38 END OF THE REIGN OF TEEKOE.
My mother, who contemplated death on the scaffold with such high resolution, has often told me that she felt her courage sink at the idea of being murdered in this manner.
During the last weeks of the Reign of Terror, the old keepers of the Carmelite prison had been replaced by the more ferocious men who were destined to aid in effecting the secret executions. They did not conceal from their victims the plan formed against them ; the rules of the prison were made more severe; visitors were no longer admitted; every distant sound the prisoners caught seemed to them the signal of carnage; every night appeared to them the last.
This agony of suspense was relieved the very day that Robespierre fell.
Some who have dealt in over-refined subtleties, in reviewing the history of the Reign of Terror, pretend that Robespierre only fell because he was better than his opponents.
It is true that his accomplices did not become his enemies, until they trembled for their own lives ; but in saving themselves they saved France, which would have become a den of wild beasts had Robespierre's plans been carried out. The revolution of the 9th Thermidor was, it is also true, the revolt of a banditti; but surely the fact of their captain having fallen a victim to their conspiracy, does not render him any the worthier character. If misfortune served to justify crime, what would become of the principle of conscience ? Equity would perish under the influence of a false generosity—a most dangerous sentiment, for it seduces noble minds, and causes them
CHARACTER OF ROBESriEKRE.39
to forget that a good man should prefer justice and truth to every other consideration.
It has been said that Robespierre was not naturally cruel. `Yhat of that ? He was one in whom envy had become omnipotent. Envy, nursed and fed by the well-merited humiliations that this man had endured, under the state of society which preceded the revolution, had suggested to him the idea of a revenge so atrocious, that the meanness of his soul and the hardness of his heart scarcely suffice to persuade us that he was capable of realising it. To write in blood, to calculate by heads, such were the processes of political arithmetic to which France submitted under the government of Robespierre. She does yet worse in the present day — she listens to those who would justify him.
To accept as an excuse for murder, that which renders it the more odious, the
Such are the sophisms to which the pretended amelioration of our manners leads—an amelioration which is nothing more than a supreme moral indifference, a deeply-rooted religious incredulity, and an ever-increasing avidity for sensual gratifications ; but patience,—the world has ere now recovered from a yet more hopeless state.
40STATE OF THE PRISONS.
Two days after the 9th Thermidor, the greater number of the prisons of Paris were empty. Madame de Beaidiarnais, through her connection with Tallien, came out in triumph; Mesdames d'Aiguillon and de Lameth were also speedily liberated. My mother was almost the only one left in the Carmelite prison. She beheld her noble companions in misfortune give place to the terrorists, who, after the political revolution that had been effected, daily changed places with their victims. All the friends and relatives of my mother were dispersed; no one thought of her. Jerome, proscribed, in turn, as a friend of Bobespierre, was obliged to conceal himself and could not aid her. For two months she remained thus abandoned, under a desolation of feeling, that, she has often told me, was more difficult to endure than the previous more immediate sense of peril.
The struggle of parties continued; the government was still in danger of falling again into the hands of the Jacobins. But for the couraire of Boissy-d'Anglas, the murder of Feraud had beeome the signal for a second Iieign of Terror, more terrible than the first. My mother knew all this ; my illness also, though she did not know its extent, added to her griefs.
At length Nanette, having saved my life by her careful nursing, set seriously about rescuing that of her mistress. She went to the house of one Dyle, a manufacturer of china, in order to consult with about fifty workmen of our province, who were then employed by this rich individual, and who had formerly worked at a porcelain manufactory founded by my grandfather at Niderviller, at the foot of the Vosges,
PETITION OF NANETTE.41
and subsequently confiscated with his other property.
It was to these men, among whom was Malriat her father, that Nanette applied, urging them to interest themselves in the fate of their former mistress.
They eagerly signed a petition, framed by Nanette, who both spoke and wrote the German-French of Lorraine. This document she herself earned to Legendre, formerly a butcher, and then president of the bureau to which petitions in favour of prisoners were addressed. The paper of Nanette was received and thrown aside, among a multitude of similar petitions.
One evening, three young persons, connected with Legendre, entered the bureau, rather heated with wine, and amused themselves with chasing each other over the tables, and with other similar freaks. In the midst of this sport, some of the surrounding papers were disturbed; one fell, and was picked up by a member of the party. ' What have you there ? ' asked the others.
' Yes; but for what prisoner ?'
They called for lights. In the interval of their appearing, the three hot-headed youths took an oath among themselves to obtain, that very evening from Legendre, the signature that would give liberty to the captive, whoever he might be, and to announce to him his freedom within the same hour.
' I swear it, though it should be the liberation of the Prince de Conde,' said Rossigneux.
' No doubt,' said the others, laughing; ' he is no longer a prisoner.'
42 DELIVERANCE OF MADAME DE CUSTINE.
They read the petition; it was that dictated by Nanette, and signed by the workmen of Niderviller.
' How fortunate,' shouted the young men; ' the lovely Custine, a second Roland ! ЛУе will go and fetch her from prison in a body.'
Legendre returned home at one o'olock in the morning, under the influence of wine like the others. The petition fur my mother's liberty was presented by three giddy youths, signed by a drunken man, and at three o'clock in the morning, the former, empowered to open her prison gates, knocked at the door of her apartment.
She at that time slept alone ; and would neither open her door, nor consent to leave the prison.
Her liberators explained to her as well as they could, the circumstances of their coming; but she resisted all their urgent entreaties; she feared to enter a hackney coach with strangers in the middle of the night; and all they could obtain from her was the permission to return at the hour of ten.
When she finally left the prison, they related to her, with many details, the circumstances to which the liberation was owing, more especially with the view of proving to her that she had nobody to thank for it; fur at that time a species of traffic in liberty was carried on by certain intriguers, who would often extort largely from the liberated parties, for the most part already ruined by the revolution.
A lady of rank, and nearly related to my mother, was not ashamed to ask her for 30,000 francs, which she
