We had hardly time to hope everything from
this blessed change before the tremendous news of Robespierre's
attempted suicide, then of his condemnation and execution,
reached us. The confusion produced in the prison was beyond all
description. The accused who had been tried and the accused who
had not been tried got mingled together. From the day of
Robespierre's arrest, no orders came to the authorities, no
death-lists reached the prison. The jailers, terrified by rumors
that the lowest accomplices of the tyrant would be held
responsible, and be condemned with him, made no attempt to
maintain order. Some of them--that hunchback man among the
rest--deserted their duties altogether. The disorganization was
so complete, that when the commissioners from the new Government
came to St. Lazare, some of us were actually half starving from
want of the bare necessities of life. To inquire separately into
our cases was found to be impossible. Sometimes the necessary
papers were lost; sometimes what documents remained were
incomprehensible to the new commissioners. They were obliged, at
last, to make short work of it by calling us up before them in
dozens. Tried or not tried, we had all been arrested by the
tyrant, had all been accused of conspiracy against him, and were
all ready to hail the new Government as the salvation of France.
In nine cases out of ten, our best claim to be discharged was
derived from these circumstances.
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