Among men of sense, his ornate declamations concerning nature and reason would have excited little more attention than that which is usually given to poetic and speculative fancies.

ing, a madman, who in his ravings had glanced an attribute of genius. To do the honourable on the truth, but only glanced. member for Artois justice, he was above this affectation. Small and neat in person, he always appeared in public tastefully dressed, according to the fashion of the period-hair well combed back, frizzled, and powdered; copious frills at the breast and wrists; "a stainless white waistcoat; light-blue coat, with metal buttons; the sash of a representative tied round his waist; light coloured breeches, white stockings, and shoes with silver buckles. Such was his ordinary costume; and if we stick a rose in his button-hole, or place a nosegay in his hand, we shall have a tolerable idea of his whole equipment. It is said he sometimes appeared in top-boots, which is not improbable; for this kind of boot had become fashionable among the republicans, from a notion that as top-boots were worn by gentlemen in England, they were allied to constitutional government. Robes pierre's features were sharp, and enlivened by bright and deeply-sunk blue eyes. There was usually a gravity and intense thoughtfulness in his countenance, which conveyed an idea of his being thoroughly in earnest. Yet, his address was not unpleasing. Unlike modern French politicians, his face was always smooth, with no vestige of beard or whiskers. Altogether, therefore, he may be said to have been a well-dressed, gentlemanly man, animated with proper self-respect, and having no wish to court vulgar applause by neglecting the decencies of polite society.

Amidst an impulsive and lively people, unaccustomed to the practical consideration and treatment of abuses, there arose a cry to destroy, root up; to sweep away all preferences and privileges; to bring down the haughty, and raise the depressed; to let all men be free and equal, all men being brothers. Such is the origin of the three words-liberty, equality, and fraternity, which were caught up as the charter of social intercourse. It is forever to be regretted that this explosion of sentiment was so utterly destructive in its character; for therein has it inflicted immense wrong on what is abstractedly true and beautiful. At first, as will be remembered, the revolutionists did not aim at establishing a republic, but that form of government necessarily grew out of their hallucinations. Without pausing to consider that a nation of emancipated serfs were unprepared to take on themselves the duties of an enlightened population, the plunge was unhesitatingly made.

At this comparatively distant day, even with all the aids of the recording press, we can form no adequate idea of the fervor with which this great social overthrow was set about and accomplished. The best minds in France were in a state of ecstacy, bordering on delirium. A vast future of human happiness seemed to dawn. Tyranny, force, fraud, all the bad passions, were to disappear under the beneficent approach of reason. Among the enthusiasts who rushed into this marvellous frenzy, was Maximilian Robespierre. It is said by his biographers, that Robespierre was of English or Scotch origin; we have seen an account which traced him to a family in the north, of not a dissimilar name. His father, at all events, was an advocate at Arras, in French Flanders, and here Maximilian was born in 1759. Bred to the law, he was sent as representative to the States-General in 1789, and from this moment he entered on his career, and Paris was his home. At his outset, he made no impression, and scarcely excited public notice. His manners were singularly reserved, and his habits austre. The man lived within himself. | Brooding over the works of Rousseau, he indulged in the dream of renovating the moral world. Like Mohammed contriving the dogmas of a new religion, Robespierre spent days in solitude, pondering on his destiny. To many of the revolutionary leaders, the struggle going on was merely a political drama, with a Convention for the dénouement. To Robespierre, it was a philosophical problem; all his thoughts aimed at the ideal—at the apotheosis of human

