in the afternoon, he was raised into the cart Couthon and
the younger Robespierre lay, confused wrecks of men, at the bottom of
it. Hanriot and Saint Just, bruised, begrimed, and foul, completed the
band. One who walks from the Palace of Justice, over the bridge, along
the Rue Saint Honore, into the Rue Royale, and so to the Luxor column,
retraces the _via dolorosa_ of the Revolution on the afternoon of the
Tenth of Thermidor.

* * * * *

The end of the intricate manoeuvres known as the Revolution of
Thermidor was the recovery of authority by the Convention. The
insurrections, known as the days of the Twelfth Germinal, First
Prairial, and Thirteenth Vendemiaire, all ended in the victory of the
Convention over the revolutionary forces of Paris. The Committees, on
the other hand, had beaten Robespierre, but they had ruined themselves.
Very gradually the movement towards order, which had begun in the mind
of Danton, and had gone on in the cloudy purposes of Robespierre, became
definite. But it was in the interest of very different ideas from those
of either Danton or of Robespierre. A White Terror succeeded the Red
Terror. Not at once, however; it was not until nine months after the
death of Robespierre, that the reaction was strong enough to smite his
colleagues of the two Committees. The surviving Girondins had come back
to their seats in the Convention: the Dantonians had not forgiven the
execution of their chief. These two parties were bent on vengeance. In
April, 1795, a decree was passed banishing Billaud de Varennes, Collot
d'Herbois, and Barere. In the following month the leaders of the
Committee of General Security were thrown into prison. The revolution
had passed into new currents. We cannot see any reasons for thinking
that those currents would have led to any happier results if Robespierre
had won the battle. Tallien, Fouche, Barras, and the rest may have been
thoroughly bad men. But then what qualities had Robespierre for building
up a state? He had neither strength of practical character, nor firm
breadth of political judgment, nor a sound social doctrine. When we
compare him,--I do not say with Frederick of Prussia, with Jefferson,
with Washington,--but with the group of able men who made the closing
year of the Convention honourable and of good service to France, we have
a measure of Robespierre's profound and pitiable incompetence.

End of Project Gutenberg's Crit