HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



13.5 



On the very day this transaction 

 happened, which was the 25th of 

 May, an attempt of a similar nature 

 was made on Robespierre himself, 

 by a young woman of twenty years 

 of age, of the name of Cecilia 

 Regnaud. She went to his dwelling 

 and asked for admittance. Eeing 

 told he was absent, she expressed 

 much disappointment, saying that, 

 as a public functionary, he ought 

 always to be in the way of seeing 

 those who had business with him. 

 Her air and deportment occasioning 

 suspicion, she was stopped and car- 

 ried before the committee of gtne- 

 ral safety. But she had betrayed 

 herself on the way, by exclaiming, 

 that while the King was living, he 

 denied himself to none of his sub- 

 jects ; and that she would lose her 

 life to have another King. She was 

 consigned to the revolutionary tri- 

 bunal, where, on being questioned 

 respectingher business with Robes- 

 pierre,her only answer was that she 

 was desirous to see what sort of be- 

 ing a tyrant was. No weapons 

 were found upon her that could be 

 deemed offensive ; and she appeared 

 ratiier disordered in her mind. 

 However, she was, together with 

 her family, against whom nothing 

 could be alleged, sent to the guillo- 

 tine witli Ameral, and above sixty 

 other persons. 



These two attempts against his 

 life, were alarming proofs that the 

 popularity of Robespierre was ac- 

 companied with iriore exceptions 

 than he might be willing to admit, 

 in the sanguine; [.ersuasion he che- 

 rished of the attachment of the peo- 

 |)lc to a cause which he so earnestly 

 laboured to convince them was 

 their own. But they could not fail 

 to observe that his severity increased 



every day, and that the number of 



zictims, contiaualiy Sc'.crificed to his 

 suspicions, were indiscriminately 

 taken from the lowest as well as the 

 highest and middling classes, and 

 that the revolutionary tribunal sel^ 

 dom acquitted any one brought 

 before it, though nothing could be. 

 more notorious than the insuffici- 

 ency of those proofs of guilt upon 

 which they took away so many 

 lives. But whether he still conr. 

 tided in the extent of his popularity, 

 and looked on those attempts as ac- 

 cidental instancesofprivaterancour, 

 no ways derogatory to his general 

 credit,or whether,like many others 

 in ppssessicn of great power, he was 

 resolved to retain and exercise it at 

 his own discretion, and at all 

 hazards, — Robespierre did norseem 

 inclined to relax fropi the severity 

 he had so steadily adopted ever 

 sir.ce his tirst entrance into power. 

 He possibly thought this, at a pe- 

 riod whenallpartiesappeared so im- 

 placable to each other, the safest 

 policy. Were his own party to be 

 oppressed, he made no doubt rhat^ 

 like those whom he had exter- 

 minated,he would in his turn ineet 

 with no mercy. Judging of others 

 by himself, and being unhappily 

 withoutcommiseration, he indulged 

 his propensity to shed blood as the 

 surest means topreventthe shedding 

 of his own. 



He was now arrived at the pleni- 

 tude of his power. What, through 

 prepossession in his favour, from the 

 ignorance, the prejudices, the vio- 

 lence of the lower classes in the ca- 

 pital, and what throu.jh the t'MTor 

 whichhis jjower and security every- 

 where ditiused, he acted without 

 controiii 5 and even his most inli. 

 mate adherents stood in continual 



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