Maximilien Robespierre

The state, as if to stamp the final seal on her security, and to the world show what she was, a high and fearless soul, exulting in defiance, or heart-stung by sharp resentment, or belike to taunt with spiteful gratitude the baffled league that had stirred up her slackening faculties to a new transition, when the king was crushed, spared not the empty throne.

And in proud haste assumed the body and venerable name of a republic Lamentable crimes, 'tis true, had gone before this hour Dire work of massacre, in which the senseless sword Was prayed to as a judge But these were past Earth free from them for ever, as was thought Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once Things that could only show themselves and die Cheered with this hope, to Paris I returned And ranged with ardour heretofore unfelt The spacious city; and in progress past The prison where the unhappy monarch lay Associate with his children and his wife In bondage; and the palace, lately stormed With roar of cannon by a furious host I crossed the square, an empty area then Of the Carrousel, where so late had lain The dead, upon the dying heaped And gazed on this and other spots, as doth A man upon a volume, whose contents He knows are memorable, but from him Locked up, being written in a tongue he cannot read So that he questions the mute leaves with pain And half upbraids their silence But that night I felt most deeply in what world I was What ground I trod on and what air I breathed High was my room and lonely, near the roof Of a large mansion or hotel—a lodge That would have pleased me in more quiet times Nor was it wholly without pleasure then With unextinguished taper I kept watch Reading at intervals The fear gone by Pressed on me almost like a fear to come I thought of those September massacres Divided from me by one little month Saw them and touched The rest was conjured up From tragic fictions or true history Remembrances and dim admonishments The horse is taught his manage, and no star Of wildest course but treads back his own steps For the spent hurricane the air provides As fierce a successor The tide retreats But to return out of its hiding-place In the great deep All things have second birth The earthquake is not satisfied at once And in this way I wrought upon myself Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried To the whole city, "Sleep no more!" The trance fled With the voice to which it had given birth But vainly comments of a calmer mind Promised soft peace and sweet forgetfulness The place, all hushed and silent as it was Appeared unfit for the repose of night Defenceless as a wood where tigers roam With early morning towards the Palace walk Of Orleans eagerly I turned As yet the streets were still Not so those long arcades There mid appeal of ill-matched sounds and cries That greeted me on entering I could hear Shrill voices from the hawkers in the throng Bawling denunciation of the crimes Of Maximilien Robespierre The hand prompt as the voice held forth a printed speech The same that had been recently pronounced When Robespierre, not ignorant for what mark Some words of indirect reproof had been intended Rose in hardihood, and dared the man Who had an ill surmise of him To bring his charge in openness Whereat, when a dead pause ensued, and no one stirred In silence of all present, from his seat Lovet walked single through the avenue And took his station in the tribune, saying "I, Robespierre, accuse thee!" Well is known The inglorious issue of that charge And how he who had launched the startling thunderbolt The one bold man, whose voice the attack had sounded Was left without a follower to discharge His perilous duty; and retire lamenting That Heaven's best aid is wasted upon men Who to themselves are false But these are things Of which I speak only as they were storm Or sunshine to my individual mind No further Let me then relate that now In some sort seeing with my proper eyes That liberty and life and death would soon To the remotest corners of the land Lie in the arbitrament of those who ruled The capital city; what was struggled for And by what competence victory must be won The indecision on their part whose aim Seemed best, and the straightforward path of those Who in attack or in defence were strong Through their impiety My inmost soul was agitated Yea, I could almost have prayed That throughout earth upon all men By patient exercise of reason made worthy of liberty All spirits filled with zeal expanding in truth's holy light The gift of tongues might fall And power arrive from the four quarters of the winds To do for France what without help she could not do A work of honour Think not that to this I added Work of safety From all doubt or trepidation for the end of things Far was I, far as angels are from guilt Yet did I grieve Not only grieved, but thought of opposition and of remedies An insignificant stranger and obscure And one, moreover, little graced with power Of eloquence even in my native speech And all unfit for tumult or intrigue Yet would I at this time with willing heart have undertaken for a cause so great service, however dangerous.

I revolved how much the destiny of man had still hung upon single persons; that there was, transcendent to all local patrimony, one nature, as there is one sun in heaven; that objects, even as they are great, thereby do come within the reach of humblest eyes; that man is only weak through his mistrust and want of hope where evidence divine proclaims to him that hope should be most sure.

Nor did the inexperience of my youth preclude conviction that a spirit strong in hope and trained to noble aspirations, a spirit thoroughly faithful to itself, is for society's unreasoning herd a domineering instinct, serves at once for way and guide, a fluent receptacle that gathers up each petty straggling rill and vein of water, glad to be rolled on in safe obedience; that a mind whose rest is where it ought to be, in self-restraint, in circumspection and simplicity, falls rarely in entire discomfiture below its aim, or meets with from without a treachery that foils it or defeats.

And as the desert hath green spots, the sea small islands scattered amid stormy waves, so that disastrous period did not want bright sprinklings of all human excellence, to which the silver wands of saints in heaven might point with rapturous joy.

Yet not the less, for those examples in no age surpassed of fortitude and energy and love, and human nature faithful to herself under worst trials, was I driven to think of the glad times when first I traversed France a youthful pilgrim.

Above all reviewed that eventide, when under windows bright, with happy faces and with garlands hung, and through a rainbow arch that spanned the street, triumphal pomp for liberty confirmed, I paced a dear companion at my side, the town of Arras, whence with promise high issued, on delegation to sustain humanity and right, that Robespierre, he who thereafter, and in how short time, wielded the sceptre of the atheist crew.

When the calamity spread far and wide, and this same city, that did then appear to outrun the rest in exultation, groaned under the vengeance of her cruel son, as Lear reproached the winds.

Always.

It's like Cla- I tell him all the time, it's like, uh, French Revolution, Robespierre.

Yeah.

You become the guy leading the beheadings, and people will be like, "We should probably behead this guy."

They're a threat to me." Yeah, interesting how you learn after you finally get mugged, y- you know, that, uh, the world is not a place full of unicorns and rainbows and you need to use some common s- stern common sense, even though it doesn't feel compassionate.

In New York, they're comparing Mondavi to Robespierre.

[laughs]

Wait a minute.

Yeah.

Once they...

Robespierre...

By the way, Robespierre tried to work with Marie Antoinette.