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orator who was the first organ and the very voice of liberty. And the Convention was right in expelling from the temple the corrupt, ambitious, faint-hearted man, who would have preferred a woman and his own grandeur to his native land.

It was on a dull day in autumn, in the tragical year 1794,-when France had almost finished exterminating herself,-it was then that, having killed the living, she set about destroying the dead, and banished her most glorious son from her heart, performing this last act of grief with savage joy. The agent of the law, charged with this hideous execution, uses, in his irregular, ignorant, and barbarous procès-verbal, which gives us a strange idea of the time, the following expressions, the orthography of which I have faithfully preserved: "The procession (cortége de la fête) having halted on the square before the Pantheon, one of the citizens, an usher of the Convention, advanced towards the entrance-door of the said Pantheon, and there read the decree that excludes from the same (décres qui exclus d'y celuy*) the remains of Honoré Riqueti Mirabeau, which have immediately been carried in a wooden coffin out of the inclosure of the said temple, and having been given to us, we have caused the said coffin to be transferred and deposited in the ordinary burial-place"... This place is no other than Clamart, the burial-ground for executed criminals, in the faubourg Saint-Marceau. The body was transferred thither during the night, and buried, without any indication, somewhere about the middle of the inclosure; and there, according to every probability, it still remains in the year 1848: so that Mirabeau has remained there in the convict burial-ground for more than half a century!†

We do not believe in the justice of everlasting punishments; and it is enough that this poor great man should have undergone an expiation of fifty years. Let us not doubt but France, when she shall see better days, will go and fetch the orator of the Revolution from the bosom of the earth, and place him again where he ought to remain, in his Pantheon, at the feet of the creators of the Revolution, Descartes, Rousseau, and Voltaire. The banishment was deserved, but the restoration is likewise just. Why should we envy him this material sepulchre, when he has a moral one in grateful memory, in the very heart of France ?

These words are left as specimens of the bad French to which the author has just alluded.-Translator.

Our young students who frequent this inclosure, now devoted to anatomical studies, should know that they are daily walking over Mirabeau's grave. He is still there in his leaden coffin. The centre of the inclosure has never been searched, but only the lateral part, along the walls, and there they have found, in their black robes, in a good state of preservation, some of the priests killed on the 2nd of September. It would be to the honour of the city of Paris to be the first to undertake the glorious task of discovering and rehabilitating Mirabeau, and, if he be not replaced in the Pantheon, of giving him, -what we cannot, without ingratitude, refuse him, at least a tomb..

CHAPTER XII.

INTOLERANCE OF THE TWO PARTIES.-ROBESPIERRE'S PROGRESS.

On the 7th of April, five days after the death of Mirabeau, Robespierre proposed and caused to be decreed that no member of the Assembly could be raised to the ministry during the four years following the

session.

No deputy of any importance durst make any objection; no protestation was made, either by the usual framers of the constitution (Thouret, Chapelier, &c.); or by the agitators on the left (Duport, Lameth, Bar. nave, and their party); but, without saying a word, they allowed themselves to be deprived of all the advantage that they might have expected from the death of Mirabeau; and the entrance to power, which seemed to open before them, was closed against them for ever.

Five weeks later, May 16th, Robespierre proposed and caused to be decreed that the members of the present Assembly could not be elected for the next legislature.

Twice did the constituent Assembly vote by acclamation against itself; and each time on the motion of the deputy the least agreeable to the Assembly, of one whose motions and amendments it had invariably rejected!

We have here a great change which we must endeavour to explain. And, first, a very surprising symptom that we perceive of it is, that on the very day after Mirabeau's death, Robespierre assumed a new, audacious, and almost imperious tone. On the 6th of April, he violently reproached the constitutional committee with having unexpectedly presented a plan for the organisation of the ministry (presented two months before); and he spoke of the "dread with which the spirit which prevailed at their deliberations inspired him." He concluded with this dogmatical sentence: "Here is the essential instruction which I lay before the Assembly." And the Assembly showed no disapprobation. It granted him an adjournment to the next day for the substance of the law; and it was on the morrow, the 7th of April, that, being probably assured of a strong majority, he made the motion of prohibiting the ministry to the deputies for four years.