Before entering on his public career in Paris, Robespierre had probably formed his plans, in which, at least to outward appearance, there A stern inwas an entire negation of self. corruptibility seemed the basis of his character; and it is quite true that no offers from the court, no overtures from associates, had power to tempt him. There was only one way by which he could sustain a high-souled indepen dence, and that was the course adopted in like circumstances by Andrew Marvel-simple wants, rigorous economy, a disregard of fine company, an avoidance of expensive habits. Now, this is the curious thing in Robespierre's history. Perhaps there was a tinge of pride in his living a life of indigence; but in fairness it is entitled to be called an honest pride, when we consider that the means of profusion were within his reach. On his arrival in Paris, he procured a humble lodging in the Marais, a populous district in the north-eastern faubourgs; but it being represented to him some time afterwards, that, as a public man, it was unsafe to expose himself in a long walk daily to and from this obscure residence, he removed to a house in the Rue St. Honoré, now marked No. 396, opposite the church of the Assumption. Here he found a lodging with M. Duplay, a respectable but humble cabinet-maker, who had become attached to the principles of the Revolution; and here he was joined by Let us take a look at his personal appear- his brother, who played an inferior part in ance. Visionaries are usually slovens. They public affairs, and is known in history as despise fashions, and imagine that dirtiness is" Younger Robespierre." The selection of this

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dwelling seems to have fallen in with Robespierre's notions of economy; and it suited his limited patrimony, which consisted of some rents irregularly paid by a few small farmers of his property in Artois. These ill-paid rents, with his salary as a representative, are said to have supported three persons-himself, his brother, and his sister; and so straitened was he in circumstances, that he had to borrow occasionally from his landlord. Even with all his pinching, he did not make both ends meet. We have it on authority, that at his death he was owing £160; a small debt to be incurred during a residence of five years in Paris, by a person who figured as a leader of parties; and the insignificance of this sum attests his remarkable self-denial.

the uncertainty of the morrow, prevented him from marrying her until the destiny of France was determined; but he only awaited the moment when the Revolution should be concluded, in order to retire from the turmoil and strife, marry her whom he loved, go to reside with her in Artois, on one of the farms he had saved among the possessions of his family, and there to mingle his obscure happiness in the common lot of his family.'

"The vicissitudes of the fortune, influence, and popularity of Robespierre effected no change in his simple mode of living. The multitude came to implore favor or life at the door of his house, yet nothing found its way within. The private lodging of Robespierre consisted of a low chamber, constructed in the Lamartine's account of the private life of form of a garret, above some cart-sheds, with Robespierre in the house of the Duplays is the window opening upon the roof. It afforded exceedingly fascinating, and we should sup- no other prospect than the interior of a small pose is founded on well-authorised facts. The court, resembling a wood-store, where the house of Duplay, he 66 says, was low, and in a sounds of the workmen's hammers and saws court surrounded by sheds filled with timber constantly resounded, and which was continand plants, and had almost a rustic appearance.ually traversed by Madame Duplay and her It consisted of a parlor opening to the court, and communicating with a sitting-room that looked into a small garden. From the sittingroom a door led into a small study, in which was a piano. There was a winding-staircase to the first floor, where the master of the house lived, and thence to the apartment of Robespierre."

Here, long acquaintance, a common table, and association for several years, "converted the hospitality of Duplay into an attachment that became reciprocal. The family of his landlord became a second family to Robespierre, and while they adopted his opinions, they neither lost the simplicity of their manners nor neglected their religious observances. They consisted of a father, mother, a son yet a youth, and four daughters, the eldest of whom was twenty-five, and the youngest eighteen. Familiar with the father, filial with the mother, paternal with the son, tender and almost brotherly with the young girls, he inspired and felt in this small domestic circle all those sentiments that only an ardent soul inspires and feels by spreading abroad its sympathies. Love also attached his heart, where toil, poverty, and retirement had fixed his life. Eléonore Duplay, the eldest daughter of his host, inspired Robespierre with a more serious attachment than her sisters. The feeling, rather predilection than passion, was more reasonable on the part of Robespierre, more ardent and simple on the part of the young girl. This affection afforded him tenderness without torment, happiness without excitement; it was the love adapted for a man plunged all day in the agitation of public life-a repose of the heart after a mental fatigue. He and Eléonore lived in the same house as a betrothed couple, not as lovers. Robespierre had demanded the young girl's hand from her parents, and they had promised it to him.

