artisans. It is like the
theory of the vulgar kind of Protestantism, that Mary Tudor or Philip of
Spain had a keen delight in shedding blood. Robespierre, like Mary and
like Philip, would have been as well pleased if all the world would have
come round to his mind without the destruction of a single life. The
true inquisitor is a creature of policy, not a man of blood by taste.
What, then, was the policy that inspired the Law of Prairial? To us the
answer seems clear. We know what was the general aim in Robespierre's
mind at this point in the history of the Revolution. His brother
Augustin was then the representative of the Convention with the army of
Italy, and General Bonaparte was on terms of close intimacy with him.
Bonaparte said long afterwards, when he was expiating a life of iniquity
on the rock of Saint Helena, that he saw long letters from Maximilian to
Augustin Robespierre, all blaming the Conventional Commissioners--Tallien,
Fouche, Barras, Collot, and the rest--for the horrors they perpetrated,
and accusing them of ruining the Revolution by their atrocities. Again,
there is abundant testimony that Robespierre did his best to induce the
Committee of Public Safety to bring those odious malefactors to justice.
The text of the Law itself discloses the same object. The vague phrases of
depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles perfidiously, were
exactly calculated to smite the band of violent men whose conduct was to
Robespierre the scandal of the Revolution. And there was a curious clause
in the law as originally presented, which deprived the Convention of the
right of preventing measures against its own members. Robespierre's general
design in short was to effect a further purgation of the Convention. There
is no reason to suppose that he deliberately aimed at any more general
extermination. On the other hand, it is incredible that, as some have
maintained, he should merely have had in view the equalisation of rich and
poor before the tribunals, by withdrawing the aid of counsel and testimony
to civic character from both rich and poor alike.

If Robespierre's design was what we believe it to have been, the result
was a ghastly failure. The Committee of Public Safety would not consent
to apply his law against the men for whom he had specially designed it.
The frightful weapon which he had forged was seized by the Committee of
General Security, and Paris was plunged into the fearful days of the
Grea