revolt and horrors are
passing. Ye want our lives; ye shall not have them." Saint-Just stutters
at such Cambyses'-oratory; takes his hat to withdraw. That report he
had been speaking of, Report on Republican Things in General we may say,
which is to be read in Convention on the morrow, he cannot shew it them
this moment: a friend has it; he, Saint-Just, will get it, and send it,
were he once home. Once home, he sends not it, but an answer that he
will not send it; that they will hear it from the Tribune to-morrow.

Let every man, therefore, according to a well-known good-advice, 'pray
to Heaven, and keep his powder dry!' Paris, on the morrow, will see a
thing. Swift scouts fly dim or invisible, all night, from Surete and
Salut; from conclave to conclave; from Mother Society to Townhall.
Sleep, can it fall on the eyes of Talliens, Frerons, Collots? Puissant
Henriot, Mayor Fleuriot, Judge Coffinhal, Procureur Payan, Robespierre
and all the Jacobins are getting ready.

Chapter 3.6.VII.

Go down to.

Tallien's eyes beamed bright, on the morrow, Ninth of Thermidor 'about
nine o'clock,' to see that the Convention had actually met. Paris is in
rumour: but at least we are met, in Legal Convention here; we have
not been snatched seriatim; treated with a Pride's Purge at the door.
"Allons, brave men of the Plain," late Frogs of the Marsh! cried Tallien
with a squeeze of the hand, as he passed in; Saint-Just's sonorous organ
being now audible from the Tribune, and the game of games begun.

Saint-Just is verily reading that Report of his; green Vengeance, in
the shape of Robespierre, watching nigh. Behold, however, Saint-Just has
read but few sentences, when interruption rises, rapid crescendo;
when Tallien starts to his feet, and Billaud, and this man starts and
that,--and Tallien, a second time, with his: "Citoyens, at the Jacobins
last night, I trembled for the Republic. I said to myself, if the
Convention dare not strike the Tyrant, then I myself dare; and with
this I will do it, if need be," said he, whisking out a clear-gleaming
Dagger, and brandishing it there: the Steel of Brutus, as we call
it. Whereat we all bellow, and brandish, impetuous acclaim. "Tyranny;
Dictatorship! Triumvirat!" And the Salut Committee-men accuse, and
all men accuse, and uproar, and impetuously acclaim. And Saint-Just is
standing motionless, pale of face; Couthon ejaculating, "Triumvir?" with
a look at his paralytic legs. And Robespierre is