1The twenty-two had literally been under the control of the police, though not arrested, since May 31st. But as events progressed, their destruction became almost necessary to the safety of those members of the Convention, who, obtaining power wholly through the will of the more violent, could only retain it by a perfect recognition of the will of those who had given them the victory.

2The twenty-two were therefore seized, and placed in a building converted from a convent into a prison, and here they made full preparations to die.

3To this day, the walls of this place may be seen covered with mementoes of the prison-days of the victims of the Revolution. They are chiefly short verses, written in blood, the purple hues of which many of the inscriptions still retain.

4A few days after the Queen’s day of peace arrived, their trial commenced.

5Of what were they accused?

6Really, nothing; but they were in the way, and a threatening division of the masses insisted upon their death.

7After four days’ mockery of justice, the twenty-two were declared guilty of having conspired against the unity and indivisibility of the republic, and the whole were condemned to die.

8A cry of horror burst from the condemned, for many of them could not believe that innocent men could be sent to the scaffold.

9Valasé, one of the youngest, slipped from his seat to the floor.

10“What, Valasé! art losing courage now?” cried his friend Brissot, upholding him.

11“No; I am dying!” returned Valasé; and his fingers quivered about the handle of the poniard with which he had taken his own life.

12Silent horror for a moment prevailed; the Girondists blushed and bowed their heads before their dead companion, who had given them an example of fearlessness in meeting death.

13Only one, named Boileau, showed cowardice. He cast his hat into the air and screamed, “I don’t belong to these men! I am a Jacobin!”

14But instead of pity he only gained contempt.

15And now a cry was heard; it came from Camille Desmoulins: “Let me fly,” he cried; “it is my book which has killed them!”

16But the crowd seized Desmoulins, and forced him to remain.

17The twenty-two came down from the high seats upon which they had heard their trial and sentence, and for a moment stood round the dead body of their friend, who had shown them how to die. Almost simultaneously they raised their hands and cried, “Innocent! Long live the republic!”

18Then they cast all the money they had with them amongst the crowding, storming people, who greedily seized it. This was done, not to excite the mob to revolt, but with the thought that, their death at hand, they had no farther need of wealth.

19There was something strangely classic and Roman-like in their death. They left the hall singing loudly the celebrated hymn, the “Marseillaise;” and in reference to their death, they sang with amazing power the celebrated two lines,

20“March on, march on! O children of the land,

21The day, the hour of glory, is at hand! ”

22This terrible hymn they were still singing as they entered their prison. It was now late in the evening, and they were to suffer on the following morning.

23The tribunal had decreed that the yet warm corpse of Valasé should be carried back to prison, conveyed in the same cart with his accomplices to the scaffold, and interred with their bodies. The only sentence, perhaps, which punished the dead.

24Four men-at-arms carried the body upon a litter, and thus the procession reached the prison.

25The twenty-two were to pass the night in the same room, the corpse in one corner. The twenty-one—even Boileau, who repented of his momentary cowardice—came, one by one, and kissed the dead man’s hand, then covered his face, saying, “To-morrow, brother!”

26One Bailleul, a Girondist and a Conventionist, but who had escaped the proscription, yet had not left Paris, had promised that, after the trial, he would prepare and send to the prison, either a triumphant or a funereal supper, according to the sentence.

27The promise was kept. Upon the oaken table, stretching the length of their dungeon was set out a supper, royal in its magnificence. Every luxury to be obtained, every delicate wine with a name, filled those portions of the table not covered by a wealth of flowers and great clusters of brilliantly burning wax candles.

28To one Abbé Lambert, who lived fifty years after that night, we owe all we have learnt concerning that final meal. This minister was waiting to offer consolation to the condemned as they passed to the scaffold.

29The supper lasted from midnight until the dawn of day—at the end of October, about half-past five. It was the feast of their marriage with death. No sign was given of their approaching end. All ate with sobriety, but with appetite; and it was only when the fruit and wine alone remained on the table that the conversation became excited and powerful.

30Many, especially the younger men, who did not leave families behind them, were very gay and witty. They had done no great wrong, and were sacrificed to duty, therefore they met death with cheerful faces.

31With solemn break of day, the conversation became graver.

32Brissot cried, “now that we, the honest men amongst those who govern, are about to die, what will become of the republic? How much blood will it require to wash away the memory of ours?”

33“Friends,” cried Vergniaud, “we have killed the tree by over-pruning it. It was aged—Robespierre cuts it down. Will he be more fortunate than ourselves? No; the land of France is now too weak for honest growth. The people play with laws as children with toys; they are too weak to govern themselves; and they will return to their kings as children to their toys, after they are tired of having thrown them away. We thought ourselves at Rome; we were in Paris. But, in dying, let us leave to the whole of France—the strength of hope. Some day—some great day—she will be able to govern herself.”

34At ten o’clock the executioners arrived to prepare the victims for the scaffold. Gensomé, picking up a lock of the black, brilliant hair cut from his head, gave it to Abbé Lambert, and begged him to carry it to his wife. “Tell her,” he said, “it is all I can send, and that I die thinking of her.”

35Vergniaud drew his watch from his pocket, scratched his initials and the date in it with a pin, and sent it by the hands of one of the executioners’ assistants to a young girl whom he loved deeply, and whom it is said he intended to marry.

36Every one sent a something to some one or more in memory of himself, and it is pleasant to be able to state that every message and remembrance were faithfully delivered.

37When the last lock of hair had fallen, the victims were marshalled, and they were led out to the carts waiting to receive them.

38They sang the “Marseillaise” to the scaffold—they sang it when they reached it, the song growing fainter and fainter as each head fell; and the hymn only ceased, as the last head fell—that of their leader, Vergniaud.

39The dead body of their friend was carried with them.

40Such was the end of the founders of the French republic.

41With them the brightness, beauty, youth, wit, frankness of the Convention passed away, and their places were filled by sullen, threatening men.