[Year 2
to the scaffold'; said 'he died for her with great joy.' Amid such fellow-travellers does Philippe arrive. For, be the month named Brumaire year 2 of Liberty, or November year 1793 of Slavery, the Guillotine goes always, Guillotine va toujours.
Enough, Philippe's indictment is soon drawn, his jury soon convinced. He finds himself made guilty of Royalism, Conspiracy and much else; nay, it is a guilt in him that he voted Louis's Death, though he answers, 'I voted in my soul and conscience.' The doom he finds is death forthwith; this present 6th dim day of November is the last day that Philippe is to see. Philippe, says Montgaillard, thereupon called for breakfast: sufficiency of 'oysters, two cutlets, best part of an excellent bottle of claret'; and consumed the same with apparent relish. A Revolutionary Judge, or some official Convention Emissary, then arrived, to signify that he might still do the State some service by revealing the truth about a plot or two. Philippe answered that, on him, in the pass things had come to, the State had, he thought, small claim; that nevertheless, in the interest of Liberty, he, having still some leisure on his hands, was willing, were a reasonable question asked him, to give a reasonable answer. And so, says Montgaillard, he lent his elbow on the mantle-piece, and conversed in an undertone, with great seeming composure; till the leisure was done, or the Emissary went his ways.
At the door of the Conciergerie, Philippe's attitude was erect and easy, almost commanding. It is five years, all but a few days, since Philippe, within these same stone walls, stood up with an air of graciosity, and asked King Louis, 'Whether it was a Royal Session, then, or a Bed of Justice?' Heaven!—Three poor blackguards were to ride and die with him: some say, they objected to such company, and had to be flung in neck and heels;[1] but it seems not true. Objecting or not objecting, the gallows-vehicle gets under way. Philippe's dress is remarked for its elegance; green frock, waistcoat of white piqué, yellow buckskins, boots clear as Warren: his air, as
- ↑ Forster, ii. 628; Montgaillard, iv. 141–57.
