THE END OF THE TERROR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 79

THE END OF THE TERROR.

(Paris, 9th Thermidor, 1794.) Tn the Place de Greve before tha Town Hall was packed all the scouhdreldom of» Paris, all the fanatics of Fraternity, all the madmen who loved and throve on the blood streams of the Teiror, all who made it help them to blackmail and rapine and lust — all were thronged there with Henriot's rascally gendarmes, a huge crowd armed with plentiful strange weapons ugly to see. I Their yells went up to the star-spangled I black sky. At a window of the Town Hall, between torches, stood Robespierre, livid in the smoky light. He had a speech to make of course. The thin, dull stream of cant poured out once more. Liberty. -Humanity ; Humanity, Liberty ; Supreme Being ; Sacred Fraternity. Through his thin voice came the clatter of steel. Horsemen were moving along the quay. A line of cuirasses glinted pale in the gloom. "The aimy! — the army!" men roared, and the crowd swayed to and fro. "Beat ease!'' Robespierre screamed. "They are our friends — our brothers. They come to join us. Salute, my brothers! Salute." He flung out his arms to the cuirassiers. He was very grateful to Bonaparte. But those cuirassiers took no heed of him. They defiled orderly into the Place de Greve, while the crowd gave them room and -welcome. The cuirassiers were silent. Bonaparte's brazen voice rang : "Citizens, to your homes. Robespierre is outlaw! To you homes, citizens!" Then Robespierre screamed wild word 6 from his I window and fell into a frenay. The cuirassiers spurred their horses against the amazed crowd and struck with the flat of the sword, roaring, "Give' room ! Give room! To your homes!" But once tlie first shock, tvjas spent the prowd withstood, and «trucls~ back with' 'clubs' and spikes and knives, and pistols flashed and snapped, and the cuirassiers were in evil case. . . . At the corner by the quay Bonaparte sat his white horse, and his eyes were steady on the fight. . . . Robespierre gibbered and raved from on high. . . . Now the crowd had the upper hand, now the cuirassiers were beaten back. Along the quay came at the double two companies of grenadier, along the quay the jingle and clank and rumble of guns. Masked, by the grenadiers, three guns unlimbered and trained upon the crowd. Bonaparte looked at them oncp over his shoulder, and said a word to the trumpeter at his side. The trumpet sounded. The cuirassiers broke out of the crowd, and as it surged after them, yelling, the grenadiers fell away from before the guns and the night was rent in yellow flame. Grape-shot blasted wide roads of death through the heart of the crowd, and before there was time to flee the guns swung a little, and flashed and roared again, and slew. It was enough. Shrieking in mad panic, the crowd of scoundrels turned and fought each other in their haste to be gone. The cuirassiers swept the square^ as a wave sweeps a castle of sand away. Over wounded and slain the grenadiers marched to the Town Hall and broke in and seized Robespierre. — From "The God of Clay," by H. C. Bailey, in the Pall Mall Magazine.