Danton had entered as Hébert sprang up. His loose shirt displayed the powerful bull-neck; his broad, rugged forehead and deep-set passionate eyes bespoke the rough power and magnetism of his personality. He came in quietly, nodding to a friend here and there, his arm through that of Camille Desmoulins, who, with dark hair tossed loosely from his beautiful brow, and strange eyes glittering with a visionary light, made an arresting figure even under Danton’s shadow. In happier days the one might have been prophet, ruler, or statesman; the other poet, priest, or dreamer of ardent dreams; but in the storm of the Red Terror they rose, they passed, they fell; for even Danton’s thunder failed him in the face of a tempest elemental as the crash of worlds evolving from chaos. He listened now, but did not speak, and Camille, at his side, flung out an eager arm. "The man must die!" he shouted in a clear, ringing voice. "The people call for his blood, France calls for his blood, the Convention calls for his blood. I demand it in the sacred name of Liberty. Let the scaffold of a King become the throne of an enduring Republic!" Robespierre looked up with an expression of calm curiosity. These wild enthusiasms, this hot-blooded ardour, how strange, how inexplicable, and yet at times how useful. He leaned across the table and began to speak in a thin, colourless voice that somehow made itself heard, and enforced attention. "Capet has had a fair trial at the hands of a righteous and representative Assembly. If the Convention is satisfied that he is innocent, maligned perhaps by men of interested motives"—there was a slight murmur of dissent—"or influenced to unworthy deeds by those around him, or merely ignorant—strangely, stupidly ignorant—the Convention will judge him. But if he has sinned against the Nation, if he has oppressed the people, if he has given them stone for bread, and starvation for prosperity—if he has conspired with Austria against the integrity of France in order to bolster up a tottering tyranny, why, then"—he paused whilst a voice cried, "Shall the people oppressed through the ages not take their revenge of a day?" and an excited chorus of oaths and execrations followed the words—"why, then," said the thin voice coldly, "still I say, the Convention will judge him." Maximilian Robespierre took up his pen and wrote on. Something in his words had fanned the scattered embers into flame, and strife ran high. Jules Dupuis, foul-mouthed and blasphemous, screamed out an edged tirade. Jean Bon boomed some commonplace of corroboration. Marat spat forth a venomous word or two. Robespierre folded the paper on which he wrote, and passed the note to Danton at his elbow. The great head bent, the deep eyes read, and lifting, fixed themselves on Robespierre’s pale face. It was a face as strange as pale. Below the receding brow the green, unwinking eyes held steady. The red spark trembled in them and smouldered to a blaze.