ime of life,--namely, about thirty-eight; but he was literally dead in
the lower limbs: crippled, paralytic, distorted, he was yet, as the time
soon came to tell him,--a Hercules in Crime! But the sweetest of human
smiles dwelt upon his lips; a beauty almost angelic characterised his
features ("Figure d'ange," says one of his contemporaries, in describing
Couthon. The address, drawn up most probably by Payan (Thermidor 9),
after the arrest of Robespierre, thus mentions his crippled colleague:
"Couthon, ce citoyen vertueux, QUI N'A QUE LE COEUR ET LA TETE DE
VIVANS, mais qui les a brulants de patriotisme" (Couthon, that virtuous
citizen, who has but the head and the heart of the living, yet possesses
these all on flame with patriotism.)); an inexpressible aspect of
kindness, and the resignation of suffering but cheerful benignity, stole
into the hearts of those who for the first time beheld him. With the
most caressing, silver, flute-like voice, Citizen Couthon saluted the
admirer of Jean Jacques.

"Nay,--do not say that it is not the LOVE that attracts thee; it IS the
love! but not the gross, sensual attachment of man for woman. No! the
sublime affection for the whole human race, and indeed, for all that
lives!"

And Citizen Couthon, bending down, fondled the little spaniel that he
invariably carried in his bosom, even to the Convention, as a vent for
the exuberant sensibilities which overflowed his affectionate heart.
(This tenderness for some pet animal was by no means peculiar to
Couthon; it seems rather a common fashion with the gentle butchers of
the Revolution. M. George Duval informs us ("Souvenirs de la Terreur,"
volume iii page 183) that Chaumette had an aviary, to which he devoted
his harmless leisure; the murderous Fournier carried on his shoulders a
pretty little squirrel, attached by a silver chain; Panis bestowed the
superfluity of his affections upon two gold pheasants; and Marat, who
would not abate one of the three hundred thousand heads he demanded,
REARED DOVES! Apropos of the spaniel of Couthon, Duval gives us an
amusing anecdote of Sergent, not one of the least relentless agents of
the massacre of September. A lady came to implore his protection for one
of her relations confined in the Abbaye. He scarcely deigned to speak to
her. As she retired in despair, she trod by accident on the paw of
his favourite spaniel. Sergent, turning round, enraged and furious,
exclaimed, "MADAM, HAVE YOU NO HUMANITY?"