He was himself in continual expectation of being arrested; and
it was generally believed Robespierre would soon openly accuse him.--Thus
situated, he eagerly embraced the opportunity which the schism in the
Committee presented of attacking his adversary, and we certainly must
allow him the merit of being the first who dared to move for the arrest
of Robespierre.--I need not add, that la belle was one of the first whose
prison doors were opened; and I understand that, being divorced from
Mons. de Fontenay, she is either married, or on the point of being so, to
Tallien.
This conclusion spoils my story as a moral one; and had I been the
disposer of events, the Septembriser, the regicide, and the cold assassin
of the Toulonais, should have found other rewards than affluence, and a
wife who might represent one of Mahomet's Houris. Yet, surely, "the time
will come, though it come ne'er so slowly," when Heaven shall separate
guilt from prosperity, and when Tallien and his accomplices shall be
remembered only as monuments of eternal justice. For the lady, her
faults are amply punished in the disgrace of such an alliance--
"A cut-purse of the empire and the rule;
"____ a King of shreds and patches."
Providence, Aug. 14, 1794.
The thirty members whom Robespierre intended to sacrifice, might perhaps
have formed some design of resisting, but it appears evident that the
Convention in general acted without plan, union, or confidence.
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