"The total want of fortune,' he said, and

daughters, who there performed all their household duties. This chamber was also separated from that of the landlord by a small room common to the family and himself. On the other side were two rooms, likewise attics, which were inhabited, one by the son of the master of the house, the other by Simon Duplay, Robespierre's secretary, and the nephew of his host.

"The chamber of the deputy contained only a wooden bedstead, covered with blue damask ornamented with white flowers, a table, and four straw-bottomed chairs. This apartment served him at once for a study and dormitory. His papers, his reports, the manuscripts of his discourses, written by himself in a regular but labored hand, and with many marks of erasure, were placed carefully on deal shelves against the wall. A few chosen books were also ranged thereon. A volume of Jean Jacques Rousseau, or of Racine, was generally open upon his table, and attested his philosophical and literary predilections."

With a mind continually on the stretch, and concerned less or more in all the great movements of the day, the features of this remarkable personage "relaxed into absolute gayety when in-doors, at table, or in the evening, around the wood-fire in the humble chamber of the cabinet-maker. His evenings were all passed with the family, in talking over the feelings of the day, the plans of the morrow,the conspiracies of the aristocrats, the dangers of the patriots, and the prospects of public felicity after the triumph of the revolution. Sometimes Robespierre, who was anxious to cultivate the mind of his betrothed, read to the family aloud, and generally from the tragedies of Racine. He seldom went out in the evening; but two or three times a year he escorted Madame Duplay and her daughter to the theatre. On other days, Robespierre retired early to his chamber, lay down, and rose again at night to work.

The innumerable discourses he had delivered ill manifested. At the outset, they counte

in the two National Assemblies, and to the Jacobins; the articles written for his journal while he had one; the still more numerous manuscripts of speeches which he had prepared, but never delivered; the studied style so remarkable; the indefatigable corrections marked with his pen upon the manuscriptsattest his watchings and his determination.

nanced the disgraceful mobbings of the royal family; they gloried in the horrors of the 10th of August, and the humiliation of the king; and only began to express fears that things were going too far, when massacre became the order of the day, and the guillotine assumed the character of a national institution. They were finally borne down, as is well known, by the superior energy and audacity of their opponents; and all perished one way or other in the bloody struggle. Few pity them.

"His only relaxations were solitary walks in imitation of his model, Jean Jacques Rousseau. His sole companion in these perambulations was his great dog, which slept at his chamber- We need hardly recall the fact that the disdoor, and always followed him when he went cussions in the Convention were greatly influout. This colossal animal, well known in the enced by tumultuary movements out of doors. district, was called Brount. Robespierre was At a short distance were two political clubs, much attached to him, and constantly played the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, and there with him. Occasionally, on a Sunday, all the everything was debated and determined on. Of family left Paris with Robespierre; and the these notorious clubs, the most uncompromising politician, once more the man, amused himself was the Jacobins; consequently its principal with the mother, the sisters, and the brother members were to be found among the party of Eléonore in the wood of Versailles or of of the Montagnards. During the hottest time Issy." Strange contradiction! The man who of the revolution, the three men most distinis thus described as so amiable, so gentle, so guished as Montagnards and Jacobins were satisfied with the humble pleasures of an ob- Marat, Danton, and Robespierre. Mirabeau, scure family circle, went forth daily on a self- the orator of the revolution, had already disimposed mission of turbulence and terror. Let appeared, being so fortunate as to die naturally, us follow him to the scene of his avocations. before the practice of mutual guillotining was Living in the Rue St. Honoré, he might be established. After him, Vergniaud, the leader seen every morning on his way, by one of the of the Girondists, was perhaps the most effec narrow streets which led to the rooms of the tive speaker; and till his fall he possessed a National Assembly or Convention, as the legis- commanding influence in the Convention. lative body was called, after the deposition of Danton was likewise a speaker of vast power, Louis XVI. The house, so occupied, was and, from his towering figure, he seemed like situated on a spot now covered by the Rue a giant among pigmies. Marat might be Rivoli, opposite the gardens of the Tuileries. termed the representative of the kennel. He In connection with it were several apartments was a low demagogue, flaunting in rags, dirty used by committees; and there, by the leading and venomous; he was always calling out for members of the house, the actual business of more blood, as if the grand desideratum was the nation was for a long time conducted. It the annihilation of mankind. Among the was by the part he played in one of these for- extreme men, Robespierre, by his eloquence, midable committees, that of "Public Safety" his artifice, and his bold counsels, contrived to -more properly, public insecurity-that he maintain his position. This was no easy becomes chargeable with his manifold crimes. matter, for it was necessary to remain firm and For the commission of these atrocities, how-unfaltering in every emergency. He, like the ever, he held himself to be entirely excused; and how he could possibly entertain any such notion, remains for us to notice.

