it is impossible to consent."

The two parties waited face to face, shrinking from the blows they were
about to exchange, counting on the impatience or temerity of their
adversaries. The boldest among the opposition ventured on a circuitous
attack by denouncing the sect of mystic dreamers led by a demented
woman, Catherine Theot, styled by her followers, Mother of God. Her
principal disciple was Gerle, formerly prior of the Chartreuse, and a
member of the Constituent Assembly. When the papers of this handful of
maniacs were seized, the copy of a letter to Robespierre was found; he
was to have been the Messiah of the sect. Vadier denounced at the
Convention this elementary school of fanaticism, discovered on a third
floor in the Rue Contrescarpe, and who were connected, he said, with the
machinations of Pitt; but he dared not speak of the letter to
Robespierre. The latter undoubtedly took some interest in Catherine
Theot, for he did not allow the affair to be followed up; the prophetess
died in prison soon after.

Robespierre had said to a deputation from Aisne: "In the situation in
which it now is, gangrened by corruption, and without power to remedy
it, the Convention can no longer save the Republic: both will perish
together. The proscription of patriots is the order of the day. For
myself, I have already one foot in the tomb, in a few days I shall place
the other there; the rest is in the hands of Providence."

Nevertheless he began the attack, urged forward by men who had attached
their fortunes to his own, and by the disquietudes which agitated his
sour and dissatisfied spirit. He could no longer put up with advice even
from his most faithful friends, and the inflexible Saint-Just told him
to calm himself; "Empire is for the phlegmatic." A menacing petition
from the Jacobins preceded by a few hours a grand discourse from the
dictator. He always reckoned on the effect of his discourses, and all
the committees, one after another, had suffered from the asperity of his
attacks. "The accusations are all concentrated upon me," said he; "if
anyone casts patriots into prison in place of shutting up the
aristocrats there, it is said that Robespierre wills it. If the numerous
agents of the Committee of General Security extend their vexations and
rapine in all directions, it is said that Robespierre has sent them; if
a new law irritates the property-holders, it is Robespierre who is
ruining them; and meanwhile, in what han