how far he really entertained any of the levelling principles, which inspired and guided the authors of the first Revolution. His nature was singularly alien from any warmth of temper likely to engender enthusiasm; yet he may, from his misanthropic feelings and hatred of all above him, have really acquired something like a zealous antipathy to the established institutions of the country, and something_approaching to a fanatical desire for their subversion. It is very possible that at first such feelings may have influenced his conduct; and it is certain that the gratification of his prevailing propensities-first, the thirst of distinction, then the love of power-was quite compatible with indulging in these hostile feelings; nay, that the two indulgences were such as mutually to aid and to pander for each other. The political and religious enthusiasm which some lenient critics of his life have ascribed to him, had assuredly no other existence. It would be very greatly to exalt his character were we to give him credit for any thing like fanaticism in the more ordinary acceptation of the term.

That he went fully into the system of proscription, at least for a certain period, cannot be doubted; but there seems every reason to disbelieve the remark wittily made after Danton's death, "Que Robespierre avait mis la Convention en coupe réglée"-(that he treated the Convention like a forest which was to be cut down successively by fixed portions.) On the contrary, it appears unquestionable that he had become really alarmed at the rapid progress of legal execution, and was desirous of stopping, but was embarrassed with the extreme difficulty and even danger of doing so, and thus was placed between two great perils, or two fears, when he found himself, like Macbeth,

"So far in blood stept in

That turning were as tedious as go o'er."

His absenting himself for six weeks not only from the Convention, but from the Committee of Public Safety, only at tending the Jacobin Club, and preparing that extraordinary speech which he delivered on the day before his downfall, is a fact which cannot fail to operate in his favour; and although he most probably was kept informed, by Couthon and St. Just, of all that passed, he certainly has, in consequence of his absence, considerably less responsibility than his colleagues for the dreadful carnage which attended the

close of the Decemviral reign. Napoleon told Mr. O'Meara, whose authority is wholly unimpeachable,* that he had himself seen letters of Robespierre to his brother, representative of the people with the army of Nice, which proved his determination to bring the Reign of Terror to an end. That he was cut off in the midst of some such plan, which he wanted nerve to execute, is highly probable. That he was condemned without a hearing, and clamoured down by an intrigue of his colleagues Billaud and Collot, whose destruction he had planned, appears to be quite certain. When Cambacérès, an acute observer, and a perfectly candid witness, was asked his opinion of the 9th Thermidor by Napoleon, whose estimate of Robespierre was not unfavourable, he said, "C'était un procès jugé, mais non plaidé." And he added that the speech of the day before, which began the struggle, was "filled with the greatest beauties" (tout rempli des plus grandes beautés). To his habitual and constitutional want of courage it seems clear that the tyrant's fall must be ascribed. His heart failed not in the Convention when he vainly strove to be heard, and ended by exclaiming, "Encore une fois! Veux tu m'entendre, Président d'assassins?" But his time was now past for resisting the plot of his adversaries, and saving himself by destroying them. He had not in time taken his line, which was to sacrifice Billaud and Collot, and perhaps Tallien; and then at once to close the Reign of Terror and abolish the Revolutionary Tribunal. This course required a determination of purpose and a boldness of execution which were foreign to his mean nature, happily for the instruction of mankind; because had he, like Sylla, survived the bloody tyranny in which he had ruled, and, much more, had he laid down the rod, like the champion of the Roman aristocracy, the world, ever prone to judge by the event, and to esteem more highly them that fail not, would have held a divided opinion, if not pronounced a lenient judgment, upon one of the most execrable and most despicable characters recorded in the annals of our race.

In fine, that he was, beyond most men that ever lived,

*I happen to know facts unknown to Mr. O'Meara when he was writing Napoleon's allusions to those same facts, e. g. Secret Negotiations with Spain in 1806; and thus those allusions were to him unintelligible.

hateful, selfish, unprincipled, cruel, unscrupulous, is undeniable. That he was not the worst of the Jacobin group may also be without hesitation affirmed. Collot d'Herbois was probably worse; Billaud Varennes certainly, of whom it was said by Garat, "Il fauche dans les têtes, comme un autre dans les prés"-(he mows down heads as another would grass.) But neither of these men had the same fixity of purpose, and both were inferior to him in speech. Both, however, and indeed all the revolutionary chiefs, were his superiors in the one great quality of courage; and while his want of boldness, his abject poverty of spirit, made him as despicable as he was odious, we are left in amazement at his achieving the place which he filled, without the requisite most essential to success in times of trouble, and to regard as his distinguishing but pitiful characteristic the circumstance which leaves the deepest impression upon those who contemplate his story, and in which he is to be separated from the common herd of usurpers, that his cowardly nature did not prevent him from gaining the prize which, in all other instances, has been yielded to a daring spirit.