others at the helm of affairs, was constantly impelled forward by the clubs, but more so by the incessant clamours of the mob. At the The action of the revolution was in the hands Hôtel de Ville sat the Commune, a crew of of three parties, into which the Convention bloodthirsty villains, headed by Hebert; and was divided-namely, the Montagnards, the this miscreant, with his armed sections, accom Girondists, and the Plaine. The last mentioned panied by paid female furies, beset the Conwere a comparatively harmless set of persons, vention, and carried measures of severity by who acted as a neutral body, and leaned one sheer intimidation. Let it further be rememway or the other, according to their convictions, bered that, in 1793, France was kept in appre but whose votes it was important to obtain. hension of invasion by the allies under the Between the Montagnards and the Girondists Duke of Brunswick, and the army of emigrant there was no distinct difference of principle-noblesse under the command of Condé. The both were keen republicans and levellers; but hovering of these forces on the frontiers, and in carrying out their views, the Montagnards their occasional successes, produced a constant were the most violent and unscrupulous. The alarm of counter-revolution, which was believed Girondists expected that, after a little preli- to be instigated by secret intriguers in the minary harshness, the republic would be estab- very heart of the Convention. It was alleged lished in a pacific manner; by the force, it may by Robespierre in his greatest orations, that be called of philosophic conviction, spreading the safety of the republic depended on keeping through society. They were thus the moder-up a wholesome state of terror; and that all ates; yet their moderation was unfortunately who, in the slightest degree, leaned towards

clemency, sanctioned the work of intriguers, | confederate of Hebert, and a mouthpiece of the and ought, accordingly, to be proscribed. By rabble, had, by consent of the Convention. such harangues in the main, miserable so- established paganism, or the worship of reason, phistry-he acquired prodigious popularity, and I was in fact irresistible.

as the national religion. Robespierre never gave his approval to this outrage, and took the earliest opportunity of restoring the worship of the Supreme. It is said, that of all the missions with which he believed himself to be charged, the highest, the holiest, in his eyes, was the regeneration of the religious sentiment of the people; to unite heaven and earth by this bond of a faith which the republic had broken, was for him the end, the consummation of the revolution. In one of his paroxysms, he delivered an address to the Convention, which induced them to pass a law, acknowledging the existence of God, and ordaining a public festival to inaugurate the new religion. This fête took place on the 8th of June, 1794. Robespierre headed the procession to the Champ de Mars; and he seemed on the occasion to have at length reached the grand realisation of all his hopes and desires. From this coup de théâtre he returned home, magnified in the estimation of the people, but ruined in the eyes of the Convention. His conduct had been too much that of one whose next step was to the restoration of the throne, with himself as its occupant. By Fouché, Tallien, Collot d'Herbois, and some others, he was now thwarted in all his schemes. His wish was to close the Reign of Terror and allow the new moral world to begin; for his late access of devotional feeling had, in reality, disposed him to adopt benign and clement measures. But to arrest carnage was now beyond his power; he had invoked a demon which would not be laid. Assailed by calumny, he made the Convention resound with his speeches; spoke of fresh proscriptions to put down intrigue; and spread universal alarm among the members. In spite of the most magniloquent orations, he saw that his power was nearly gone. Sick at heart, he began to absent himself from committees, which still continued to send to the scaffold numbers whose obscure rank should have saved them from suspicion or vengeance.

