SgO FRANCE. 



ous pretexts, was executed the last of twenty-six persons who were 

 caiTied to the scaffold on the same day. 



But, after the death oi Danton, the fall of this tyrannical demagogus 

 rapidly approached. A strong party was secretly formed against him 

 in the convention ; headed by Tallien, Legendre, and some others. 

 Finding themselves sufficiently strong, Tallien moved the arrest of 

 Robespierre and his creatures ; which decree was passed with ap- 

 plauses from every quarter. The president then ordered one of the 

 ushers of the hall to take Robespierre into custody : but such was 

 the awe which the presence of this man was accustomed to inspire, 

 that the officer hesitated to perform his duty ; till Robespierre him- 

 self muae a sign of obedience, and followed the usher out of the hall. 

 The prisoners were conducted by a few peace-officers to the prison 

 of the Luxembourg : but the administrator of the police on duty 

 there, who was one of their creatures, refused to receive them ; and 

 they were then led, rather in triumph than as prisoners, to the Hotel 

 de Vide. 



In the mean time, Henriot, another leader of the party, had also 

 been arrested, but found means to escape and raise his partisans ; who 

 took post with him and Robespierre in the Hotel de Ville, where 

 they pretended to form themselves into a new convention, and declar- 

 ed the other representatives traitors to their country. The people, 

 however, did not espouse their cause ; the national guard, who had at 

 first obeyed their orders with reluctance, forsook them ; and the 

 deputies who had been dispatched for that purpose, attacked them 

 in the Hotel de Ville. Bourdon de 1'Oise, after having read the 

 proclamation of the convention, rushed into the hall of the com- 

 mune, with a sabre and pistols ; the insurgents were completely de- 

 serted, and now endeavoured to turn their arms against themselves. 

 Robespierre the elder discharged a pistol in his mouth ; which, how- 

 ever, failed of its effect, and only wounded him in the jaw, while, he 

 received another wound from a gensdarme in the side. The younger 

 Robespierre threw himself out of a window, and broke a leg and an 

 arm ; Le Bas shot himself upon the spot ; Couthon stabbed himself 

 twice with a knife ; and Henriot was thrown out of a window. 



The prisoners were immediately conveyed before the revolutionary 

 tribunal ; and their persons being identified, they were condemned to 

 suffer death in the Place de la Revolution : where the two Robes- 

 pierres, and nineteen others, were executed at seven in the evening 

 of the 28th of July, 1794. 



In the campaign of this year, the arms of the new republic were 

 successful on every side against the allies. In Flanders, general 

 Jourdan gained the battle of Fleurus ; and Charleroi, Ypres, Bruges, 

 and Courtray, surrendered to the French : Ostend was evacuated ; 

 general Clairfait defeated near Mons, which immediately surrender- 

 ed ; and the prince of Cobourg compelled to abandon the whole of 

 the Netherlands, while the victors, without opposition, entered Brus- 

 sels and Antwerp. Landrecy, Quesnoi, Valenciennes, and Conde, 

 were successively retaken ; and the French armies, pursuing their 

 success, took Aix-la-Chapelle, defeated Clairfait near Juliers, and 

 made themselves masters of Cologne and Bonn. Maestricht and 

 Nimeguen were likewise taken. . 



The United Provinces began now to be seriously alarmed. The 

 states of Friesland were the first to feel their danger ; and, in the 

 month of October, these states determined to acknowledge the French 



