The Gods Will Have Blood

by Anatole France

  ‘You see it yourself, Élodie: we are on the edge of a precipice. Our deeds devour us. Each hour, each day, stretches out as if it were a year. I shall soon have lived a hundred years. Look at my face! Is it the face of a lover? A face to be loved?…’

  ‘Évariste, you are mine, I am going to keep you; I will not let you go.’

  The very tone of her voice expressed self-sacrifice. He felt it. She herself felt it.

  ‘Élodie, will you be able to bear witness, one day, that I lived faithful to my duty, that I was upright of heart and pure of soul, that I desired only the public good; that I was by nature kind and tender? Will you be able to say:’ He did his duty? ‘No! No, you will not say that! And I do not ask that you will say it. Let the memory of me perish! Sufficient to me is the glory that in my own heart I know I did my duty; to others there is only the shame that surrounds me. If you love me, bury my name in eternal silence.’

  At that moment, a child of eight or nine, playing with its hoop, bumped against Gamelin’s legs.

  He lifted the boy roughly in his arms:

  ‘Child! You will grow up to be free and happy, and you will owe it to the infamous Gamelin. I am steeped in blood so that you may be happy. I am cruel, that you may be kind. I am pitiless so that tomorrow all Frenchmen will embrace one another with tears of joy.’

  He pressed the child to his chest.

  ‘Little one, when you are a man, you will owe to me your happiness and your innocence; and, if ever you hear my name mentioned, you will curse it.’

  And he put the child down, who ran off in terror to cling to the skirts of his mother, who was hurrying up to rescue him.

  The young mother, in a gown of white lace and possessing a graceful and aristocratic charm, led her son away with a haughty air.

  Gamelin turned towards Élodie with a wild look in his eyes:

  ‘I held that child in my arms; perhaps I shall have his mother sent to the guillotine.’

  And he strode away quickly under the symmetrically lined trees.

  Élodie remained a moment motionless, staring at the ground. Then, suddenly, she raced after her lover, and in a frenzied fury, her hair coming dishevelled like a Maenad, she seized hold of him as if to tear him in pieces and shouted at him in a voice strangled with blood and tears:

  ‘All right, then! Oh, my beloved, send me too, send me to the guillotine! Have my head also put beneath its knife!’

  And, at the thought of the knife cutting through her neck, her very flesh melted in an ecstasy of sexual horror.

  XXVI

  AS the sun of Thermidor was setting in a purplish, blood-red sky, Évariste was wandering, deep in gloomy thought, in the Marbeuf Gardens, now a national park and frequented by the Parisian idlers. There were stalls for the sale of lemonade and ice-cream; wooden horses and shooting galleries were provided for the younger patriots. Beneath a tree, a little boy, obviously a Savoyard, in rags and wearing a black cap, was making a marmot dance to the shrill notes of his hurdy-gurdy. A man still young, slight of figure, in a blue coat, his hair powdered, and with a large dog at his heels, stopped to listen to this rural music. Évariste recognized Robespierre. He recognized at once that pale, thin face, hardened and wrinkled with lines of suffering. And he thought:

  ‘What a weight of weariness and grief has left its imprint on that forehead! How painful a thing it is to work for the happiness of mankind! What is he thinking about at this moment? Does the sound of that mountain music bring relief from the cares of State? Is he thinking he has made a pact with death and the hour of reckoning is approaching? Is he meditating a triumphant return to the Committee of Public Safety, from which he withdrew with Couthon and Saint-Just, weary of being held in check by a seditious majority? What hopes, what fears, are turbulent behind that impenetrable face?’

  But Robespierre smiled at the boy and in a quiet, gentle voice asked him several questions about his native valley and the humble home and parents which the poor child had left behind him.* Then he threw him a small piece of money and strolled on. After a few steps, he turned round to call his dog, who was sniffing at the marmot and baring his teeth at the bristling little creature.

  ‘Brount! Brount!’ he called.

  Then he plunged down one of the gloomy paths.

