118 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1794. 



such little esteem, ©r so odious to 

 many, that he ran no risk in sacri- 

 ficing them. Prompted by these 

 considerations, he procured the 

 arrest of Fabre d' Eglantine, and of 

 other deputies to the Convention, 

 on a charge of peculation and bri- 

 bery in the official situations they 

 had held in the republic ; of which 

 there appeared sufficient proof. 

 Their conduct was, by inference, 

 represented as treasonable to the 

 state, by the scandal it threw on 

 the Convention, through the de- 

 linquency and infamy of its mem- 

 bers. It was even construed into 

 a crime of a revolutionary nature. 

 But Amar, the reporter of tlictwo 

 committees of Public and General 

 Safety, carried his accusation of 

 them much further. He charged 

 them with the receiving of pay 

 from the powers at war v>'ith the re- 

 public, and ot carrying on a criminal 

 correspondence with them. But nei- 

 ther this charge nor several others of 

 astrange and mconsistent kind, were 

 corroborated by any legal proofs. 



Among the persons imprisoned, 

 besides Fabre d'Jiglantinc, were 

 Chabot the ex-capuchin, a mem- 

 ber of the Convention ; where he 

 had long made a disreputable figure, 

 and incurred general contempt. 

 Ba/.ire was also one of them. He 

 too was a member of the Conven- 

 tion ; where he had signalized him- 

 self by supportingthat decree which 

 denied to the members the privi- 

 lege of being heard in their own 

 dcfoice. So little favour was 

 shewn to the?e three by their 

 fellow-members, that they were 

 spoken of in the Con%"entioii in the 

 ^ost disparaging term?. The par- 

 tisan? of Robespierre insisted on 

 this occasion, that the committees 

 of Public and General Safety, the 

 first of which was epipowered 



to arrest whomscever they thought 

 proper, ought to possess the 

 highest confidence and credit in 

 the performance of I heir fii.ictions, 

 and that the greatest deference 

 ought to be shewn to their opinion 

 and assertions. This tended dir 

 reclly to invest at once the execu- 

 tive department with exclusive and 

 boundless authority, or, in other 

 terms, to constitute Robespierre 

 sols and supreme judge in all matr 

 ters referred to those committees, 

 the members of which, however 

 indirectl)'-, were of his own ap- 

 pointment. It was observed on this 

 cccaiion, that whether through in- 

 advertence or a .--esire to concili- 

 ate Robespierre, Danton expressed 

 liis approbation of the sentiments 

 uttered by his enemy's partisans. 

 This was the more astonishing, that 

 Danton^ by such unreasonable and 

 imprudent condescendence, put 

 himself unresistingly into the hands 

 of a rival whom he knew to be im- 

 placable. "X^n days only after es, 

 pou§ing his cause in this decided 

 manner, he was, together with his 

 friend Can.ille Dcsmoulins, arrested 

 in the nifrht of the 30th of iMarvli. 

 Two others were alsounprisooed at 

 the same time, Julien de Thoulouse 

 and Phelipeaux, become odious t(> 

 Robespieire, on account of the 

 faithful relation of the barbarities 

 committed in La Vendee, whither 

 he had been Scut as a commissioner. 

 Danton was warmly defended in 

 the Convention by his friend Le 

 Gendre, a man of great intrepidity | 

 who moved, in contradiction to 

 Robespierre, that Danton and La- 

 Croix, hij fellow -prisoner, should 

 be heard in their defence at the 

 bar of the House. But Robespierre 

 argued with the most unqualified vj- 

 rulenceagainstboth. Hcreprcsented 

 La Croix as venal, vicious, and cor- 



