Thermidor (play)

The plot follows a young actor, Labussière (based on a historical person), who infiltrates the revolutionary Committee of Public Safety and saves its potential victims by destroying their files.

It was first staged on January 24, 1891[1] at the Comédie-Française with sets and costumes designed by the author, and executed by Eugène Carpezat, Philippe Chaperon, and others.

They became threatening to the point of riot, with noise, confusion, shouted threats to Sardou's life, and police finally called to clear the crowd away.

[2] The protesters were led by the socialist newspaper editor Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray and included the deputy Eugène Baudin.

It would reopen years later, March 3, 1896, at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, again starring Benoît-Constant Coquelin.

It is five in the morning, the month July (Thermidor), and on the banks of the River Seine in Paris, between the Isle Louvier and the Arsenal, the washerwomen come to rinse and beetle soiled linen.

Citizen Labussière, a former actor who has been appointed Registering Clerk to the Committee of Public Safety, comes to the banks of the Seine, accompanied by Lupin, for a purpose which requires the utmost secrecy.

Fabienne is seen surrounded by washerwomen who are about to throw her into the Seine because on hearing of the execution of an old abbess and a nun by the guillotine she had cried: "Jesus, what a horror!"

Labussière points out to the mob that Fabienne cannot be an aristocrat since she is engaged to marry Martial, who is a soldier of the Republic and a hero of the Battle of Fleurus.

She in turn mocks his antique surname of "Casca" and scoffs at the idea of rechristening their little boy Joseph by the terrible title of "Ça Ira," a quotation from a French revolutionary song which Bérillon has adopted to hide his own apathy and cowardice.

After a long discussion on the difficulties of the times and their mutual hopes, Bérillon goes out to attend a meeting of the Convention to keep up his reputation as a true sans-culotte.

After some talk, political and theatrical, Labussière tells them that he has retired temporarily from the stage because of a quarrel with a fellow actor who had denounced one of his companions.

He was tipsy and talked insolently to her, glorying in the downfall of her family and telling her, grossly, that she would be glad to clean his wife's shoes now.

Labussière is very much alarmed at this and asks Fabienne to disguise herself in a peasant girl's costume which Jacqueline provides from the theatre wardrobe.

A long scene ensues in which after much argument and persuasion Fabienne's love overcomes her sense of duty to religion, and she consents to flee with and marry Martial.

A police officer named Bouchard accuses Fabienne of having written the letter to the nuns as a way of warning them of their imminent arrest.

Act III In the office of the Registry of Prisoners (a dismantled room in Tuileries) the officials are assembled, waiting for Labussière.

Act IV In the lesser court of the Conciergerie, Debrun, Brault and others, jailers, turn-keys, National Guards, gendarmes and executioners, including the Chief Headsman, Sanson, are waiting to send the tumbrels containing the condemned prisoners forth to the guillotine.

Labussière is known to all as a government official, and has specially recommended himself to Madame and Mademoiselle Brault (the wife and daughter of the head jailer) by giving them free tickets to the theatre.

Through them a note is conveyed to Fabienne, a letter and a flower, bidding Martial an eternal farewell and telling him that the sight of her companion nuns going to prison has recalled her to her religious duty, and that they must wait to meet in heaven.

Tavernier enters and tells how the President of the Convention, Citizen René-François Dumas has been arrested on the bench, by order of the Committee of Public Safety.

Labussière and Martial take heart, supposing that the condemnations of the accused will be put off till the immediate matters in the Convention shall be settled.

This hope, however, is frustrated by an announcement that the President's chair has been taken by Citizen Maire and the trial of the prisoners has gone forward and the condemned are to be taken to the place of execution in the tumbrels.

An inspiration then seizes Labussière who declares that Fabienne is a nun who has broken her vows for the sake of her lover, Martial, and is entitled to stay of execution because she is pregnant.

Fabienne indignantly refuses to sign a document to this effect and upbraids Martial with trying to dishonour her in the eyes of God and of the world.

Fabienne, however, swears that she is a pure virgin and a nun, and calls Martial a liar, although confessing her love for him, ending by exclaiming: "Farewell, and thanks for what you have done for me!

Martial, driven to despair, rushes to drag her from the tumbrel, but is shot by Tavernier and falls dead, his last word being: "Fabienne."