Thus was legalised the Reign of Terror, which, founded in false reasoning and insane fears, we must, nevertheless, look back upon as a thing, at least to a certain extent, reconcilable with a sense of duty; inasmuch as even while signing warrants for transferring hundreds of people to the revolutionary tribunalwhich was equivalent to sending them to the scaffold-Robespierre imagined that he was acting throughout under a clear, an imperious necessity; only ridding society of the elements that disturbed its purity and tranquillity. Stupendous hallucination! And did this fanatic really feel no pang of conscience? That will afterwards engage our consideration. Frequently he was called on to proscribe and execute his most intimate friends; but it does not appear that any personal consideration ever stayed his proceedings. First, he swept away royalists and aristocrats; next, he sacrificed the Girondists; last, he came to his companionJacobins. Accusing Danton and his friends of a tendency to moderation, he had the dexterity to get them proscribed and beheaded. When Danton was seized, he could hardly credit his senses; he who had long felt himself sure of being one day dictator by public acclamation, and to have been deceived by that dreamer, Robespierre, was most humiliating. But Robespierre would not dare to put him to death! Grave miscalculation! He was immolated like the rest; the crowd looking on with indifference. Along with him perished Camille Desmoulins, a young man of letters, and a Jacobin, but convicted of advocating clemency. Robespierre was one of Camille's private and most valued friends; he had been his instructor in politics, and had become one of the trustees under his marriage-settlement. Robespierre visited at the house of his protégé; chatted with the young and handsome Madame Desmoulins at her parties; and frequently dandled the little Horace Desmoulins on his knee, and At this juncture, Robespierre was earnestly let him play with his bunch of seals. Yet, entreated by one of his more resolute adherents, because they were adherents of Danton, he St. Just, to play a bold game for the dictatorsent husband and wife to the scaffold within a ship, which he represented as the only means few weeks of each other! What eloquent and of saving the republic from anarchy. Anonytouching appeals were made to old recollections mous letters to the same effect also poured in by the mother of Madame Desmoulins! Ro- upon him; and prognostics of his greatness, bespierre was reminded of little Horace, and uttered by an obscure fortune-teller, were lisof his duty as a family guardian. All would tened to by the great demagogue with somenot do. His heart was marble; and so the thing like superstitious respect. But for this wretched pair were guillotined. Camille's let-personal elevation he was not prepared. Pacing ter to his wife, the night before he was led to up and down his apartment, and striking his the scaffold, cannot be read without emotion. forehead with his hand, he candidly acknowHe died with a lock of her hair clasped con-ledged that he was not made for power; while vulsively in his hand.

Having thus cleared away to some extent all those who stood in the way of his views, Robespierre bethought himself of acting a new part in public affairs, calculated, as he thought, to dignify the republic. Chaumette, a mean

the bare idea of doing anything to endanger the republic amounted, in his mind, to a species of sacrilege. At this crisis in his fate, therefore, he temporised; he sought peace, if not consolation, in solitude. He took long walks in the woods, where he spent hours seated on

small piece of paper, contained in a glass frame; and, at this distance of time, could not fail to excite an interest in visitors. The few lines of writing commencing with the stirring words,

only a part of the subscription. The letters, Robes, were all that were appended, and were followed by a blur of the pen; while the lower part of the paper showed certain discolorations, as if made by drops of blood. And so this was the last surviving token of the notorious

