ay Robespierre--the clerks,
who, a few days ago, had cringed before him, now amusing themselves by
pricking him with their penknives, and coarsely jesting over his fall.
Great crowds, likewise, flocked to see him while in this undignified
posture, and he was overwhelmed with the vilest expressions of hatred
and abuse. The mental agony which he must have experienced during this
humiliating exhibition, could scarcely fail to be increased on hearing
himself made the object of unsparing and boisterous declamations from
the adjoining tribune.

At three o'clock in the afternoon (July 28), the prisoners were placed
before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and at six, the whole were tied in
carts, the dead body of Le Bas included, and conducted to execution.
To this wretched band were added the whole family of the Duplays, with
the exception of the mother; she having been strangled the previous
night by female furies, who had broken into her house, and hung her to
the iron rods of her bedstead. They were guiltless of any political
crime; but their private connection with the principal object of
proscription was considered to be sufficient for their condemnation.
The circumstance of these individuals being involved in his fate,
could not fail to aggravate the bitterness of Robespierre's
reflections. As the dismal _cortege_ wended its way along the Rue St
Honore, he was loaded with imprecations by women whose husbands he had
destroyed, and the shouts of children, whom he had deprived of
parents, were the last sounds heard by him on earth. Yet he betrayed
not the slightest emotion--perhaps he only pitied the ignorance of his
persecutors. In the midst of the feelings of a misunderstood and
martyred man, his head dropped into the basket!

These few facts and observations respecting the career of Robespierre,
enable us to form a tolerably correct estimate of his character. The
man was a bigot. A perfect Republic was his faith, his religion. To
integrity, perseverance, and extraordinary self-denial under
temptation, he united only a sanguine temperament and moderate
abilities for the working-out of a mistaken principle. Honest and
zealous in his purpose, his conduct was precisely analogous to that of
all religious persecutors--sparing no pain or bloodshed to accomplish
what he believed to be a good end. Let us grant that he was a
monomaniac, the question remains as to his general accountability. If
he is to be acquitted on the score of in