Could his eye have been lit with animation as
he ascended the scaffold! Could his foot have then stepped with
confidence! Could he have gloried in his death! Poor mutilated worm,
agonised in body and in soul. Can it be ascribed to want of courage in
him, that his last moments were passed in silent agony and despair?
Honesty, moral conduct, industry, constancy of purpose, temperance in
power, courage, and love of country: these virtues all belonged to
Robespierre; history confesses it, and to what favoured hero does
history assign a fairer catalogue? Whose name does a brighter galaxy
adorn? With such qualities, such attributes, why was he not the
Washington of France? Why, instead of the Messiah of freedom, which he
believed himself to be, has his name become a bye-word, a reproach, and
an enormity? Because he wanted faith! He believed in nothing but
himself, and the reasoning faculty with which he felt himself to be
endowed. He thought himself perfect in his own human nature, and wishing
to make others perfect as he was, he fell into the lowest abyss of crime
and misery in which a poor human creature ever wallowed.
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