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the ground, or leaning against a tree, his face | which was to be seen among other relics of buried in his hands, or earnestly bent on the the great Revolution. The curiosity in quessurrounding natural objects. What was the tion was the proclamation, in the handwriting of precise tenor of his meditations, it would be Robespierre, to which he was in the act of indeeply interesting to know. Did the great scribing his signature, when assaulted and promoter of the revolution ponder on the fail-made prisoner in the Hôtel de Ville. It was a ure of his aspirations after a state of human perfectibility? Was he torn by remorse on seeing rise up, in imagination, the thousands of innocent individuals, whom, in vindication of a theory, he had consigned to an ignominious" Courage, mes compatriotes!" ended with and violent death, yet whose removal had, politically speaking, proved altogether fruitless? It is the more general belief that in these solitary rambles Robespierre was preparing an oration, which, as he thought, should silence all his enemies, and restore him to parliamentary favor. A month was devoted to this rhe-Robespierre! It is somewhat curious, that no torical effort; and, unknown to him, during historian seems to be aware of its existence. that interval all parties coalesced, and adopted the resolution to treat his oration when it came Stretched on a table in one of the anterooms with contempt, and at all hazards to have him of the Convention; his head leaning against a proscribed. The great day came, July 26 chair; his fractured jaw supported by a hand(8th Thermidor), 1794. His speech, which he read from a paper, was delivered in his best style-in vain. It was received with yells and hootings; and, with dismay, he retired to deliver it over again-as if to seek support among a more subservient audience. Next day, on entering the Convention, he was openly accused by Tallien and Billaud-Varennes of aspiring to despotic power. A scene of tumult ensued, and, amid cries of Down with the tyrant! a writ for his committal to prison was drawn out. It must be considered a fine trait in the character of Robespierre the younger, that he begged to be included in the same decree of proscription with his brother. This wish was readily granted; and St. Just, Couthon (who had lost the use of his legs, and was always At three o'clock in the afternoon (July 28), carried about in an arm-chair), and Le Bas, the prisoners were placed before the Revoluwere added to the number of the proscribed. tionary Tribunal, and at six, the whole were Rescued, however, from the gendarmes by an tied in carts, the dead body of Le Bas included, insurrectionary force, headed by Barras, Ro- and conducted to execution. To this wretched bespierre and his colleagues were conducted band were added the whole family of the Duin triumph to the Hôtel de Ville. Here, dur-plays, with the exception of the mother; she ing the night, earnest consultations were held; having been strangled the previous night by and the adherents of Robespierre implored him female furies, who had broken into her house, in desperation, as the last chance of safety for and hung her to the iron rods of her bedstead. them all, to address a rousing proclamation to They were guiltless of any political crime; but the sections. At length, yielding unwillingly their private connection with the principal obto these frantic appeals, he commenced writing ject of proscription was considered to be sufthe required address; and it was while sub-ficient for their condemnation. The circumscribing his name to this seditious document, stance of these individuals being involved in that the soldiers of the Convention burst in his fate could not fail to aggravate the bitterupon him, and he was shot through the jawness of Robespierre's reflections. As the disby one of the gendarmes. At the same moment, Le Bas shot himself through the heart. All were made prisoners, and carried off-the dead body of Le Bas not excepted.

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kerchief passed round the top of his head; a glass with vinegar and a sponge at his side to moisten his feverish lips; speechless and almost motionless, yet conscious!-there lay Robes pierre-the clerks, who, a few days ago, had cringed before him, now amusing themselves by pricking him with their penknives, and coarsely jesting over his fall. Great crowds, likewise, flocked to see him while in this undignified posture, and he was overwhelmed with the vilest expressions of hatred and abuse. The mental agony which he must have experienced during this humiliating exhibition, could scarcely fail to be increased on hearing himself made the object of unsparing and boisterous declamations from the adjoining tribune.

mal cortege wended its way along the Rue St. Honoré, he was loaded with imprecations by women whose husbands he had destroyed, and the shouts of children, whom he had deprived of parents, were the last sounds heard by him While residing for a short time in Paris in on earth. Yet he betrayed not the slightest 1849, we were one day conducted by a friend emotion-perhaps he only pitied the ignorance to a large house, with an air of faded gran- of his persecutors. In the midst of the feeldeur, in the eastern faubourgs, which had be-ings of a misunderstood and martyred man, longed to an aged republican, recently deceased. his head dropped into the basket!

He wished me to examine a literary curiosity, These few facts and observations respecting