Such was Robespierre-a name at which all men still shudder. Reader, think not that this spectacle has been exhibited by Providence for no purpose, and without any use! It may serve as a warning against giving way to our scorn of creatures that seem harmless because of the disproportion between their mischievous propensities and their powers to injure, and against suffering them to breathe and to crawl till they begin to ascend into regions where they may be more noxious than in their congenial dunghill or native dust! No one who has cast away all regard to principle, and is callous to all human feelings, can be safely regarded as innocuous, merely because, in addition to other defects, he has also the despicable weakness of being pusillanimous and vile.

DANTON.

A MAN of Robespierre's character, and with his great defects as a revolutionary chief, may be able to raise himself in troublous times to great eminence, and possibly even to usurp supreme power, but he never can take the lead in bringing great changes about; he never can be a maker of the revolutions by which he may however profit. His rise to distinction and command may be gained by perseverance, by self-denial, by extreme circumspection, by having no scruples to interfere with his schemes, no conscience to embarrass, no feelings to scare him, above all, by taking advantage of circumstances, and turning each occurrence that happens to his account. These qualities and this policy may even enable him to retain the power which they have enabled him to grasp; but another nature and other endowments are required, and must be added to these, in order to form a man fitted for raising the tempest, and directing its fury against the established order of things. Above all, boldness, the daring soul, the callous nerves, the mind inaccessible to fear, and impervious to the mere calculations of personal prudence, almost a blindness sealing his eyes against the perception of consequences as well to himself as to others, is the requisite of his nature who would overturn an ancient system of polity, and substitute a novel regimen in its place. For this Robespierre was wholly unfit; and if any man can more than another be termed the author of the French Revolution, it is Danton, who possessed these requisites in perfection.

There can hardly a greater contrast be found between two individuals than that which this remarkable person presented in all respects to Robespierre. His nature was dauntless; his temper mild and frank; his disposition sociable; naturally rather kind and merciful, his feelings were only blunted to scenes of cruelty by his enthusiasm, which was easily kindled in favour of any great object; and even when he had plunged into bloodshed, none of the chiefs who directed those sad proceedings ever saved so many victims from the tempest of destruction which their machinations had let loose. Nor was there any thing paltry and mean

in his conduct on these occasions, either as to the slaughters which he encouraged or the lives which he saved. No one has ever charged him with sacrificing any to personal animosity, like Robespierre and Collot d'Herbois, whose adversaries fell before the Revolutionary Tribunal, or those against whom offended vanity made them bear a spite; and it is certain that he used his influence in procuring the escape of many who had proved his personal enemies. His retreat to Arcis-sur-Aube, after his refusal to enter the Committee of Public Safety, and finally his self-sacrifice by protesting against the sanguinary course of that terrible power, leave no doubt whatever resting upon his general superiority in character and in feelings to almost all the other chiefs.

His natural endowments were great for any part in public life, whether at the bar or in the senate, or even in war: for the part of a revolutionary leader they were of the highest order. A courage which nothing could quell; a quickness of perception at once and clearly to perceive his own opportunity, and his adversary's error; singular fertility of resources, with the power of sudden change in his course, and adaptation to varied circumstances; a natural eloquence springing from the true source of all eloquence— warm feelings, fruitful imagination, powerful reason, the qualities that distinguish it from the mere rhetorician's art, -but an eloquence hardy, caustic, masculine; a mighty frame of body;* a voice overpowering all resistance: these were the grand qualities which Danton brought to the prodigious struggle in which he was engaged; and ambition and enthusiasm could, for the moment, deaden within him those kindlier feelings which would have impeded or encumbered his progress to eminence and to power. That he was extremely zealous for the great change which he so essentially promoted, can admit of no doubt; and there is no reason whatever for asserting that his ambition, or any personal motive, overtopped his honest though exaggerated enthusiasm. The zeal of St. Just and Camille Desmoulins was, in all probability, as sincere as Danton's; but they,

It was his own expression, "La nature m'a donné en partage les forces athlétiques et la physiognomie âpre de la Liberté." (Nature has given me for my portion the athletic strength and harsh expression of Freedom.) He was marked with the small-pox like Robespierre, but had a masculine countenance, broad nostrils, forward lips, and a bold air, wholly unlike his.