Calm as despair stands the stern St.Just; the palsied Couthon crawls, grovelling, beneath table; a shot,--an explosion!
Robespierre would destroy himself! The trembling hand has mangled, and failed to kill! The clock of the Hotel de Ville strikes the third hour.Through the battered door, along the gloomy passages, into the Death-hall, burst the crowd.Mangled, livid, blood-stained, speechless but not unconscious, sits haughty yet, in his seat erect, the Master-Murderer! Around him they throng; they hoot,--they execrate, their faces gleaming in the tossing torches! HE, and not the starry Magian, the REALSorcerer! And round HIS last hours gather the Fiends he raised!
They drag him forth! Open thy gates, inexorable prison! The Conciergerie receives its prey! Never a word again on earth spoke Maximilien Robespierre! Pour forth thy thousands, and tens of thousands, emancipated Paris! To the Place de la Revolution rolls the tumbril of the King of Terror,--St.Just, Dumas, Couthon, his companions to the grave! A woman--a childless woman, with hoary hair--springs to his side, "Thy death makes me drunk with joy!" He opened his bloodshot eyes,--"Descend to hell with the curses of wives and mothers!"The headsmen wrench the rag from the shattered jaw; a shriek, and the crowd laugh, and the axe descends amidst the shout of the countless thousands, and blackness rushes on thy soul, Maximilien Robespierre! So ended the Reign of Terror.