him, to shew the people which is he. A woman springs on
the Tumbril; clutching the side of it with one hand; waving the other
Sibyl-like; and exclaims: "The death of thee gladdens my very heart,
m'enivre de joie;" Robespierre opened his eyes; "Scelerat, go down to
Hell, with the curses of all wives and mothers!"--At the foot of the
scaffold, they stretched him on the ground till his turn came. Lifted
aloft, his eyes again opened; caught the bloody axe. Samson wrenched
the coat off him; wrenched the dirty linen from his jaw: the jaw fell
powerless, there burst from him a cry;--hideous to hear and see. Samson,
thou canst not be too quick!

Samson's work done, there burst forth shout on shout of applause. Shout,
which prolongs itself not only over Paris, but over France, but over
Europe, and down to this Generation. Deservedly, and also undeservedly.
O unhappiest Advocate of Arras, wert thou worse than other Advocates?
Stricter man, according to his Formula, to his Credo and his Cant, of
probities, benevolences, pleasures-of-virtue, and such like, lived not
in that age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled age, to have
become one of those incorruptible barren Pattern-Figures, and have had
marble-tablets and funeral-sermons! His poor landlord, the Cabinetmaker
in the Rue Saint-Honore, loved him; his Brother died for him. May God be
merciful to him, and to us.

This is end of the Reign of Terror; new glorious Revolution named of
Thermidor; of Thermidor 9th, year 2; which being interpreted into old
slave-style means 27th of July, 1794. Terror is ended; and death in the
Place de la Revolution, were the 'Tail of Robespierre' once executed;
which service Fouquier in large Batches is swiftly managing.

BOOK 3.VII.

VENDEMIAIRE

Chapter 3.7.I.

Decadent.

How little did any one suppose that here was the end not of Robespierre
only, but of the Revolution System itself! Least of all did the
mutinying Committee-men suppose it; who had mutinied with no view
whatever except to continue the National Regeneration with their own
heads on their shoulders. And yet so it verily was. The insignificant
stone they had struck out, so insignificant anywhere else, proved to be
the Keystone: the whole arch-work and edifice of Sansculottism began
to loosen, to crack, to yawn; and tumbled, piecemeal, with considerable
rapidity, plunge after plunge; till the Abyss had swallowed it all, and
in this upper world Sansculottism was no mo