Danton tried to the last to cheer the friends around him--the ordinarily merry Camille Desmoulins who was grieving over his bride, Lucille; the poet Fabre, who affirmed that one of his accusers, who was also a poet, would doubtless steal his unprinted manuscripts and publish them under his own name. “Soon that will no longer worry you,” said Danton to him. The executions were quickly under way. The sun was setting, and Danton’s giant figure was silhouetted darkly against the evening sky. One of his friends wanted to embrace him but the executioner would not permit it. He wanted to finish his task before sundown. “Idiot,” said Danton to him, “Will you be able to prevent our heads from kissing each other in the basket?” For one moment he flinched when he thought of his young wife, “My beloved, shall I never see you again?” Then, with an effort, he exclaimed, “Come Danton, let there be no weakness,” and to the executioner, “Show my head to the people. It is worth it.” These were his last words. The curse uttered by Danton as he passed Robespierre’s house was fulfilled all too quickly. Before five months were up, Robespierre trod the same path, and the wagon was halted before his house to let the deposed Dictator see the mob in its fury sprinkling his door with the blood of a slaughtered ox. And now the earth began to tremble under David’s feet. He was to the last a devoted adherent of Robespierre. When the latter on the eve of his fall read to the Jacobins his defence which ended with the words, “I am ready to drink the poisoned cup,” David cried out “We will drink it with you.” He must have been thinking of his portrayal of the death of Socrates, but he probably hardly realized how imminent was the fall of the last great leader of the revolution and how very nearly he himself was involved in that fall. David, as we know, did not complete his painting of Bara. This was because he was planning for the Convention a festival in honor of the fallen drummer boy. He was a great master in the arrangement of such celebrations. With their carefully designed costumes, massed choirs, improvised statues and profusion of flowers and patriotic orations, they must have been astonishingly impressive, comparable only to the national festivals of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately these artistic manifestations of the revolution, which constituted an appreciable part of David’s life work, were in their nature transitory. David had set the date of the Bara festival for the 10th Thermidor (July 26, 1794). This was the very day of Robespierre’s downfall, and his execution took place two days later. Through this coincidence of date--or had David been warned?--he did not attend the sitting of the Convention on the 10th Thermidor. Had he done so, he would undoubtedly have been arrested and guillotined with Robespierre’s other adherents.