  Gamelin, out of respect, had not approached the lonely walker; but as he gazed after the thin figure disappearing into the night, he sent this mental prayer after him:

  ‘I have seen your sadness, Maxmilien; I have understood your thoughts. Your melancholy, your weariness, and even that look of fear engraved on your face, everything about you says: “Let the Reign of Terror end and that of Fraternity begin! Frenchmen, be united, be kind, be good. Love you one another.…” So be it, then! I shall support your plans, in order that you, in your wisdom and goodness, may be able to end our civil discord, our fratricidal hate, and turn the executioner into a gardener who will, for all time to come, cut off only the heads of cabbages and lettuces. With my colleagues of the Tribunal, by exterminating all conspirators and traitors, I will pave the way to clemency. We will redouble out vigilance and severity. No culprit will escape us. And when the head of the last enemy of the Republic has fallen under the knife, then it will be possible for you to be merciful without committing a crime, then you will be able to inaugurate the reign of Virtue and Innocence throughout the land, oh, father of your country!’

  The Incorruptible was already far away. As he turned the far end of the tree-lined alley, two men untidily attired in round hats and nankeen breeches, one a tall, lean man with a blur in one eye and resembling Tallien, looked at him from the corners of their eyes, and passed on, pretending not to have recognized him. When they had proceeded far enough to be out of hearing, they muttered to each other:

  ‘There he goes – King, Pope, God! Yes, that’s what he is -God; and Catherine Théot is his prophetess.’

  ‘Dictator, traitor, tyrant, you mean! But there is still more than one Brutus left!’

  ‘Let the scoundrel tremble! The Tarpeian Rock is near the Capital!’

  The dog Brount ran towards them. They said no more and hastened their steps.

  XXVII

  YOU sleep, Robespierre! The hour to strike is passing, precious time is running out…

  At last, on the 8 Thermidor, in the Convention, the Incorruptible rises and speaks. Sunshine of the 31st May, are you going to shine a second time? Gamelin waits and hopes. Is Robespierre going to drag from the benches which they dishonour these law-makers more guilty than the Federalists, more dangerous than Danton?… No! Not yet!‘I cannot’ he says, ‘bring myself to clear away completely the veil which hides this profound mystery of iniquity’. But this distant flash of lightning, though striking none of the conspirators, frightens all of them. Sixty of them, at least, will not now dare sleep in their beds. Marat would denounce traitors by name, point his accusing finger at them. The Incorruptible hesitates, and, from that moment, it is he who is the accused…

  That evening, at the Jacobins, the hall is filled to suffocation, the corridors, the courtyard, are crowded.

  They are all there, the loud-voiced friends and the silent enemies. Robespierre reads them the speech the Convention has heard in fearful silence and the Jacobins greet it with excited applause.

  ‘It is my dying testament,’ Robespierre declares. ‘You will see me drink the hemlock with fortitude.’

  ‘I shall drink it with you,’ answers David.

  ‘All of us will!’ shout the Jacobins, and they separate without deciding anything.

  Évariste, whilst the death of Robespierre was being prepared, slept the sleep of the disciples in the Garden of Geth-semane. Next day, he attended the Tribunal where two sections were sitting. That on which he served was trying twenty-one accused of being implicated in the plot at the Lazare prison. The case was still proceeding when the news arrived: ‘The Convention, after sitting for six hours, has accused Maximilien Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, together with Augustin Robe
spierre and Lebas who have demanded to share the fate of the first three accused. The trial of the five accused is now proceeding before the bar of the Convention.’

  News is also brought, the news that the President of the Section sitting in the next court, the Citizen Dumas, has been arrested on his bench, but that the case goes on. Drums can be heard beating the alarm, and the tocsin peals from the churches.

  Évariste is still on his bench when he is handed an order from the Commune to present himself at the Hôtel de Ville to sit on the General Council. To the sound of the bells and the drums, he and his colleagues record their verdict and he runs home to embrace his mother and get his scarf of office. The Place de Thionville is deserted. The Commune of the the Section is afraid to vote either for or against the Convention. People keep close to walls, slip down side streets, sneak indoors. The call of the tocsin and the general alarm is answered by the noise of shutters being barred and doors bolted. The Citizen Dupont aîné has hidden himself in his shop; Remacle the porter has barricaded himself in his lodge. Little Joséphine holds Mouton in her trembling arms. The widowed Citizeness Gamelin bewails the cost of food, which has caused all this trouble. At the foot of the stairs, Évariste meets Élodie out of breath, the locks of her black hair clinging to her moist neck.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you at the Tribunal, but you had left. Where are you going?’

