. Nobody is ignorant that, it was during his absence from the committees, in 1794, that the reign of terror was carried to its height, and the executions of the tribunal were still more numerous; and indeed when the chiefs of the Thermidorians reproached him, on the 9th Thermidor, it was not with having tyrannised over, and ruined his country, and deluged it with blood; one charged him with having despised his report concerning some agents of Pitt; another, with having abused his works; among others may be reckoned BillaudVarennes, who accused him of having kept his plan of revolutionary government for six weeks, and tried to destroy its Tallien, of having recalled him from Bourdeaux, at the solicitations of young Julien, &c.; all in short, of having calunniated the committees, and wanted to proscribe his colleagues. They were very well aware that the principal part of the revolutionary laws, the principal part of the acts of tyranny or cruelty had been less frequently proposed or committed by Robespierre than by themselves, the Commune, the Cordeliers, and those Girondins whom many people have since been pleased, one does not very well know why, to consider as moderatists. These remarks, then, do not tend to justify Robespierre, but to prove that the proconsuls, and still more the members of the committees during the year two, ought to share in his condemnation, and that it is very much in vain that they incessantly bring forward the words terror and Robespierre, as an agis capable of repelling all the reproaches of their

ow

own time, and protecting them from the judgment of posterity. Robespierre had not any of those accomplishments or brilliant advantages which seem to command success. He was hard, dry, without imagination and without courage, neither could his feeble constitution, his gloomy and livid countenance, his weak sight, his almost inaudible voice, prepossess or seduce the multitude; and though in public speaking he had, by long habit, attained a degree of facility, he could never contend with the principal orators of the convention; but nature seemed to supply all the resources that she denied him, by granting him the art of profiting at the same time by the talents of others, and by the faults which they might commit. For ever surrounded with a band of women, who were called his jupons-gras, and with some men of the lowest mob, to whom he committed the care of supporting and extending his popularity, he also employed them usefully in order to appropriate the merit of all the revolutionary projects in the eyes of the multitude; and strong in his integrity in pecuniary matters, he always took care to open the path of honours, and especially of riches, to his rivals, in order that he might have an additional way of ruining them. Lastly, a matter which was known to few, and which powerfully upheld his authority, was a kind of watch that he kept on all the distinguished men in the revolution. He began, from the time of the constituent assembly, to take note of their steps, their opinions, their inconsistencies, their weaknesses, in short, their whole conduct; and this pieture assisted him, more than can be imagined, in terrifying or governing some, and in ruining others. In short, though Robespierre was very inferior to the part that he had undertaken, we are at least obliged to own that he was not an ordinary

man.

SPEECH

Of the Rev. Dr. DICKSON, at the Armagh Catholic Meeting.

Mr. Chairman-While the object of this day's meeting was under consideration, I persevered in the resolu tion with which I entered this house, in hope that some of my protestant and presbyterian brethren, more equal to the task, would have claimed your attention, in expressing the concurrence of their body in your efforts to obtain it. Disappointed in this, I now rise, under a pressure of feelings which overwhelm my heart, and nearly deprive me of the power of utterance. (Here the Dr. seemed quite overpowered, and incapable of proceeding) Forgive me, Sir; those feelings have not arisen from the importance of this object to the catholic body, or the number and respectability of the present meeting, but from its importance to the British Empire, in its utmost extent; and the necessity of granting it, situated as we now are, in order to preserve our political existence. These feelings, I trust, are not peculiar to me at this moment. When I look around me,

I

think I see them glowing in every countenance, and beaming in every eye. Happy presage of that happy hour, when Irishmen shall view each other with the eyes of brethren, rejoice in each others joy, and cordially unite in the love of their country-the only rational love of themselves: when, in stead of jealousy, party-spirit, and a dæmon under the mask of religion, aiming the firebrand equally at the house of a Brother and the house of God, the divine light of our holy refigion shall irradiate every understanding, and its benevolent spirit warm every heart with kindness, and nerve every arm to acts of mutual protection and general safety. Sir, I do not speak this from respect to the catholics of Ireland, but the Irish people. Do not think, however, that I am indifferent

to

my

to the interests, the political rights, or the religious liberty of catholics. I hope my whole life has been one continued demonstration of the contrary. Their rights, as men, I have ever held sacred; their claims, as subjects of a State, of whose Constitution they laid the foundation, which they, exclusively, cherished for 300 years, - and which they have uniformly supported by their industry, their purse, and their blood, have ever had feeble support. And such is the estimation in which I hold the liberty of worshipping God, according to my own conscience, that the idea of re. straining others in the exercise of the invaluable privilege, by penalty or privation, chills me with horror. That to them we owe our Constitution, the boasted" Envy of the world, and glory of Britain," we must all admit; as by them Magna Charta was extorted from King John, and for 300 years afterwards no other denomination of christians existed in these countries. Do not they know these things as well as we? How must they feel then in being deprived of its blessings, while their ears are stunned with our boasts of its excellence? And how must these feelings be aggravated by the thought that conscience must be sacrificed to policy, before they can be admitted to its honor or emoluments, or even to the confidence of their fellow-subjects? Let us then extinguish these feelings, as far as in our power, by joining with them in their Petition of Rights. Should that petition be granted, tho' the grant will be only a restoration of right, as a pregnant instance of grow ing liberality, it will be gratefully aeknowledged as a kindness; and the enthusiastic attachment to their native country, strengthened by a common interest, will be drawn closer still by the renovated love of their countrymen. Nay, should a misguided policy persist in refusing it, our sympathetic interference will justly command their esteem, conciliate their affection, and, be

future circumstances what they may, ensure our domestic peace, confidence, and comfort.

