om the prisons,
and, if enough are not in the prisons, seized, indiscriminately in the
streets, that no place in the deadly vehicle may be left unoccupied, and
all this without a trial, without even an accusation, and without any
sanction but your own mandate--these things call the public curse upon
you, which is not the less bitter for not being audible."

"Ah!" said Robespierre, laughing. "This puts me in mind of a story told
of the cruelty and tyranny, of Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who, having one
night, after he had enjoyed himself at a Bacchanalian supper, when heated
with wine, by way of a 'bonne bouche', ordered the first man that should
come through the gate of the 'Strada del popolo' at Rome to be
immediately hanged. Every person at this drunken conclave--nay, all
Rome--considered the Pope a tyrant, the most cruel of tyrants, till it
was made known and proved, after his death, that the wretch so executed
had murdered his father and mother ten years previously. I know whom I
send to the Place de Greve. All who go there are guilty, though they may
not seem so. Go on, what else have you heard?"

"Why, that you have so terrified all descriptions of persons, that they
fear even your very breath, and look upon you as worse than the plague;
and I should not be surprised, if you persist in this course of conduct,
if something serious to yourself should be the consequence, and that ere
long."

Not the least extraordinary part of the story is that this dialogue
between the devil and the doctor took place but a very, few hours
previous to Robespierre's being denounced by Tallien and Carriere to the
national convention, as a conspirator against the republican cause. In
defending himself from being arrested by the guard, he attempted to shoot
himself, but the ball missed, broke the monster's jaw-bone only, and
nearly impeded his speaking.

Singularly enough, it was this physician who was sent for to assist and
dress his wounds. Robespierre replied to the doctor's observations,
laughing, and in the following language:

"Oh, poor devils! they do not know their own interest. But my plan of
exterminating the evil will soon teach them. This is the only thing for
the good of the nation; for, before you can reform a thousand Frenchmen,
you must first lop off half a million of these vagabonds, and, if God
spare my life, in a few months there will be so many the less to breed
internal commotions, and disturb the general pea