It was the evening of Wednesday, January 16th, 1793. The deputies of the nation were to vote, each publicly and by name, an enormous roll-call of hundreds of men; each was to come up the steps to the tribune, to face the vast audience that stretched from left to right of the riding-school, and to pronounce clearly his decision. Each was free, if he chose, to add to his declaration the motives that had determined it. The three great chandeliers that hung from the roof of the place were lit, affording a mellow, but insufficient, light in which the faces of the great throng, small dots of white on the black background, were but ill-distinguished. Upon the tribune itself a brighter light was turned. The sun had long set; the evening meal was over; at eight o’clock the interminable procession began. They came on one by one, arranged in groups according to their constituencies. They went up in turn the steps of the tribune from the right, voted in open voice, descended by the left. Among the first was Robespierre, because he was of those that sat for the capital. He made a speech (too long) to explain what he was about to do. He protested that if the penalty of death was odious to him, and if he had combatted it consistently as a general principle of law, yet did he now support if for this exceptional case. “I remain compassionate for the oppressed. I know nothing of that humanity which is for ever sacrificing whole peoples and protecting tyrants.... I vote for death.” One after another the deputies for Paris, the extreme men, the men of the Mountain, mounted those few steps, faced the great silent body of their colleagues, while those who had just voted before them were quietly seeking their places again, and those who were about to vote stood lined up before the steps upon the farther side, and one after the other gave his voice for death. Each after so declaring loudly his responsibility, his verdict, and his name, confirmed the whole by signing of a roll. The voice of Danton was heard, the harsh, but deep and strong, voice that was already the first in the country. He had sat all that day by the bedside of his wife, who was to die. He had but just come back from the frontiers and from the army. His huge body was broken with fatigue; his soul was heavy with grief; his powerful brain was aching from a lack of sleep. “I am no politician,” he shouted; “I vote for death.”