licans and Jacobins. The victims in the month of March
were 127.

Danton did nothing to arrest the slaughter. His inaction ruined him,
and deprived him of that portion of sympathy which is due to a man who
suffers for his good intentions. Billaud and St. Just demanded that he
should be arrested, and carried it, at a night sitting of the
Committee. Only one refused to sign. Danton had been repeatedly and
amply warned. Thibaudeau, Rousselin, had told him what was impending.
Panis, at the last moment, came to him at the opera, and offered him a
place of refuge. Westermann proposed to him to rouse the armed people.
Tallien entreated him to take measures of defence; and Tallien was
president of the Convention. A warning reached him from the very grave
of Marat. Albertine came to him and told him that her brother had
always spoken with scorn of Robespierre as a man of words. She
exclaimed, "Go to the tribune while Tallien presides, carry the
Assembly, and crush the Committees. There is no other road to safety
for a man like you!" "What?" he replied; "I am to kill Robespierre and
Billaud?" "If you do not, they will kill you." He said to one of his
advisers, "The tribunal would absolve me." To another, "Better to be
guillotined than to guillotine." And to a third, "They will never
dare!" In a last interview, Robespierre accused him of having
encouraged the opposition of Desmoulins, and of having regretted the
Girondins. "Yes," said Danton, "it is time to stop the shedding of
blood." "Then," returned the other, "you are a conspirator, and you
own it." Danton, knowing that he was lost, burst into tears. All
Europe would cast him out; and, as he had said, he was not a man who
could carry his country in the soles of his shoes. One formidable
imputation was to call him a bondsman of Mr. Pitt; for Pitt had said
that if there were negotiations, the best man to treat with would be
Danton. He was arrested, with Camille Desmoulins and other friends, on
the night of March 31. Legendre moved next day that he be heard before
the Convention, and if they had heard him, he would still have been
master there. Robespierre felt all the peril of the moment, and the
Right supported him in denying the privilege. Danton defended himself
with such force that the judges lost their heads, and the tones of the
remembered voice were heard outside, and agitated the crowd. The
Committee of Public Safety refused the witnesses called for the
defence, and cut