issued for a new insurrection. But Paris was getting weary of
insurrections, wearier still of the obvious blackguardism and
peculation of the Hebertists, weariest of the perpetual drip of blood
from the guillotine. No insurrection could be organized. For some
days the opponents remained at arm's length. Finally on the 17th of
March the Committee of Public Safety ordered the arrest of Hebert,
Pache, Chaumette and a number of their prominent supporters, and was
almost surprised to find that the arrest was carried out with virtually
no opposition. Paris raised not a finger to defend them, and
contentedly {207} watched them go to the guillotine a week later.

It was otherwise with Danton. St. Just gave him no time. With the
Committee and the Convention well in hand he struck at once, less than
a week after Hebert had been despatched. He read a long accusation
against Danton to the Convention, and that body weakly voted his
arrest. Danton, Desmoulins, and some of their chief supporters were
hurried to prison; and from prison to the Revolutionary Tribunal. On
the 2d, 3rd and 4th of April they were tried by the packed bench and
packed jury of that expeditious institution. But so uncertain was the
temper of the vast throng that filled the streets outside, so violently
did Danton struggle to burst his bonds, that for a moment it seemed as
though the immense reverberations of his voice, heard, it is said, even
across the Seine, might awaken the force of the people, as so often
before, and overthrow the Jacobin rule. A hasty message to the
Committee of Public Safety,--a hasty decree rushed through the
Convention,--and Danton's voice was quelled, judgment delivered before
the accused had finished his defence. On the next day Danton and
Desmoulins went to the guillotine together,--Paris very hushed at the
immensity and suddenness {208} of the catastrophe. Desmoulins was
gone, the leader of the revolt against the monarchy in 1789, the
generous defender of the cause of mercy in 1794; and Danton was gone,
with all his sins, with all his venality, the most powerful figure of
the Revolution, more nearly the Revolution itself than any man of his
time.

Complete triumph! As Robespierre, St. Just and Couthon looked about
them, the three apostles leading France down the narrow path of civic
virtue, they saw nothing but prostrate enemies. The power of the
Commune was gone, and in its stead the Committee of Public Safety
virt