Revolution were assembled round the proscribed
representatives. They were discussing and vociferating, without ardor,
however, and without any true hope. Robespierre was seated at a table,
his head on his left hand, his elbow supported by his knee.

Meda advanced toward him, pistols in hand. "Surrender, traitor!" he
cried. Robespierre raised his head. "It is thou who art a traitor," he
said, "and I will have thee shot." At the same instant the gendarme
fired, fracturing the lower jaw of Robespierre. As he fell, his brother
opened the window, and, passing along the cornice, leaped out upon the
Place. He was dying when they came to pick him up.

Saint-Just, leaning over toward Lebas, said, "Kill me." Lebas, looking
him in the face, replied: "I have something better to do," pressing the
trigger of his pistol. He was dead when a fresh report resounded from
the staircase; Meda, who pursued Henriot, had just drawn on Couthon; his
bearer fell grievously wounded. The prisoners, formerly all-powerful,
now dying or condemned, were collected in the same room; thither
Robespierre and Couthon had been brought; the corpse of Lebas lay on the
floor; the crowd who besieged the gates wanted to throw the wounded into
the river. Couthon had great difficulty in making it understood that he
was not dead; Robespierre could not speak, and was carried on a chair to
the door of the Convention. A feeling of horror manifested itself in the
Assembly, "No, not here! not here!" was the cry. A surgeon came to
attend to the wounded man in the hall of the Committee of Public Safety;
he recovered from his swoon, and walked alone toward his chair; until
then he had been extended upon a table, a little deal box supporting his
wounded head. The blood flowed slowly from his mouth, and at times he
made a movement to wipe it away; his clothes and his face were smeared
with it. Robespierre appeared insensible to the injuries of those who
surrounded him; he made no complaint, inaccessible and alone in death as
in life. They carried him to the Conciergerie, where Saint-Just and
Couthon had just arrived. All had been outlawed; no procedure, no delay,
retarded their execution. Saint-Just, looking at a table of the _Rights
of Man_ hanging in the hall, said, "It is I, however, who have done
that."

The Conciergerie slowly filled; with Dumas, Fleuriot, Payan, Lavalette,
a large proportion of the members of the Council-General had been
arrested. The prisoners alrea