I know, Sir, many of the weak and ignorant among us, not more than twenty years ago, were blasphemously told that the catholics of Ireland were equally ignorant of the meaning of "Liberty," and unfit to be entrusted with it. Thank God! those slanderers of man, and blasphemers of his Maker, are now ashamed of their slanders and their blasphemies. Could history produce no other instance; that which I have mentioned refutes both. Others have been made to believe that there is something in the very constitution of the Catholic Religion, not only unfriendly, but irreconcileable to political liberty. The fact which I have mentioned refutes this also. On this, however, we need not depend. The history of Catholic Europe clearly proves the Catholic Religion has no respect to forms of Government. Italy embraces every form from absolute despotism to unlimited democracy. Within these twenty-five years, Catholics in France overturned the throne of the Capets and favoured a shortlived republic. At this moment they are united under a military despotism, under which the rights of conscience are held sacred, all religions equally protected, and their professors eligible to the offices and honours of the State. In most of the German States, Protestants and Catholics not only unite in the measures of government, but worship God, at the stated hours, under the same roof. Even our own government gives the lie to every clamour against catholics, as incapable of, or unfriendly to, political liberty. The ministry of the day pleaded no coronation oath against the religious rights of the Canadians; nor was it ever pleaded, even by Pitt, against his Majesty becoming an elective Monarch, and protector of the Catholic Church in Corsica. Perhaps, at this day, the same may be said of the Isle of France,

even

a

even under a Perceval. Are the Catholics of Ireland, then, less enlightened, less liberal, or less worthy of confidence, than all others? No, certainly. Let us, then, lay hold of their liberality, and secure their confidence, that in them we may be strong. The moment is awful and alarming.-Even the present ministers now own it. One of the wisest politicians of the day, has acknowledged, that England's existence stands on the support of Ireland. And we all know the firmness of that support depends on the unanimity of Irishmen. Let Irishmen, then, be united by a common interest, and with cordiality they will unite in one common cause. Were the doors to promotion, in our armies and our fleets, open to Catholic Gentlemen, would they not with ardour rush into both? How many, whose ancestors our accursed Penal Code had expelled from their country, and who long have been, and now are leading our enemies to victory, would return in rapture to her bosom, and fight in her cause? Irish Legions, fighting under foreign banners, and comicanded by Irishmen, would no more be heard of. Even in our accursed wars of offence, this would add to the probability of our success. But should we ever be reduced to a war of defence, within the boundaries of our own Isles, which God forbid! this, and this alone, in the ordinary course of things, could ensure our safety, and enable us to bid defiance not only to the force, but the fear of

an enemy.

But I have said, that I speak, not merely for the Catholics, but for the people of Ireland. I say so still. The Catholics have only a part of their Rights and Liberties to lose. Our all is at stake. Should our dissentions, therefore, render us a prey to a Foreign Enemy, their regrets at losing that little, should it be their lot, must be painful; but the wantonness and wick edness by which we forfeited our all, in alienating their affections, must be For JUNE, 1812, VOL. V.

torture in the extreme. Their feelings would be as the scourging of rods; ours not only painful, but fatal as the stings of Scorpions.

I fear, Sir, I have too long trespassed upon your time and patience, and those of this meeting. Let my motives plead my excuse with you and them. Permit me, only, to repeat my ardent wish that the end of our meeting may be speedily and effectually accomplished; and to subjoin the prayer of my heart, that God would give us all understanding to discern our true interests-wisdom to embrace the means of their attainment, and virtue to unite in their use till their end be secured.

LONDON, 22d OF MAY.

To Mr. W. Cox,
SIR,

I have made every due inquiry about the real state of your property, at present in this city, nor did I leave an object so important to your affairs to the observation or authorities of other persons; and from what I can learn, as well as by my personal inspection, you may set aside any anxiety for the present about him, as he appears as hearty, and in as good health, and as much at his liberty, as the day I saw him sorting a Jury, for the trial of Doctor Sheridan, in the Court of King's Bench. The rumours of his death, imprisonment, &c. were devoid of any foundation. He appears every day in the public streets. He was twice at Mr. Pole's office yesterday; was at the theatre last evening; and on Sunday 1 dogged him to a sermon in Moorfields, preached by Tristram, the Awl-blade-maker, for the purpose of encreasing the funds of the British Bible Society, for converting the Irish. His health was in such good order. that he joined his voice in the hymn 2 K

singing.