I cannot comment on that, but they are not in any danger of getting beheaded. Even Rob isn't crazy enough to murder children yet.
Small mercy that it is.
Never say never kids.
9 Thermidor
Paris, la République
The nation had been reduced.
That was the harshest truth of the 9
th of Thermidor.
There were many like it, but that was the worst. When the armies fell, there were always those who would say, "We will raise another." Each time, they had said that. Now, they bite their tongues.
Now the bonds had defaulted. So they had no money.
No nation would receive their diplomats. So they had no friends, had no trade, could make no peace.
Their soldiers were butchered where they stood. Surrender was death for any French man who didn't carry a cross.
So now there were no men to train, no soldiers to drill.
Like the Romans of old, the men of the convention had sat around in their seats of power and spoke of victory. For years, when battles were lost they had called it "assured". When battles were won, they called it "destiny" and now they spoke the word at all only in prayers. It hurt too much to say it any louder. It took too much effort.
Accusations were far more easy. The assembly was den of cannibals in those final days.
"Where is the virtue you called for!"
Even in the twilight of their republic, the air in the conventional hall was rich to the taste. It smelled of fear and malice.
"Président, answer your convention!"
The men of this place were hounds, snapping at each other's shadows for fear they might be bit themselves.
When they did not curse each other, they called out the names of fallen generals, turncoats and failures, and martyrs.
But they were gone, either to the ages, to the enemy or the Americas.
So they named strangers instead. And then they started calling out names from beyond the walls; dukes and traitors and zealots with crosses branded on their skin. They named them all for death. Summoned them to the assembly. To answer for crimes against the people.
The names of their curses were Cathelineau, the leader of the Chrétiens. They called for the head of every Habsburg. Of the Tsar, for the Sultan in Constantinople and all the other generals massed outside the gates.
They cursed all the capitals.
They cursed Washington.
They cursed every throne in Europe.
By the time the armies had massed near the city, the walls of what was left of their fair France, every nation that did not have deputy in their halls was a Carthage. They're countries were kindling to be burned, blighted, sewn in salt with all the spite of their legions.
But alas, there were no legions.
The armies of the republic were a shadow on the wall in St. Petersburg now, a creeping distress in the gentry of His Majesty's London. Vienna knew them well, the Prussians weep at their mention, and no nation could forget the armies that broke their fragile illusions. That taught them fear. That hung their children.
But those legions were gone now.
"They are grass in the field", was how
Citoyen Paine put it.
And the grass in the field was trampled by all the Old Men Europe could muster. These were the children of Charlemagne, of feudal ignorance, of the church and every evil on the continent. The masses they raised up knew nothing of what they fought for, yet here they stood. Atop the fallen men of the Republic. The better men.
All the venom of the assembly was as good as silence. All the strength left in the republic could not deliver these barbarians to justice.
And so the deputies despaired, and called out for blood that could be delivered.
Blood to be spilled for blood spilt.
A vote passed the convention.
Hardly anyone alive to see the vote ever told the margin.
The fact of its passage was more than enough.
Whether yay or nay made only a little difference, by noon of the 9
th every soul in Paris walked the world on borrowed time.
Children were hid away or armed with knives. The women found old arms, blades, and every thing that carved flesh that could be found. All the men that were left did likewise. There was no quarter for the armies, for the marshals and there would be none for the city.
The militia of the Republic gathered in short order to the plaza, to the
Place de la Révolution. It was a mighty thing, all those people, but the most pitiful in all the world.
Even then, the streets could fill with the people. Though they were tired, and angry, and ushered on only by the call of that hour. It was the stage for a final act the world awaited without patience and all the haste it could manage.
The children of the Capets cried. The little one was a wild-eyed little thing, that had to be dragged to the blade. He screamed for his mother, the Austrian, he screamed for his sister.
Saint-Just had prepared a speech, but the rain was heavy, and the child could not be calmed.
They took his head with a thunderclap. His sister followed after.
She snarled and wailed when she saw the blade come down, she tried even to run, but she was beaten to silence before another scene could be made.
She was limp when the guillotine took her.
The stage was not taken down this time. The blade was not cleaned. The floor of the platform was soaked through with the blood of the young and none were permitted to disturb the scene.
"Let the rain swallow what the sangsues have taken. I'll have no man wash this blade until every crown in this world is empty." Were the words of Saint-Just. No one would hide what was done here. There was no shame.
This contraption was the pride of the nation, the answer for a millenia of tyranny. And it would last till the end of the republic.
