)

"Yes, for all that lives," repeated Robespierre, tenderly.
"Good Couthon,--poor Couthon! Ah, the malice of men!--how we are
misrepresented! To be calumniated as the executioners of our colleagues!
Ah, it is THAT which pierces the heart! To be an object of terror to the
enemies of our country,--THAT is noble; but to be an object of terror
to the good, the patriotic, to those one loves and reveres,--THAT is the
most terrible of human tortures at least, to a susceptible and honest
heart!" (Not to fatigue the reader with annotations, I may here observe
that nearly every sentiment ascribed in the text to Robespierre is to be
found expressed in his various discourses.)

"How I love to hear him!" ejaculated Couthon.

"Hem!" said Payan, with some impatience. "But now to business!"

"Ah, to business!" said Robespierre, with a sinister glance from his
bloodshot eyes.

"The time has come," said Payan, "when the safety of the Republic
demands a complete concentration of its power. These brawlers of the
Comite du Salut Public can only destroy; they cannot construct. They
hated you, Maximilien, from the moment you attempted to replace anarcy
by institutions. How they mock at the festival which proclaimed the
acknowledgment of a Supreme Being: they would have no ruler, even in
heaven! Your clear and vigorous intellect saw that, having wrecked
an old world, it became necessary to shape a new one. The first step
towards construction must be to destroy the destroyers. While we
deliberate, your enemies act. Better this very night to attack the
handful of gensdarmes that guard them, than to confront the battalions
they may raise to-morrow."

"No," said Robespierre, who recoiled before the determined spirit of
Payan; "I have a better and safer plan. This is the 6th of Thermidor;
on the 10th--on the 10th, the Convention go in a body to the Fete
Decadaire. A mob shall form; the canonniers, the troops of Henriot, the
young pupils de l'Ecole de Mars, shall mix in the crowd. Easy, then, to
strike the conspirators whom we shall designate to our agents. On the
same day, too, Fouquier and Dumas shall not rest; and a sufficient
number of 'the suspect' to maintain salutary awe, and keep up the
revolutionary excitement, shall perish by the glaive of the law. The
10th shall be the great day of action. Payan, of these last culprits,
have you prepared a list?"

"It is here," returned Payan, laconically, presenting a paper.

Robespierre glanc