with Gamble and Rayment—Didot, the paper-maker, had married a Miss Gamble, and this was probably her brother—to present 1315 francs for the families of the combatants. The September massacres, however, certainly horrified Watt, and so little did he make a secret of it, that Robespierre denounced the two Manchester delegates to the Jacobins as Pitt's emissaries. Watt, whom three years' schooling at Geneva had made fluent in French, was equal to the occasion. Springing on the platform, he pushed Robespierre aside, and "in a short but vehement speech completely silenced his formidable antagonist, carrying with him the feelings of the rest of the audience, who expressed their sense of his honest British spirit in a loud burst of applause," I have found no mention in Paris newspapers of this episode, nor of a challenge between Robespierre and Danton, when Watt acted as second to the latter, and on the ground effected a reconciliation by urging the loss to the cause of liberty if either combatant fell; but Southey must have had good authority for these statements.[1] On going back to his lodgings, Watt had a warning that his life was not safe, and we know that the incorruptible Robespierre was also the unforgiving Robespierre. He immediately left Paris without a passport, and with some dif-
- ↑ "Danton," may, however, have been a slip of the tongue or pen for "Brissot," who undoubtedly had quarrels with Robespierre.