"Let their gods and priests look on it with terror. The revolution yet lives."
The shots upon the walls had been ceased for that day, negotiations had been held between the forces of the coalition and the republic. The
Chrétiens had demands for the Dauphin. Though the rest of the coalition did not care to make deals, the royalists forced their hands. They had threatened every army in the Kingdom of France with war should they take the city without securing the King's children.
There was to be a meeting on neutral ground that day, in the morning, but it never came from the Parisiennes. When their tardiness turn to insult, a small troupe of envoys were sent directly to the gates of Paris.
They demanded that the republicans produce the Dauphin and his family.
They would show leniency, they said.
The gates were opened enough to let in the envoy, if he so chose. It was like walking into hell, they'd have been fools to go in, but go in they did.
They had come with no weapons, in good faith.
They were guided to the
Place. They were each given a basket and sent back through the gates.
One basket for the heads, a few more for the legs, and the arms, and the rest.
They were called gifts for the coalition.
The envoys wept as they rode into their camp.
Of course, the shots began at once.
"Le Cri de La Croix" was sung into the night as the zealots continued to fire in the dark. Their shots going wild, wasting what was left of their dry powder until their voices grew hoarse, and the rest of the coalition forces had sent envoys to complain.
None in Paris would sleep easy that night.
Following the execution, Robespierre was found atop the walls.
He had requisitioned what was something of a tent, it was hardly more than a tarp on stilts, but it sufficed to hide his shame.
The figure looking over the battlements of the city was a pitiful mess of a man. His spirit was gone from him, and he had obviously drunk himself to sleep. It was the only way anyone could have slept through the night that close to the wall. Beneath the pockmarked face and the dried vomit was a soul at odds with itself. Yearning to die, but too afraid to make the jump; so he idles here at the edge of death and life waiting for fate to make its choice for him.
It was a despicable sight.
Every man and woman in the garrison knew it was.
To stop the news from spreading, the garrison had kept this to itself. They had tried to remove him from his perch multiple times before the fighting began, before he could harm morale further than he already had.
It was bad enough to see your leader in despair. To have him die, drunk and broken was an injury to an insult that couldn't be suffered. Not this late, not with the armies of the continent staring them down and battering them with every piece of artillery from Biscay to Tartary.
Yet, he still would not budge.
"Send for my Antoine…" He had begged the garrison captain before passing out once more. "Please
monsieur…" That he was understood through the slurred mess that left his mouth was perhaps the final miracle of the Revolution.
In time, after deciphering what the poor fool had muttered, Saint-Just was produced. He had been organizing the final defense of the city. Erecting barricades, storing powder, making blades.
"Leave us," said the young man,
"I will talk sense into him."
L'Incorruptible! Strewn out like a drunkard.
It was almost enough to make Louise Saint-Just shed tears. But by all that was right in this world, it set him alight. The work of all these years, all this blood, and here he was sobbing to himself in a restless sleep.
"Désenivrez!" he sounded off,
"Maximilien, wake up!"
Maximilien was shook near to death before his eyes opened. It was hardly better once they did.
At the sight of his friend of all these years, Robespierre was reduced to tears. Inelegant and without a shred of pride, he tried to wrap his arms around Antoine, just for that tiny comfort.
"We're going to die Louise…" he whispered, "They're coming for us."
"You sound like a child, it's disgusting." Unbelievable
"I can't go on like this… I'm mad Louise, did you know that?" he said trying to piece together his thoughts. "Is that why they're here? Because we're mad?" He was manic.
"You're not yourself Maximilien." Louise answered, cold, his image of the man before him broken.
"They are here to die, the same as us. And only that."
"Is it really that simple?"
"Everything in this world, outside this tent, is simple." Louise finished.
"You are broken, and done. If you are so tired of living you should fall off this wall!"
They locked eyes for a long time, then.
It was deadly quiet outside the tent. All the garrison could hear what they had said. No doubt about it.
"Well I will see to it then."
"Surely you don't mean that."
"I haven't meant anything more truly since I can remember," he said, "And I remember much."
"Well then…. I suppose I will see you outside.
"Yes, give me a moment to clear my head."
"From up here, the
Chrétiens look almost French." said the tired man, "Don't they, Antoine?"
"Oui, they could have been, once."
" I agree, maybe they will be, in another time. Surely it doesn't all end here?"
"Not on my life."
"Au revoir, mon frère."
"Au revoir."
