On the morning of the ninth the Convention met, and with internal dread and affected composure proceeded to their ordinary business.—­St. Just then ascended the tribune, and the curiosity or indecision of the greater number permitted him to expatiate at large on the intrigues and guilt of every kind which he imputed to a “part” of the Committee.—­At the conclusion of this speech, Tallien, one of the devoted members, and Billaud Varennes, the leader of the rival party, opened the trenches, by some severe remarks on the oration of St. Just, and the conduct of those with whom he was leagued.  This attack encouraged others:  the whole Convention joined in accusing Robespierre of tyranny; and Barrere, who perceived the business now deciding, ranged himself on the side of the strongest, though the remaining members of the Committee still appeared to preserve their neutrality.  Robespierre was, for the first time, refused a hearing, yet, the influence he so lately possessed still seemed to protect him.  The Assembly launched decrees against various of his subordinate agents, without daring to proceed against himself; and had not the indignant fury with which he was seized, at the desertion of those by whom he had been most flattered, urged him to call for arrest and death, it is probable the whole would have ended in the punishment of his enemies, and a greater accession of power to himself.

But at this crisis all Robespierre’s circumspection abandoned him.  Having provoked the decree for arresting his person, instead of submitting to it until his party should be able to rally, he resisted; and by so doing gave the Convention a pretext for putting him out of the law; or, in other words, to destroy him, without the delay or hazard of a previous trial.

Having been rescued from the Gens d’Armes, and taken in triumph to the municipality, the news spread, the Jacobins assembled, and Henriot, the commander of the National Guard, (who had likewise been arrested, and again set at liberty by force,) all prepared to act in his defence.  But while they should have secured the Convention, they employed themselves at the Hotel de Ville in passing frivolous resolutions; and Henriot, with all the cannoneers decidedly in his favour, exhibited an useless defiance, by stalking before the windows of the Committee of General Safety, when he should have been engaged in arresting its members.

All these imprudences gave the Convention time to proclaim that Robespierre, the municipality, and their adherents, were decreed out of the protection of the laws, and in circumstances of this nature such a step has usually been decisive—­for however odious a government, if it does but seem to act on a presumption of its own strength, it has always an advantage over its enemies; and the timid, the doubtful, or indifferent, for the most part, determine in favour of whatever wears the appearance of established authority.  The people, indeed, remained perfectly neuter; but