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Robespierre being scared compilation

[Robespierre] told me that he was as timid as a child and always trembled when he approached the rostrum. Souvenirs sur Mirabeau (1832) by Etienne Dumont, page 251.

I was struck by the terror with which [Robespierre] seemed to be overcome on the day of the king's flight to Varennes; I found him in the afternoon at Pétion’s; where he said with concern that the royal family would not have taken this course without having a coalition in Paris which would order the Saint-Barthélemy of the patriots, and that he expected to be dead within twenty-four hours. Pétion and Brissot said, on the contrary, that the flight of the king was his loss, and that it was necessary to take advantage of it; that the dispositions of the people were excellent; that it would be better enlightened on the perfidy of the court by this approach than it would have been by the wisest of writings; that it was obvious to everyone, by this fact alone, that the king did not want the constitution he had sworn to; that it was time to ensure a more homogeneous one, and that it was necessary to prepare minds for the Republic. Robespierre, sneering as usual and biting his nails, asked what a Republic was! Mémoires de Madame Roland, volume 1, page 364-365.

On the day of the Champ de Mars Massacre, [Robespierre] came to the session of the Jacobins. There, the friends of liberty were assembled in very small number. The courtyard was soon filled with gunners and chasseurs des barrières, blind instruments of the furies of Lafayette and of his partisans. Robespierre trembled with fear when crossing this courtyard in order to make his way after the session, and, hearing these soldiers vomiting imprecations and threats against the Jacobins, he was obliged, in order to support himself, to take the hand of Lecointre de Versailles, in the uniform of a commander of the National Guard of Versailles, and of La Poype, who has since become divisional general, then member of the society. He did not dare to go to sleep in the rue Saintonge in the Marais, where he stayed at the house of Humbert. He asked Lecointe if he knew, in the vicinity of the Tuileries, some patriot who could give him an asylum for the night. Lecointe suggested the house of Duplay to him, and led him there. From this day on, he did not leave it anymore. Fréron’s notes on Robespierre, 1794-1795

I saw for a moment when [the jacobin club] was composed of only three members of the National Assembly and twenty to thirty other citizens. Terror had dispersed the rest; it had dispersed several of the men who now play the leading roles there. Of the three members of the Assembly, one was little known. Robespierre, whose reputation was rooted in patriotism, nevertheless did not enjoy the kind of esteem that wisdom and moderation in the conduct of public affairs confer. I saw Robespierre trembling, Robespierre wanting to flee, Robespierre not daring to show himself before the Assembly... Ask him if I trembled. Discours de Jérôme Petion sur l'accusation intentée contre Maximilien Robespierre (November 1792), on Robespierre following the founding of the Feuillant club in July 1791.

Eh! What can one imagine that is too cruel from a scoundrel who caused his benefactors, M. and Mme. Roland, to perish on the scaffold, they who saved him after the event on the Champs-de-Mars, who risked everything to save his execrable life, who induced me, whose disinterestedness and, dare I say, virtuous character they knew, to sacrifice my reputation to the point of throwing myself into the Feuillans, to protect Robespierre from the blind anger of the enemies of the Republic: blind, I said; for the vile scoundrel was innocent of the generous movement that had arisen against Louis XVI. He trembled like a leaf shaken by the winds, and his little soul was as incapable of braving an obvious danger as of conceiving a project useful to the liberty of his country. What Madame and Monsieur Rolland wanted from me, I could have done for Pétion, but never for Robespierre, whom I despised with all my might. Mémoires sur la Révolution française, par Buzot, député à la Convention nationale (1828), page 163-164.

[Claire Lacombe] would have said one day, speaking with Lemoce about the members of the Committee of General Security: ”these blancs-becs must be made to tremble.” Another time, following a visit to the Committee of Public Safety, she would have told her that the representatives on mission in the departments had been enriching themselves there. After Lamoce observed the fact Robespierre had never gone on mission she responded: ”He is too cowardly and too afraid for his life. Did you notice how pale he was when I spoke to him? Fear was written all over his face." Denounciation against Claire Lacombe dated May 28 1794, cited in Trois femmes de la Révolution: Olympe de Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe (1900) by Léopold Lacour, page 412.

Often Carnot had threatened [Robespierre] point-blank, putting his fist under his nose; one evening Robespierre, a little too sharply attacked by Carnot, felt ill or pretended to feel ill. Dictionnaire néologique des hommes et des choses, ou Notice alphabétique des personnes des deux sexes, des événemens... (1799) by Beffroy de Reigny, volume 3, p. 11.

Collot d’Herbois still remained his hold on Robespierre’s coat-collar. As I had at that very moment left the Convention on my way to the committee, I became a chance spectator of this fearful scene, whose violence was still not the greatest crime in my eyes. Behind it stood revealed the plot of premeditated vengeance, far worse than a mere outburst of anger. I was among those who compelled Collot d’Herbois to release his hold on Robespierre, who thereupon declared that he could no longer sit with his enemies, styling them a party of septemvirs, whom he would unmask and fight in the body of the Convention. He then took his departure, in spite of the entreaties of the entreaties of the committee, which, having been unable to conquer, sought to retain him in its midst. ”Let him go his way,” I said to those surrounding him. All my interest in him lay in the fact that I did not wish to see him strangled on the spot by a stronger man, and one perhaps as wicked as himself. I followed him for a short distance in order to see him safely home; he was trembling as he walked alone. Memoirs of Barras, Member of the Directorate (1895), volume 1, page 196-198.

Robespierre became more somber; his sullen expression repelled everyone, he spoke only of assassination, again assassination, always assassination. He was frightened his own shadow would assassinate him. One month before his overthrow I had only set foot in his house and was given worried and threatening looks. Causes secrètes de la révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor (1794) by Joachim Vilate, page 38.

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