" Then rose a great shout
from the Centre, "Down with the tyrant, arrest him, accuse him!" From
the Centre, which until that day had always silently supported the
Robespierrian Dictatorship. Robespierre for the last time tried to
speak, but his voice failed him. "It's Danton's blood that chokes him;
arrest him, arrest him!" they shouted from the Right. Robespierre
dropped exhausted on a bench, then they seized him, and his brother, and
Couthon, and Saint-Just, and ordered that the police should take them to
prison.
But it was one thing for the Convention to seize Robespierre singly, and
within its own hall; it was quite another for it to hold him and send
him to the guillotine. The whole physical force of Paris was nominally
with Robespierre. The Mayor, Fleuriot, closed the barriers, sounded the
tocsin, and forbade any jailer to receive the prisoners; while Henriot,
who had already been drinking, mounted a horse and galloped forth to
rouse the city. Fleuriot caused Robespierre, Couthon, and Le Bas to be
brought to the City Hall. A provisional government was completed. It
only remained to disperse the Assembly.
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