  ‘To the Hôtel de Ville.’

  ‘You mustn’t! It will ruin you. Hanriot has been arrested… the Sections won’t do a thing to help. Even the Section des Piques, Robespierre’s own Section, will do nothing. I know it for certain: my father belongs to it. If you go to the Hôtel de Ville, you will be throwing your life away for nothing’.

  ‘You want me to be a coward?’

  ‘Bravery is to be faithful to the Convention and to obey the law.’

  ‘The law is dead when scoundrels triumph.’

  ‘Évariste, listen to your Élodie; listen to your sister; come, sit beside her so that she can soothe your troubled heart.’

  He looked at her: never had she seemed to him so desirable; never had her voice sounded so seductively, so persuasively in his ears.

  ‘Come, two steps, only two steps, my dear.’

  And she pulled him towards the raised platform on which stood the pedestal of the overturned statue. Benches surrounded it, occupied by strollers of both sexes. A dealer in fancy goods was offering his laces, a seller of cooling drinks, carrying his cistern on his back, was ringing his bell; little girls were playing. The parapet was lined with anglers, motionless, rod in hand. The weather was stormy, the sky overcast. Gamelin leant on the low wall and looked down at the little island below, pointed like the prow of a ship; he listened to the wind whistling in the tree tops, and felt his soul filled with an ifinite longing for solitude and peace.

  And, like a delicious echo of his thought, he heard the sigh of Élodie’s voice:

  ‘Oh, my dear, do you remember those fields and how you wanted to be a justice of the peace in some little village? Yes, that would be happiness.’

  But above the roar of the wind in the trees and the voice of the girl beside him, he heard the tocsin and the beating of the drums, the distant tramp of horses and the rumbling noise of cannons being drawn along the pavingstones.

  Two paces from them, a young man, chatting with an elegantly dressed citizeness, said:

  ‘Have you heard the latest?… The Opéra has opened in the Rue de la Roi.’

  Meanwhile the news was spreading: Robespierre’s name was being whispered with a shudder, for men feared him still. And the women, on hearing the muttered news of his fall, quickly concealed their joy.

  Évariste Gamelin seized Élodie’s hand and then quickly dropped it again brusquely.

  ‘Adieu! I have involved you in my terrible affairs, I have ruined your life forever. Adieu! May you be able to forget me!’

  ‘Make sure,’ she said to him, ‘you don’t go home tonight: come to the Amour Peintre. Don’t ring the bell; throw a stone at my shutters. I’ll come and open the door myself; I’ll hide you in the attic.’

  ‘You will see me return in triumph, or you will never see me again. Adieu!’

  As he approached the Hôtel de Ville, Évariste heard the well remembered roar of the great days rising to the grey sky. In the Place de Grève the clash of arms, the glitter of uniforms, Hanriot’s cannon lined up. He climbs the grand staircase, and, entering the Council Hall, he signs the attendance register. The General Council of the Commune, by the unanimous vote of the four hundred and ninety-one members present, declares itself for the five accused.

  The Mayor has the Table of the Rights of Man brought in, reads the article in which it is written: ‘When the Government violates the Rights of the People, revolution is for the people their most sacred duty.’ And the Mayor of the Commune, the first Magistrate of Paris, announces that the Commune’s answer to the Convention’s act of violence is to raise the people of Paris against the Convention.

  The members of the General Council take oath to die at their posts. Two of the Commune’s officers are directed to go out into the Place de Grève and summon the people to join their magistrates in saving the fatherland and Liberty.

  Members search for one another, exchange news, give advice. Among these councillors, few are artisans. The Commune assembled here is what the Jacobin purge made it: judges and magistrates of the Revolutionary Tribunal, artists such as Beauvallet and Gamelin, well-to-do householders and college professors, citizens and tradesmen of means, powdered heads, fat stomachs, gold watch-chains, but very few sabots, striped trousers, carmagnoles and red caps.

