bunniesandbeheadings:At a time when the Convention was already in a high state of alarm he [Barère?]

bunniesandbeheadings:At a time when the Convention was already in a high state of alarm he [Barère?] had circulated a   list of five or six deputies. It was rumored that Robespierre intended to have them arrested as a little treat to himself, alleging their immorality as the motive of this proposed act of severity. Robespierre, informed of what was being imputed to him, asserted that such an idea was foreign to him, and, desirous of hurling it back at its authors, he maintained that it had originated with the majority of the Committee, which, he alleged, had pushed its cruelty so far as to seek to include thirty-two deputies in its latest proscription-list. In vain did those who spoke in defence of Robespierre’s innocence of the idea and his humanity protest that it was he who had opposed this more than rigorous measure, that he had torn up the list with his own hands and, apostrophizing the Committee, had said : “You are seeking to still further decimate the Convention ; I will not give my support to such action.” Robespierre had indeed spoken these words just as, making an attempt to leave the Committee, he had opened the door with the intention of being heard by the deputies and a large number of citizens, who, attracted by the noise of a quarrel in the bosom of the Committee, were waiting in the antechamber for the purpose of gratifying their curiosity thus aroused. Collot d’Herbois, furious at such hypocrisy, had sprung after Robespierre, seized him by his coat, and, dragging him towards him in order to bring him back into the room, exclaimed in his resounding voice, which, the door remaining ajar, was heard by all, both the Committee and the people outside: ”Robespierre is an infamous scoundrel, a hypocrite; He seeks to impute to us that of which he alone is capable. We love all our colleagues ; we carry all patriots in our hearts. There stands the man who seeks to butcher them one and all!” Thus vociferating, Collot d’Herbois still retained 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 of 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 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.Memoirs of Barras, Member of the Directory. V. 1  -- source link

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