isappointed rage at his failure, he laid aside the
characters of prophet and mild saint to give vent to his natural
wickedness and to become a devil.

[Footnote 40: In Buchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire,
XXXI, pp. 268-290, 415-427; XXXII, pp. 335-381 _et
seq._, and in OEuvres de St. Just, pp. 360-420, will be
found a few examples of their views in their own words.]

During the long days of June and July there raged again a carnival of
blood, known to history as the "Great Terror." In less than seven
weeks upward of twelve hundred victims were immolated. The unbridled
license of the guillotine broadened as it ran. First the aristocrats
had fallen, then royalty, then their sympathizers, then the hated
rich, then the merely well-to-do, and lastly anybody not cringing to
existing power. The reaction against Robespierre was one of universal
fear. Its inception was the work of Tallien, Fouche, Barras, Carrier,
Freron, and the like, men of vile character, who knew that if
Robespierre could maintain his pose of the "Incorruptible" their doom
was sealed. In this sense Robespierre was what Napoleon called him at
St. Helena, "the scapegoat of the Revolution." The uprising of these
accomplices was, however, the opportunity long desired by the better
elements in Parisian society, and the two antipodal classes made
common cause. Dictator as Robespierre wished to be, he was formed of
other stuff, for when the reckoning came his brutal violence was
cowed. On July twenty-seventh (the ninth of Thermidor), the Convention
turned on him in rebellion, extreme radicals and moderate
conservatives combining for the effort. Terrible scenes were enacted.
The sections of Paris were divided, some for the Convention, some for
Robespierre. The artillerymen who were ordered by the latter to batter
down the part of the Tuileries where his enemies were sitting
hesitated and disobeyed; at once all resistance to the decrees of the
Convention died out. The dictator would have been his own executioner,
but his faltering terrors stopped him midway in his half-committed
suicide. He and his brother, with their friends, were seized, and
beheaded on the morrow. With the downfall of Robespierre went the last
vestige of social or political authority; for the Convention was no
longer trusted by the nation--the only organized power with popular
support which was left was the army.

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