Her return can only be accounted for by the spell of that all-powerful 'amor patriae', which sometimes prevails over every other influence.
Before I dismiss this subject, it may not be uninteresting to my readers to receive some desultory anecdotes that I have heard concerning one or two of the leading monsters, by whom the horrors upon which I have expatiated were occasioned.
David, the famous painter, was a member of the sanguinary tribunal which condemned the King. On this account he has been banished from France since the restoration.
If any one deserved this severity, it was David. It was at the expense of the Court of Louis XVI. that this ungrateful being was sent to Rome, to perfect himself in his sublime art. His studies finished, he was pensioned from the same patrons, and upheld as an artist by the special protection of every member of the Royal Family.
And yet this man, if he may be dignified by the name, had the baseness to say in the hearing of the unfortunate Louis XVI., when on trial, "Well! when are we to have his head dressed, a la guillotine."At another time, being deputed to visit the Temple, as one of the committee of public safety, as he held out his snuff-box before the Princesse Elizabeth, she, conceiving he meant to offer it, took a pinch.
The monster, observing what she had done, darting a look of contempt at her, instantly threw away the snuff, and dashed the box to pieces on the floor.
Robespierre had a confidential physician, who attended him almost to the period when he ascended the scaffold, and who was very often obliged, 'malgre-lui', to dine tete-a-tete with this monopolizer of human flesh and blood. One day he happened to be with him, after a very extraordinary number had been executed, and amongst the rest, some of the physician's most intimate acquaintances.
The unwilling guest was naturally very downcast, and ill at ease, and could not dissemble his anguish. He tried to stammer out excuses and get away from the table.
Robespierre, perceiving his distress, interrogated him as to the cause.
The physician, putting his hand to his head, discovered his reluctance to explain.
Robespierre took him by the hand, assured him he had nothing to fear, and added, "Come, doctor, you, as a professional man, must be well informed as to the sentiments of the major part of the Parisians respecting me.
I entreat you, my dear friend, frankly to avow their opinion. It may perhaps serve me for the future, as a guide for governing them."The physician answered, "I can no longer resist the impulse of nature.
I know I shall thereby oppose myself to your power, but I must tell you, you are generally abhorred,--considered the Attila, the Sylla, of the age,--the two-footed plague, that, walks about to fill peaceful abodes with miseries and family mournings. The myriads you are daily sending to the slaughter at the Place de Greve, who have, committed no crime, the carts of a certain description, you have ordered daily to bear a stated number to be sacrificed, directing they should be taken from 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 Isend 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: