the Conciergerie, which was the last stage before the
Tribunal; and as her nephew, the emperor, did not relent, in October
she was put on her trial, and executed. The death of the queen is
revolting, because it was a move in a game, a concession by which
Robespierre paid his debts to men at that time more violent than
himself, and averted their attack. We have already seen that the
advice she gave in decisive moments was disastrous, that she had no
belief in the rights of nations, that she plotted war and destruction
against her own people. There was cause enough for hatred. But if we
ask ourselves who there is that comes forth unscathed from the trials
that befell kings and queens in those or even in other times, and
remember how often she pleaded and served the national cause against
royalist and _emigre_, even against the great Irishman[2] whose
portrait of her at Versailles, translated by Dutens, was shown to her
by the Duchess of Fitzjames, we must admit that she deserved a better
fate than most of those with whom we can compare her.

[2] Burke, _Reflections on the French Revolution_.

That month of October, 1793, with its new and unprecedented
development of butchery, was a season of triumph to the party of
Hebert. The policy of wholesale arrest, rapid judgment, and speedy
execution was avowedly theirs; and to them Robespierre seemed a
lethargic, undecided person who only moved under pressure. He was at
last moving as they wished; but the merit was theirs, and theirs the
reward. One of them, Vincent, was of so bloodthirsty a disposition
that he found comfort in gnawing the heart of a calf as if it was that
of a royalist. But the party was not made up of ferocious men only.
They had two enemies, the aristocrat and the priest; and they had two
passions, the abolition of an upper class and the abolition of
religion. Others had attacked the clergy, and others again had
attacked religion. The originality of these men is that they sought a
substitute for it, and wished to give men something to believe in that
was not God. They were more eager to impose the new belief than to
destroy the old. Indeed, they were persuaded that the old was hurrying
towards extinction, and was inwardly rejected by those who professed
it. While Hebert was an anarchist, Chaumette was the glowing patriarch
of irreligious belief. He regarded the Revolution as essentially
hostile to Christian faith, and conceived that its inmost principle