Robespierre was no longer a hesitating timid deputy; he had assumed authority. This was perceptible on the 16th of May, when he developed seriously, and often eloquently, this thesis of political morality, that the legislator ought to make it his duty to retire to his rank as a private citizen, and even to shun public gratitude. The Assembly, tired of its constitutional committee,-a decemvirate ever speaking and laying down laws,-felt grateful to Robespierre for having been the first to express a just and true idea, which may be reduced to this formula: "The constitution did not issue from the brain of this or that orator, but from the

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very principle of the opinion that preceded and has supported us. After two years of superhuman labours, it only remains for us to give our successors an example of indifference for our immense power, and for every other interest than that of the public good. Let us go and breathe, in our departments, the air of equality."

And he added these imperious and hasty words: “It seems to me that, for the honour of the principles of the Assembly, this motion ought not to be decreed in too dilatory a manner." Far from being offended by this language, the Assembly applauded, ordered it to be printed, and wanted to vote immediately. În vain did Chapelier ask permission to speak, the motion was voted almost unanimously.

Camille Desmoulins, the habitual and very zealous trumpeter of Robespierre, says very truly that he considers this decree as a masterpiece of policy: "We can easily imagine that he carried things thus with a high hand only because he was in secret intelligence with the selfrespect of the great majority, who, unable to be re-elected, eagerly seized this opportunity of levelling all the honourable members. Our trusty friend had calculated right well," &c.

What he had calculated, but what Desmoulins cannot tell, is, that for the two extreme parties, the Jacobins and the aristocrats, the common enemy to be destroyed was the constitution and the constitutional party, the parents and natural defenders of their weakly child.

But Robespierre was too great a politician for us to believe that he trusted entirely to this calculation of probabilities, to this hypothesis founded on a general knowledge of human nature. When we behold him speaking so forcibly, and with so much authority and certainty, we cannot doubt but he was most positively informed of the support that his motion would meet with from the right side of the Assembly. The priests, in favour of whom he had lately ventured so far, and almost compromised himself (March 12th) were able to give him perfect information on the opinions of their party.

On the other hand, if Robespierre's voice seems suddenly more commanding, it is because it is no longer that of a single man ; a whole nation speaks with him,-that of the Jacobin societies. The society in Paris, as we have seen, founded by deputies, and at first possessing as many as four hundred in October, 1789, has at most but a hundred and fifty on the 28th of February, 1791, the day when Mirabeau was annihilated by the Lameths. Who then are the predominant members of the Jacobin club? Those who are not deputies, but wish to be so,—those who desire that the constituent Assembly may not be re-elected. It was the secret thought, the desire, and the interest of the Jacobins that Robespierre had expressed; and he becomes their organ. He speaks for them and before them; and he is supported by them; for they are the persons who now fill the galleries. This upper assembly, as I have already called it, begins to overawe the constituent Assembly from above; and this reason is not one of the least which induce the latter to desire repose. The galleries interpose more and more, accompanying the speeches of the orators with exclamations, applause, and hootings. In the question on the colonies, for instance, a defender of the colonists was hissed outrageously.

THE LAMETHS ADVISERS OF THE COURT.

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The secret history of the Jacobin society is extremely difficult to unravel. Their pretended journal, edited by Laclos, far from throwing any light on the subject only renders it more obscure. What is nevertheless very evident, is, that of the two primitive fractions of the society, the Orleans party now declines, discredited by its chief in the affair of the four millions, and by the republican warfare directed against it by Brissot and others. The other fraction (Duport, Barnave, and Lameth) appears also worn out and exhausted; as though in mortally wounding Mirabeau on the evening of the 28th of February, it had left its sting and its life in the wound. But whether it still acts in the violent riot by which the Jacobins completely destroyed the monarchical club with sticks and stones, is what we cannot positively know. However, what we may say in general of the triumvirs is, that their bad reputation for intrigues and violence, and the ominous (though unjust) reports current against them on the occasion of Mirabeau's death, induced the Jacobins to follow preferably a poor, austere man, free from corruption, and of an irreproachable character. The remarkable scene, noticed by all, at Mirabeau's funeral (Lameth walking arm in arm with Sieyès, and shielded by him from the suspicion of the people, a Jacobin protected, as it were, in face of the people by the unpopular abbé !) was enough to cause the Jacobin society to reflect. It abandoned the Lameths and attached itself to Robespierre.

