om, lest people passing under the windows
should overhear these scandalous scenes. Every means were taken to keep
these disputes a profound secret--the revilings which accompanied their
private conferences were turned into smooth panegyrics of each other when
they ascended the tribune, and their unanimity was a favourite theme in
all their reports to the Convention.*

* So late as on the seventh of Thermidor, (25th July,) Barrere made
a pompous eulogium on the virtues of Robespierre; and, in a long
account of the state of the country, he acknowledges "some little
clouds hang over the political horizon, but they will soon be
dispersed, by the union which subsists in the Committees;--above
all, by a more speedy trial and execution of revolutionary
criminals." It is difficult to imagine what new means of dispatch
this airy barbarian had contrived, for in the six weeks preceding
this harangue, twelve hundred and fifty had been guillotined in
Paris only.

The impatience of Robespierre to be released from associates whose views
too much resembled his own to leave him an undivided authority, at length
overcame his prudence; and, after absenting himself for six weeks from
the Committee, on the 8th of Thermidor, (26th July,) he threw off the
mask, and in a speech full of mystery and implications, but containing no
direct charges, proclaimed the divisions which existed in the
government.--On the same evening he repeated this harangue at the
Jacobins, while St. Just, by his orders, menaced the obnoxious part of
the Committee with a formal denunciation to the Convention.--From this
moment Billaud Varennes and Collot d'Herbois concluded their destruction
to be certain. In vain they soothed, expostulated with, and endeavoured
to mollify St. Just, so as to avert an open rupture. The latter, who
probably knew it was not Robespierre's intention to accede to any
arrangement, left them to make his report.

On the morning of the ninth the Convention met, and with internal dread
and affected composure proceeded to their ordinary business.--St. Just
then ascended the tribune, and the curiosity or indecision of the greater
number permitted him to expatiate at large on the intrigues and guilt of
every kind which he imputed to a "part" of the Committee.--At the
conclusion of this speech, Tallien, one of the devoted members, and
Billaud Varennes, the leader of the rival party, opened the tr