though, by a refinement of injustice, as well as an excess of false rhetoric, addressed to him in one continued apostrophe of general abuse an hour long, was delivered and adopted in his absence, while he was buried in the dungeons of the state prison. The Revolutionary Tribunal, for erecting which he asked pardon of God and man, having nothing like a specific charge before them, much less any evidence to convict, were daunted by his eloquence and his courage, which were beginning to make an impression upon the public mind, when the Committee sent St. Just down to the Convention with a second report, alleging a new conspiracy, called the Conspiration des Prisons-an alleged design of Danton and his party, then in custody, to rush out of the dungeons, and massacre the Committee, the Jacobin Club, and the patriots in the Convention; liberate young Capet, that is, Louis XVII., and place him in Danton's hands. Upon this most clumsy fabrication, every word of which refuted itself, it was at once decreed that the tribunal should proceed summarily, and prevent any of the accused being heard who should resist or insult the national justice -that is, who should persist in asserting his innocence.* Sentence and execution immediately followed. These circumstances made it apparent that Danton's supineness in providing for his own safety by attacking the Committee first, must have proceeded from the ascendant which the Triumvirate had gained over his mind. Originally he had a mean opinion of Robespierre, holding him void of the qualities which a revolutionary crisis demands. "Cet homme-là [was his phrase] ne saurait pas cuire des œufs durs"-(that man is capable of boiling eggs hard). But this opinion was afterwards so completely changed, that he was used to say, "Tout va bien tant qu'on dira Robespierre et Danton; mais malheur à moi si on dit jamais Danton et Robespierre"-(all will go well as long as men say "Robespierre and Danton;" but wo be to me if ever they should say " Danton and Robespierre"). Possibly he became sensible to the power of Robespierre's character, for ever persisting in extreme courses, and plunging onwards beyond any one, with a perfect absence of all scruples in his remorseless career. But his dread of *This proceeding, of stopping the accused's mouth when on his trial, was termed putting a person hors des débats. such a conflict as these words contemplate was assuredly much augmented by the feeling that the match must prove most unequal between his own honesty and openness, and the practised duplicity of the most dark, the most crafty of human beings. The impression thus become habitual on his mind, and which made him so distrustful of himself in a combat with an adversary like a rattlesnake, at once terrible and despicable, whose rattle gives warning of the neighbouring peril, may go far to account for his avoiding the strife till all precaution was too late to save him. But we must also take into our account the other habitual feeling, so often destructive of revolutionary nerves; the awe in which the children of convulsion, like the practisers of the dark art, stand of the spirit they have themselves conjured up; their instinctive feeling of the agonistic throes which they have excited and armed with such resistless energy. The Committee though both opposed and divided against itself, still presented to the country the front of the existing supreme power in the state; it was the sovereign de facto, and retained as such all those preternatural attributes that "do hedge in" monarchs even when tottering to their fall: it therefore impressed the children of popular change with the awe which they instinctively feel towards the Sovereign People. Hence Danton, viewing in Robespierre the personification of the multitude, could not at once make up his mind to fly in the face of this dread power; and his hesitation enabled his adversaries to begin the mortal fray, and win their last victory. Plainly, it was a strife in which the party that began was sure to carry the day. The history of Danton, as well as that of Robespierre, both those passages wherein they were successful, and those in which one fell beneath the power and the arts, the combined force and fraud, of the other, is well calculated to impress upon our minds that, in the great affairs of the world, especially in the revolutions which change its condition, the one thing needful is a sustained determination of character; a mind firm, persevering, inflexible, incapable of bending to the will of another, and ever controlling circumstances, not yielding to them. A quick perception of opportunities, a prompt use of them, is of infinite advantage: an indomitable boldness in danger is all but necessary: nevertheless Robespierre's career shows that it is not quite indispensable; while Danton's is a proof that a revolutionary chief may possess it, and may be destroyed by a momentary loss of nerve, or a disposition to take the law from others, or an inopportune hesitation in recurring to extreme measures. But the history of all these celebrated men shows that steady, unflinching, unscrupulous perseverance-the fixed and vehement will-is altogether essential to success. 66 Quod vult, id valde vult," said one great man formerly, of another, to whom it applied less strikingly than to himself, though he was fated to experience in his own person that it was far from being inapplicable to him of whom he said it. It was the saying of Julius Cæsar respecting Junius Brutus, and conveyed in a letter to one who, celebrated, and learned, and virtuous as he was, and capable of exerting both boldness and firmness upon occasion, was yet, of all the great men that have made their names illustrious, the one who could the least claim the same habitual character for himself. Marcus Tullius could never have risen to eminence in the Revolution of France, any 'more than he could have mingled in the scenes which disgracefully distinguished* it from those of Rome. CAMILLE DESMOULINS.