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They will defend the delegates of Freedom.

      Tallien. Hear ye this, Colleagues? hear ye this, my brethren?

       And does no thrill of joy pervade your breasts?

       My bosom bounds to rapture. I have seen 110

       The sons of France shake off the tyrant yoke;

       I have, as much as lies in mine own arm,

       Hurl’d down the usurper. — Come death when it will,

       I have lived long enough. [Shouts without.

      Barrere. Hark! how the noise increases! through the gloom 115

       Of the still evening — harbinger of death,

       Rings the tocsin! the dreadful generale

       Thunders through Paris —

      [Cry without — Down with the Tyrant!

      Enter LECOINTRE.

      Lecointre. So may eternal justice blast the foes

       Of France! so perish all the tyrant brood, 120

       As Robespierre has perish’d! Citizens,

       Caesar is taken. [Loud and repeated applauses.

       I marvel not that with such fearless front

       He braved our vengeance, and with angry eye

       Scowled round the hall defiance. He relied 125

       On Henriot’s aid — the Commune’s villain friendship,

       And Henriot’s boughten succours. Ye have heard

       How Henriot rescued him — how with open arms

       The Commune welcom’d in the rebel tyrant —

       How Fleuriot aided, and seditious Vivier 130

       Stirr’d up the Jacobins. All had been lost —

       The representatives of France had perish’d —

       Freedom had sunk beneath the tyrant arm

       Of this foul parricide, but that her spirit

       Inspir’d the men of Paris. Henriot call’d 135

       ‘To arms’ in vain, whilst Bourdon’s patriot voice

       Breathed eloquence, and o’er the Jacobins

       Legendre frown’d dismay. The tyrants fled —

       They reach’d the Hôtel. We gather’d round — we call’d

       For vengeance! Long time, obstinate in despair, 140

       With knives they hack’d around them. ‘Till foreboding

       The sentence of the law, the clamorous cry

       Of joyful thousands hailing their destruction,

       Each sought by suicide to escape the dread

       Of death. Lebas succeeded. From the window 145

       Leapt the younger Robespierre, but his fractur’d limb

       Forbade to escape. The self-will’d dictator

       Plunged often the keen knife in his dark breast,

       Yet impotent to die. He lives all mangled

       By his own tremulous hand! All gash’d and gored 150

       He lives to taste the bitterness of death.

       Even now they meet their doom. The bloody Couthon,

       The fierce St. Just, even now attend their tyrant

       To fall beneath the axe. I saw the torches

       Flash on their visages a dreadful light — 155

       I saw them whilst the black blood roll’d adown

       Each stern face, even then with dauntless eye

       Scowl round contemptuous, dying as they lived,

       Fearless of fate! [Loud and repeated applauses.

      Barrere mounts the Tribune. For ever hallowed be this glorious

       day, 160

       When Freedom, bursting her oppressive chain,

       Tramples on the oppressor. When the tyrant

       Hurl’d from his blood-cemented throne, by the arm

       Of the almighty people, meets the death

       He plann’d for thousands. Oh! my sickening heart 165

       Has sunk within me, when the various woes

       Of my brave country crowded o’er my brain

       In ghastly numbers — when assembled hordes,

       Dragg’d from their hovels by despotic power,

       Rush’d o’er her frontiers, plunder’d her fair hamlets, 170

       And sack’d her populous towns, and drench’d with blood

       The reeking fields of Flanders. — When within,

       Upon her vitals prey’d the rankling tooth

       Of treason; and oppression, giant form,

       Trampling on freedom, left the alternative 175

       Of slavery, or of death. Even from that day,

       When, on the guilty Capet, I pronounced

       The doom of injured France, has faction reared

       Her hated head amongst us. Roland preach’d

       Of mercy — the uxorious dotard Roland, 180

       The woman-govern’d Roland durst aspire

       To govern France; and Petion talk’d of virtue,

       And Vergniaud’s eloquence, like the honeyed tongue

       Of some soft Syren wooed us to destruction.

       We triumphed over these. On the same scaffold 185

       Where the last Louis pour’d his guilty blood,

       Fell Brissot’s head, the womb of darksome treasons,

       And Orleans, villain kinsman of the Capet,

       And Hébert’s atheist crew, whose maddening hand

       Hurl’d down the altars of the living God, 190

       With all the infidel’s intolerance.

       The last worst traitor triumphed — triumph’d long,

       Secur’d by matchless villainy — by turns

       Defending and deserting each accomplice

       As interest prompted. In the goodly soil 195

       Of Freedom, the foul tree of treason struck

       Its deep-fix’d roots, and dropt the dews of death

       On all who slumber’d in its specious shade.

       He wove the web of treachery. He caught

       The listening crowd by his wild eloquence, 200

       His cool ferocity that persuaded murder,

       Even whilst it spake of mercy! — never, never

       Shall this regenerated country wear

       The despot yoke. Though myriads round assail,

       And with worse fury urge this new crusade 205

       Than savages have known; though the leagued despots

       Depopulate all Europe, so to pour

       The accumulated mass upon our coasts,

       Sublime amid the storm shall France arise,

       And like the rock amid surrounding waves 210

       Repel the rushing ocean. — She shall wield

       The thunderbolt of vengeance — she shall blast

       The despot’s pride, and liberate the world!

      FINIS

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