Robespierre and Miraheau at the Jacobins 3 



part of the Jacobin club would have obtained a national hearing" 

 for Robespierre and since the drift of revolutionary opinion was 

 now toward radical measures there is little doubt of the support 

 he would have received. We shall see presently that to those who 

 were able to look below the surface of things his speech presaged 

 a dangerous agitation, if not something more serious. But if no 

 one in the assembly had dared to answer him with practical argu- 

 ment in 1789, when the disfranchisement of the poorer classes was 

 decreed, who would have the temerity to undertake it now and 

 at the Jacobins ? The society would have refused to listen to him. 

 Before, however, an opportunity arose for reply a diversion came 

 in the most dramatic fashion and made an answer unnecessary. 

 Mirabeau, who presided, brought Robespierre to an abrupt halt by 

 reprimanding him for criticizing a decree of the national assembly. 

 This had the effect evidently desired by Mirabeau in finally bring- 

 ing Robespierre's speech to a sterile close, but it brought down 

 the society like a swarm of angry bees about the ears of the presi- 

 dent. Camille Desmoulins, a special friend of Robespierre, de- 

 scribes the scene as follows : 



Who would not have shared the holy indignation expressed in the 

 evening in an admirable speech of Robespierre at the Jacobins? The ap- 

 plause vv^hich greeted him and which constituted such a strong censure of 

 the decree of the morning, appeared to alarm Mirabeau, president of the 

 society. He dared to call Robespierre to order, saying that none was per- 

 mitted to criticize a decree once rendered. This interruption excited a 

 great uproar in the assembly already indignant because of the attempt 

 made to deprive non-active citizens of the right to wear the uniform. Is 

 there anything more tyrannical than the silence Mirabeau imposed upon 

 Robespierre and the reason alleged for it? There was not a peasant or 

 truck-woman in Attica who would not have laughed in the face of Mira- 

 beau had he chanced to say that it was not permitted to speak against a 

 decree. The tumult lasted for an hour and a half. Mirabeau, seeing that 

 the voice of his bell had been smothered and that he could not speak to 

 the ear, determined to speak to the eye, and in order to attract attention 

 by an unusual procedure, in place of putting on his hat as is done by the 

 president of the national assembly, he stood up in his chair and exclaimed 

 "Let all my co-deputies surround me," as if the question had been to pro- 

 tect the decree in his person. Immediately some thirty honorable deputies 

 gathered about Mirabeau. But on his side Robespierre, always so pure, so 

 incorruptible, and in this session so eloquent, had about him all the true 



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