The affair of the Jacobins of Lons-le-Saulnier, decided against the Lameths by the society of Paris, about the end of March, seems to be the date of their downfall. One might almost say that they expire with Mirabeau; both the conquerors and the conquered disappear almost at the same time.

Nothing had more contributed to hasten their ruin than their illiberal opinion on the rights of men of colour. The Lameths had houses and slaves in the colonies; and Barnave spoke manfully in favour of the planters. The Assembly, wavering between the too evident question of right and the fear of exciting a general conflagration, made this strange decree: "That it would never deliberate on the state of persons not born of a free father and mother, unless it was required to do so by the colonies." They were very sure that this demand would never come; so it was prohibiting itself from ever deliberating on the slavery of the blacks. The planters wanted to raise a statue to Barnave, as if he were already dead, which was but too true.

Independently of these interests, a secret influence, we must say, contributed likewise to neutralise the Lameths.

Shortly after Mirabeau's death, at a time when it was imputed to them by many persons, a little insignificant man asked, at a very early hour, to speak to Alexander de Lameth, who was still in bed, and he was admitted. This was M. de Montmorin, the minister for foreign affairs. -The minister sits down by the bedside, and begins his confession. He speaks ill of Mirabeau (a sure way of pleasing the Lameths), reproaches himself for the evil course upon which he had entered, and the large sums he had spent, in order to penetrate the secrets of the Jacobins. "Every evening," says he, "I had the letters they had received from the provinces; and I read them to the king, who often admired the

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wisdom of your replies." The conclusion of this conversation, which Lameth forgets to give us, but which is perfectly well known, is, that Lameth, in one respect, succeeded Mirabeau, and became what Barnave had been ever since the month of December, one of the secret advisers of the Court.*

On the 28th of April, the Assembly took a formidable step, and decided that none but active citizens could be National Guards. Robespierre protested, but Duport and Barnave remained silent; and Charles de Lameth spoke only on a point of little importance.

The real touchstone, the fatal ordeal, was the prohibition of Clubs, now solemnly attacked before the Assembly by the department of Paris,-the prohibition of popular assemblies in general, whether communes, sections, or free associations, their right of making collective petitions and addresses, that of publishing notices, &c. Chapelier proposed a law which deprived them of this right; and it was indeed voted, but not carried into execution. He declared that, without this law, the Clubs would be corporations, and the most formidable of all. Robespierre and Petion stood forward as defenders of the Clubs. But were not Duport, Barnave, and Lameth, the founders of the Jacobins, and their leaders for so long a time, about to speak also? Everybody expected it... But no; they remained silent, utterly silent. They were evidently abdicating.

Robespierre had let fall an expression against them which doubtless contributed to deprive them of every inclination of speaking: "I do not excite a riot... If anybody would accuse me, I wish he would place all his actions parallel with mine." This was defying the former agitators to be able to speak of peace.

In the question on re-eligibility (May 16th), Duport allowed the Assembly to vote against itself; but, on the morrow, when it only remained to vote about the re-eligibility of the following legislatures, he at length broke silence. He seemed to wish to vent, at once, all his vexation and his fears for the future. This speech, full of lofty, strong, and prophetic sentiments, has the greatest blemish that a political speech can have; it is sad and desponding. Duport therein declares-That one step more, and the government no longer exists; or, if it revives, it will exist only to become concentrated in the executive power. Men are unwilling to obey any longer their former despots, but want to make new ones, whose power, more popular, will be a thousandfold more dangerous. Freedom will be lodged in egotistical individuality, and equality in a progressive levelling, even to the division of lands. Even now people are evidently tending to change the form of the government, without foreseeing that it will be necessary first to drown in their blood the last partisans of the throne, &c., &c. Next, alluding specially to Robespierre, he blamed the clever system of certain men who are ever contented with speaking of principles, lofty generalities, without descending to the ways and means, or taking any responsibility; "for it is not one to possess, without interruption, a professorship of natural law.”

Duport, in this long complaint, started from an inexact idea, which he

*Nothing can be more empty, less instructive, or more cleverly void, than Barnave's Memoirs of the year 1791. Lameth cannot equal him in this.