<P> For the remainder of the night, Robespierre was laid on a table in the room of the Committee of Public Safety, where he awaited execution . He lay on the table bleeding profusely until a doctor was brought in to attempt to stanch the bleeding from his jaw . Robespierre's last recorded words may have been "Merci, monsieur" ("Thank you, sir") to a man who had given him a handkerchief for the blood on his face and clothing . Later, Robespierre was placed in the cell where Marie Antoinette, the wife of King Louis XVI, had been held . </P> <P> The same day, 28 July 1794, in the afternoon, Robespierre was guillotined without trial in the Place de la Révolution . His brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint - Just, Hanriot, and twelve other followers, among them the cobbler Antoine Simon, the jailor of Louis - Charles, Dauphin of France, were also executed . When clearing Robespierre's neck, the executioner tore off the bandage that was holding his shattered jaw in place, causing Robespierre to produce an agonised scream until the fall of the blade silenced him . Together with those executed with him, he was buried in a common grave at the newly opened Errancis Cemetery (near what is now the Place Prosper - Goubaux). A plaque indicating the former site of this cemetery is located at 97 rue de Monceau, Paris . Between 1844 and 1859 (probably in 1848), the remains of all those buried there were moved to the Catacombs of Paris . </P> <P> At the time of his death, Robespierre had no debts, and his property was sold at auction in the Palais Royal early in 1796, fetching 38,601 livres (over £ 100). </P> <P> Robespierre's reputation has gone through several cycles of re-appraisal . During the Soviet era, he was used as an example of a Revolutionary figure . It peaked in the 1920s after the influential French historian Albert Mathiez argued that he was an eloquent spokesman for the poor and oppressed, an enemy of royalist intrigues, a vigilant adversary of dishonest and corrupt politicians, a guardian of the French Republic, an intrepid leader of the French Revolutionary government, and a prophet of a socially responsible state . In more recent times, his reputation has suffered as historians have associated him with an attempt at a radical purification of politics through the killing of enemies . In 1989, historian Francois Furet argued that this reappraisal of Robespierre has been technically inaccurate: </P>

Many revolutionaries believe that the birth of the republic can only be born with