orror,--a cry of humanity. And this cry you would punish! And in
the face of the appalling facts which I have narrated, you would say to
the guillotine, "Thou art right!" and to Pity, saintly Pity, "Thou art
wrong!" Gentlemen of the jury, it cannot be! Gentlemen, I have finished.

Robespierre's Last Speech

BY MAXIMILIAN MARIE ISIDORE DE ROBESPIERRE.

[Before his execution, Robespierre addressed the populace of
Paris in part as follows:]

The enemies of the Republic call me tyrant! Were I such, they would
grovel at my feet. I should gorge them with gold, I should grant them
immunity for their crimes, and they would be grateful. Were I such, the
kings we have vanquished, far from denouncing Robespierre, would lend
me their guilty support; there would be a covenant between them and me.
Tyranny must have tools. But the enemies of tyranny,--whither does their
path tend? To the tomb, and to immortality! What tyrant is my protector?
To what faction do I belong? Yourselves! What faction since the
beginning of the Revolution, has crushed and annihilated so many
detected traitors? You, the people, our principles, are that faction--a
faction to which I am devoted, and against which all the scoundrelism of
the day is banded!

The confirmation of the Republic has been my object; and I know that
the Republic can be established only on the eternal basis of morality.
Against me, and against those who hold kindred principles, the league is
formed. My life? Oh! my life I abandon without a regret. I have seen the
past; and I foresee the future. What friend of this country would wish
to survive the moment when he could no longer serve it,--when he could
no longer defend innocence against oppression? Wherefore should I
continue in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over
truth; where justice is mocked; where passions the most abject, or
fears the most absurd, over-ride the sacred interests of humanity? In
witnessing the multitude of vices which the torrent of the Revolution
has rolled in turbid communion with its civic virtues, I confess that
I have sometimes feared that I should be sullied, in the eyes of
posterity, by the impure neighborhood of unprincipled men, who had
thrust themselves into association with the sincere friends of humanity;
and I rejoice that these conspirators against my country have now, by
their reckless rage, traced deep the line of demarcation between
themselves and all true me