vengeance.

At this juncture, Robespierre was earnestly entreated by one of his
more resolute adherents, St Just, to play a bold game for the
dictatorship, which he represented as the only means of saving the
Republic from anarchy. Anonymous letters to the same effect also
poured in upon him; and prognostics of his greatness, uttered by an
obscure fortune-teller, were listened to by the great demagogue with
something like superstitious respect. But for this personal elevation
he was not prepared. Pacing up and down his apartment, and striking
his forehead with his hand, he candidly acknowledged that he was not
made for power; while the bare idea of doing anything to endanger the
Republic amounted, in his mind, to a species of sacrilege. At this
crisis in his fate, therefore, he temporised: he sought peace, if not
consolation, in solitude. He took long walks in the woods, where he
spent hours seated on the ground, or leaning against a tree, his face
buried in his hands, or earnestly bent on the surrounding natural
objects. What was the precise tenor of his meditations, it would be
deeply interesting to know. Did the great promoter of the Revolution
ponder on the failure of his aspirations after a state of human
perfectibility? Was he torn by remorse on seeing rise up, in
imagination, the thousands of innocent individuals whom, in
vindication of a theory, he had consigned to an ignominious and
violent death, yet whose removal had, politically speaking, proved
altogether fruitless?

It is the more general belief, that in these solitary rambles
Robespierre was preparing an oration, which, as he thought, should
silence all his enemies, and restore him to parliamentary favour. A
month was devoted to this rhetorical effort; and, unknown to him,