On the 26th July Robespierre was met by unexpected opposition in the Convention. The next day he was decreed accused at the Convention, and Henriot deposed from the commandership of the National Guard; but there was a respite which a more ready man, a man of military instinct at least, might have used. Robespierre lacked that instinct; Henriot failed miserably in his attempt to crush the Convention. The armed sections of Paris, on being appealed to by the Convention, wavered and gave way, and Robespierre was arrested. In fact, Robespierre seems to have worn out the patience of the people by his continued executions. Had he proclaimed an amnesty after his Feast of the 157 Supreme Being, he would probably have had a longer lease of power; as it was he and his tail died on the 28th July.
There was nothing left to carry on the Revolution after this but a knot of self-seeking politicians of the usual type; they had only to keep matters going until they were ready for the dictator who could organise for his own purposes people and army, and who came in the shape of Napoleon. The proletarians were no longer needed as allies, and disunited, ignorant of principles, and used to trust to leaders, they could make no head against the Society, which they had shaken indeed, owing to its internal dissensions, but which they were not yet able to destroy.
One event only there remains to be mentioned, the attempt of Baboeuf and his followers to get a proletarian republic recognised; it has been called an insurrection, but it never came to that, being crushed while it was yet only the beginning of a propaganda. Baboeuf and his followers were brought to trial in April 1796. He and Darthes were condemned to death, but killed themselves 158 before the sentence could be carried out. Ten others were condemned to prison and exile; and so ended the first Socialist propaganda.
It is commonly said that Napoleon crushed the Revolution, but what he really did was to put on it the final seal of law and order. The Revolution