-ST. JUST. THE great leaders whom we have been contemplating had each a trusty and devoted follower, Danton in Camille, and Robespierre in St. Just; and these in some sort resembled their chiefs, except only that St. Just was more enthusiastic than Robespierre, and was endowed with perfect courage, both physical and moral. Camille had long before the Revolution ardently embraced republican opinions, and only waited with impatience for an opportunity of carrying them into effective * The only respect, perhaps, in which this can justly be asserted is the profanation of judicial forms, and the deliberate course of misrule pursued in France by the leaders, and submitted to by the people. The massacres of Marius and Sylla were far more sanguinary, but they were the sudden effects of power-mere acts of military execution. The scene in France lasted much above a year. operation. He was a person of good education, and a writer of great ability. His works are, excepting the pamphlets of Siéyes, the only ones, perhaps, of that countless progeny with which the revolutionary press swarmed, that have retained any celebrity. The very names of the others have perished, while the periodical work of Camille, the Vieux Cordelier, is still read and admired. This exemption from the common lot of his contemporary writers, he owes not merely to the remarkable crisis in which his letters appeared, the beginning of general disgust and alarm at the sanguinary reign of the Triumvirate; these pieces are exceedingly well written, with great vigour of thought, much happy classical allusion, and in a style far more pure than the ordinary herd of those employed who pandered for the multitude. But the merit of Camille rises very much above any literary fame which writers can earn, or the public voice can bestow. He appears ever to have been a friend to milder measures than suited the taste of the times, and to have entirely agreed with Danton in his virtuous resistance to the reign of blood. At the very beginning of the Revolution he had contributed mainly to the great event which launched it, the attack upon the Bastille. He harangued the people, and then led them on, holding two loaded pistols in his hands. He also joined Danton in the struggle which the Mountain made against the Gironde, and is answerable for a large share in the proscription of that party, firmly believing, as Danton did, that their views were not purely revolutionary, and that their course must lead to a restoration of the monarchy. He was at first, too, a promoter of mob proceedings and the mobs that regulated them, his nickname being the "Procureur Général de la Lanterne" (Attorney-General of the Lamp-post). But there ended his share in the bloody tragedy which followed; and he regarded with insurmountable jealousy the whole proceedings of the Triumvirate. Nevertheless, Robespierre, who had resolved upon his destruction because of his intimate connexion with Danton, so far entered into his views of relaxing the speed of the proscriptions as to approve of the earlier numbers of the Vieux Cordelier, which he revised and corrected before their publication. There is even good reason for believing that Camille might have escaped the proscription which involved Danton and his party, through the disposition of Robespierre not having been very unfavourable to him, because it seems certain that his doctrine in favour of returning to more moderate courses was not so much dreaded by that terrible chief as by others, especially St. Just. But a sarcastic expression in which he indulged at the expense of that remorseless and vain fanatic, sealed his doom. St. Just was always puffed up with his sense of self-importance, and showed this so plainly in his demeanour, that Camille said he "carried his head like the holy sacrament"-" and I," said St. Just, on the sneer being reported to him, which has the merit of giving a very picturesque description of the subject, "and I will make him carry his head like St. Denis," alluding to the legend of that saint having walked from Paris to his grave carrying his head under his arm. Camille met death with perfect boldness, though his indignation at the gross perfidy and crying injustice to which he was sacrificed enraged him so as to make his demeanour less calm than his great courage would have prescribed, or than his friend Hérault de Sechelles desired. Montrons, mon ami," said he, "que nous savons mourir" (let us show, my friend, that we know how to die). 66 It is a remarkable circumstance in the history of Camille, that he was wholly precluded by an incurable hesitation from speaking in public, and consequently could take no part in debate. Nothing can show more conclusively than the station to which he rose in the annals of the Revolution, that oratory, mere speaking, bore a far more inconsiderable part in the conduct of affairs than it usually does in the administration of popular governments. The debates of the Convention were for the most part short, full of quick and sudden allusions, loaded with personalities and abounding in appeals to the popular feelings, but with few long or elaborate speeches. The principal pains appear to have been bestowed upon the reports of the Committees, which were eagerly listened to, and produced a great effect, by the importance of their subjects and the authority of the bodies from whom they proceeded. In general, the debates resembled more the practical discussions of men engaged in action than the declamations or the arguments of debaters. Thus oratory was of less avail than might have been expected in the action of so popular a government. It should seem that such a government must be settled |