  These bourgeois councillors are numerous and determined. But, when one comes to think of it, they are about all that Paris possesses of true Republicans. They are making their stand in the city’s Town Hall, as on a rock of liberty, but an ocean of indifference surrounds them.

  Good news arrives, however. All the prisons, where the five accused have been taken, have opened their doors and let out their victims. Augustin Robespierre, released from La Force, is the first to enter the Hôtel de Ville and is welcomed with cheers. It is learnt at eight o’clock that Maximilien Robespierre, after much persuasion, is coming also to the Hôtel de Ville. Everybody awaits him, he is going to come, he is coming; an overwhelming roar of acclamation shakes the vaulting of the old municipal palace.

  He enters, followed by twenty armed men. This little man, thin, spruce, in blue coat and yellow breeches: it is he. He takes his seat. He speaks.

  On his arrival the Council immediately orders the façade of the Hôtel de Ville to be illuminated. Where he is, the Republic is. He speaks in a thin voice, choosing his phrases with elegance. He speaks lucidly, at length. Those listening to him, who have staked their lives on his head, realize, to their horror and dismay, that this is a man of words, a man of committees and tribunals, incapable of resolute decision and of revolutionary action.

  They lead him into the Hall of Deliberations. Now they are all there, these illustrious accused: Lebas, Saint-Just, Couthon. Robespierre speaks. It is half past midnight: he goes on speaking. Meanwhile, Gamelin, in the Council chamber, his forehead pressed against a window, looks out with anxious eyes: he sees the smoke rising from the flaming torches into the gloomy night. The cannons of Hanriot are lined up in front of the Hôtel de Ville. In the almost completely black Place de Grève an anxious crowd surges, in uncertainty and suspense. At half past twelve torches are seen coming round the corner of the Rue de la Vannerie, escorting a delegate from the Convention wearing the insignia of office. He unfolds a paper and reads, by the light of the torches, the decree of the Convention outlawing all members of the rebellious Commune, all members of the General Council who have abetted it, and all citizens who respond to its appeal.

  Outlawed! Death without trial! The mere thought turns the most determined pale. Gamelin feels an icy sweat on his forehead. He watches the crowd hastening with all speed from the Place de Grève.


  And turning his head he finds the Council chamber, but a moment ago packed with members, now almost empty.

  But they have fled in vain: their signatures witness to their presence.

  It is two o’clock in the morning. The Incorruptible is in the adjoining hall deliberating with the Commune and the accused representatives.

  Gamelin looks out in despair on the dark Place de Grève. By the light of the lanterns he can see the wooden candles above the grocer’s shop knocking together like nine-pins; the street lamps sway and swing: a strong wind has sprung up. A moment later, it begins to pour with rain: the square below is now entirely empty; those whom the dreadful decree of the Convention did not scatter, have now fled from the rain. Hanriot’s cannons are abandoned. And when flashes of lightning reveal the troops of the Convention debouching simultaneously from the Rue Antoine and from the Quai, the approaches to the Hôtel de Ville are deserted.

  At last Robespierre has decided to appeal from the decree of the Convention to his own Section, the Section des Piques.

  The General Council sends for swords, pistols, guns. But the clash of arms and breaking glass fills the building. The troops of the Convention sweep like an avalanche through the Hall of Deliberations and into the Council Chamber. A shot rings out: Gamelin sees Robespierre fall, his jaw shattered. He himself seizes his knife, the cheap knife which one day during the famine, had cut a loaf of bread in half for a starving mother and her child, and which one beautiful summer’s evening on a farm at Orangis had lain in Élodie’s lap as they played forfeits; he opens it and tries to plunge it into his heart, but the blade strikes a rib and closes on the handle. The catch gives way and two of his fingers are cut. Gamelin falls, the blood pouring from his wounds. He lies motionless, but feels himself becoming colder and colder. Feet trample on him and over the tumult of the terrible fighting above him, he hears distinctly the voice of the young dragoon, Henry, shouting: