of first magistrate, or to ground their arms | France from the fate of Poland. The first and submit patiently to foreign dictation. requisite of a government was entire devotion The events of the tenth of August sprang ine- to the national cause. That requisite was vitably from the league of Pilnitz. The King's wanting in Louis; and such a want, at such palace was stormed; his guards were slaugh- a moment, could not be supplied by any pubtered. He was suspended from his regal lic or private virtues. If the King was set functions; and the Legislative Assembly aside, the abolition of kingship necessarily invited the nation to elect an extraordinary Convention, with the full powers which the conjuncture required. To this Convention the members of the National Assembly were eligible; and Barère was chosen by his own department. followed. In the state in which the public mind then was, it would have been idle to think of doing what our ancestors did in 1688, and what the French Chamber of Deputies did in 1830. Such an attempt would have failed amidst universal derision and execration. It would have disgusted all zealous men of all opinions; and there were then few men who were not zealous. Parties fatigued by long conflict, and instructed by the severe discipline of that school in which alone mankind will learn, are disposed to listen to the voice of a mediator. But when they are in their first heady youth, devoid of experience, fresh for exertion, flushed with hope, burning with animosity, they agree only in spurning out of their way the daysman who strives to take his stand between them and to lay his hand upon them both. Such was in 1792 the state of France. On one side was the great name of the heir of Hugh Capet, the thirty-third king of the third race; on the other side was the great name of the republic. There was no rallying-point save these two. It was necessary to make a choice; and those, in our opinion, judged well who, waving for the moment all subordinate questions, preferred independence to subjugation, the natal soil to the emigrant camp. The Convention met on the twenty-first of September 1792. The first proceedings were unanimous. Royalty was abolished by acclamation. No objections were made to this great change, and no reasons were assigned for it. For certainly we cannot honor with the name of reasons such apophthegms, as that kings are in the moral world what monsters are in the physical world; and that the history of kings is the martyrology of nations. But though the discussion was worthy only of a debating-club of schoolboys, the resolution to which the Convention came seems to have been that which sound policy dictated. In saying this, we do not mean to express an opinion that a republic is, either in the abstract the best form of government, or is, under ordinary circumstances, the form of government best suited to the French people. Our own opinion is, that the best governeruments which have ever existed in the world have been limited monarchies; and that France, in particular, has never enjoyed so much prosperity and freedom as under a limited monarchy. Nevertheless, we approve of the vote of the Convention which abolished kingly government. The interference of foreign powers had brought on a crisis which made extraordinary measures necessary. On one side were those statesmen who are Hereditary monarchy may be, and we believe called, from the name of the department that it is, a very useful institution in a coun- which some of them represented, the Girontry like France. And masts are very useful dists, and, from the name of one of their parts of a ship. But, if the ship is on her most conspicuous leaders, the Brissotines. beam-ends, it may be necessary to cut the In activity and practical ability, Brissot and When once she has righted, Gensonné were the most conspicuous among she may come safe into port under jury rig- them. In parliamentary eloquence, no ging, and there be completely repaired. But, Frenchman of that time can be considered as in the mean time, she must be hacked with equal to Vergniaud. In a foreign country, unsparing hand, lest that which, under ordi- after the lapse of half a century, some parts nary circumstances, is an essential part of her of his speeches are still read with mournful fabric, should, in her extreme distress, sink admiration. No man, we are inclined to beher to the bottom. Even so there are politi-lieve, ever rose so rapidly to such a height of cal emergencies in which it is necessary that governments should be mutilated of their fair proportions for a time, lest they be cast away for ever; and with such an emergency the Convention had to deal. The first object of a good Frenchman should have been to save masts away. As to the abolition of royalty, and as to the vigorous prosecution of the war, the whole Convention seemed to be united as one man. But a deep broad gulf separated the representative body into two great parties. oratorical excellence. His whole public life lasted barely two years. This is a circumstance which distinguishes him from our own greatest speakers, Fox, Burke, Pitt, Sheridan, Windham, Canning. Which of these celebrated men would now be remembered as an orator, if he had died two years after he first in stopping, as they had been right in moving. took his seat in the House of Commons? For great ends, and under extraordinary cirCondorcet brought to the Girondist party a cumstances, they had concurred in measures different kind of strength. The public re- which, together with much good, had necesgarded him with justice as an eminent mathe- sarily produced much evil; which had unmatician, and, with less reason, as a great settled the public mind; which had taken master of ethical and political science; the away from government the sanction of prephilosophers considered him as their chief, as scription; which had loosened the very founthe rightful heir, by intellectual descent and by dations of property and law. They thought solemn adoption, of their deceased sovereign that it was now their duty to prop what it had D'Alembert. In the same ranks were found recently been their duty to batter. They Guadet, Isnard, Barbaroux, Buzot, Louvet, loved liberty, but liberty associated with order, too well known as the author of a very ingenious with justice, with mercy, and with civilizaand very licentious romance, and more hon- tion. They were republicans; but they were orably distinguished by the generosity with desirous to adorn their republic with all that which he pleaded for the unfortunate, and by had given grace and dignity to the fallen the intrepidity with which he defied the wick- monarchy. They hoped that the humanity, ed and powerful. Two persons whose talents the courtesy, the taste, which had done much were not brilliant, but who enjoyed a high in old times to mitigate the slavery of France, reputation for probity and public spirit, Pé- would now lend additional charms to her tion and Roland, lent the whole weight of freedom. They saw with horror crimes extheir names to the Girondist connexion. The ceeding in atrocity those which had disgraced wife of Roland brought to the deliberations the infuriated religious factions of the sixof her husband's friends masculine courage teenth century, perpetrated in the name of and force of thought, tempered by womanly reason and philanthropy. They demanded, grace and vivacity. Nor was the splendor of with eloquent vehemence, that the authors of a great military reputation wanting to this the lawless massacre which, just before the celebrated party. Dumourier, then victori- meeting of the Convention, had been commitous over the foreign invaders, and at the ted in the prisons of Paris, should be brought height of public favor, must be reckoned to condign punishment. They treated with among the allies of the Gironde. just contempt the pleas which have been set up for that great crime. They admitted that the public danger was pressing; but they denied that it justified a violation of those principles of morality on which all society rests. The independence and honor of France were indeed to be vindicated, but to be vindicated by triumphs and not by murders. The errors of the Brissotines were undoubtedly neither few nor small; but when we fairly compare their conduct with the conduct of any other party which acted or suffered during the French Revolution, we are forced to admit their superiority in every quality except that single quality which, in such times, prevails over every other, decision. They were zealous for the great social reform which had been effected by the National Assembly; and they were right. For though that reform was, in some respects, carried too far, it was a blessing well worth even the fearful price which has been paid for it. They were resolved to maintain the independence of their country against foreign invaders; and they were right. For the heaviest of all yokes is the yoke of the stranger. They thought that, if Louis remained at their head, they could not carry on with the requisite energy the conflict against the European coalition. They therefore concurred in establishing a republican government; and here, again, they were right. For in that struggle for life and death, it would have been madness to trust hostile or even a half-hearted leader. Thus far they went along with the revolutionary movement. At this point they stopped; and, in our judgment, they were right| Opposed to the Girondists was a party, which, having been long execrated throughout the civilized world, has of late-such is the ebb and flow of opinion-found not only apologists, but even eulogists. We are not disposed to deny that some members of the Mountain were sincere and public-spirited men. But even the best of them, Carnot for example and Cambon, were far too unscrupulous as to the means which they employed for the purpose of attaining great ends. In the train of these enthusiasts followed a crowd, composed of all who, from sensual, sordid, or malignant motives, wished for a period of boundless license. When the Convention met, the majority was with the Girondists, and Barère was with the majority. On the King's trial, indeed, he quitted the party with which he ordinarily acted, voted with the Mountain, and spoke against the prisoner with a violence such as few members even of the Mountain showed. The conduct of the leading Girondists on Mountain on this occasion. He voted against the appeal to the people, and against the respite. His demeanor and his language also were widely different from those of the Girondists. Their hearts were heavy, and their deportment was that of men oppressed with sorrow. It was Vergniaud's duty to proclaim the result of the roll-call. His face. was pale, and he trembled with emotion, as in a low and broken voice he announced that Louis was condemned to death. Barère had not, it is true, yet attained to full perfection. in the art of mingling jests and conceits with words of death; but he already gave promise of his future excellence in this high department of Jacobin oratory. He concluded his speech with a sentence worthy of his head and heart. The tree of liberty,' he said, as an ancient author remarks, flourishes when it is watered with the blood of all classes of tyrants.' M. Hippolyte Carnot has quoted this passage, in order, as we suppose, to do honor to his hero. We wish that a note had been added to inform us from what ancient author Barère quoted. In the course of our own small reading among the Greek and Latin writers, we have not happened to fall in with trees of liberty and watering-pots full of blood; nor can we, such is our ignorance of classical antiquity, even imagine an Attic or Roman orator employing imagery of that sort. In plain words, when Barère talked about an ancient author, he was lying, as he generally was when he asserted any fact, great or small. Why he lied on this occasion we cannot guess, unless it was to keep his hand in. that occasion was little to their honor. Of Barère, as we have said, sided with the cruelty, indeed, we fully acquit them; but it is impossible to acquit them of criminal irresolution and disingenuousness. They were far, indeed, from thirsting for the blood of Louis; on the contrary, they were most desirous to protect him. But they were afraid that, if they went straight forward with their object, the sincerity of their attachment to republican institutions would be suspected. They wished to save the King's life, and yet to obtain all the credit of having been regicides. Accordingly, they traced out for themselves a crooked course, by which they hoped to attain both their objects. They first voted the King guilty. They then voted for referring the question respecting his fate to the whole body of the people. Defeated in this attempt to rescue him, they reluctantly, and with ill suppressed shame and concern, voted for the capital sentence. Then they made a last attempt in his favor, and voted for respiting the execution. These zigzag politics produced the effect which any man conversant with public affairs might have foreseen. The Girondists, instead of attaining both their ends, failed of both. The Mountain justly charged them with having attempted to save the King by underhand means. Their own consciences told them, with equal justice, that their hands had been dipped in the blood of the most inoffensive and most unfortunate of men. The direct path was here, as usual, the path not only of honor but of safety. The principle on which the Girondists stood as a party was, that the season for revolutionary violence was over, and that the reign of law and order ought now to commence. But the proceeding against the King was clearly revolutionary in its nature. It was not in conformity with the laws. The only plea for it was, that all ordinary rules of jurisprudence and morality were suspended by the extreme public danger. This was the very plea which the Mountain urged in defence of the massacre of September, and to which, when so urged, the Girondists refused to listen. They therefore, by voting for the death of the King, conceded to the Mountain the chief point at issue between the two parties. Had they given a manful vote against the capital sentence, the regicides would have been in a minority. It is probable that there would have been an immediate appeal to force. The Girondists might have been victorious. In the worst event, they would have fallen with unblemished honor. Thus much is certain, that their boldness and honesty could not possibly have produced a worse effect than was actually produced by their timidity and their stratagems. It is not improbable that, but for one circumstance, Barère would, like most of those with whom he ordinarily acted, have voted for the appeal to the people and for the respite. But, just before the commencement of the trial, papers had been discovered which proved that, while a member of the National Assembly, he had been in communication with the Court respecting his Reports on the Woods and Forests. He was acquitted of all criminality by the Convention; but the fiercer Republicans considered him as a tool of the fallen monarch; and this reproach was long repeated in the journal of Marat, and in the speeches at the Jacobin club. It was natural that a man like Barère should, under such circumstances, try to distinguish himself among the crowd of regicides by peculiar ferocity. It was because he had been a royalist that he was one of the foremost in shedding blood. The King was no more. The leading Girondists had, by their conduct towards him, lowered their character in the eyes both [dependent commonwealths, bound together of friends and foes. They still, however, only by a league like that which connects maintained the contest against the Moun- the Swiss cantons or the United States of tain, called for vengeance on the assassins of America. The great obstacle in the way of September, and protested against the anar-this pernicious design was the influence of chical and sanguinary doctrines of Marat. Paris. To strengthen the influence of Paris For a time they seemed likely to prevail. ought therefore to be the chief object of As publicists and orators they had no rivals every patriot. in the Convention. They had with them, The accusation brought against the leaders beyond all doubt, the great majority both of of the Girondist party was a mere calumny. the deputies and of the French nation. They were undoubtedly desirous to prevent These advantages, it should seem, ought to the capital from domineering over the rehave decided the event of the struggle. But public, and would gladly have seen the Conthe opposite party had compensating advan-vention removed for a time to some protages of a different kind. The chiefs of the vincial town, or placed under the protection Mountain, though not eminently distinguish- of a trusty guard, which might have overed by eloquence or knowledge, had great awed the Parisian mob; but there is not the audacity, activity, and determination. The slightest reason to suspect them of any deConvention and France were against them; sign against the unity of the state. Barère, but the mob of Paris, the clubs of Paris, and however, really was a federalist, and, we are the municipal government of Paris, were on inclined to believe, the only federalist in the their side. Convention. As far as a man so unstable The policy of the Jacobins, in this situa- and servile can be said to have felt any pretion, was to subject France to an aristocracy ference for any form of government, he felt infinitely worse than that aristocracy which a preference for federal government. He had emigrated with the Count of Artois-to was born under the Pyrenees; he was a an aristocracy not of birth, not of wealth, Gascon of the Gascons, one of a people not of education, but of mere locality. They strongly distinguished by intellectual and would not hear of privileged orders; but moral character, by manners, by modes of they wished to have a privileged city. That speech, by accent, and by physiognomy, from twenty-five millions of Frenchmen should be the French of the Seine and of the Loire; ruled by a hundred thousand gentlemen and and he had many of the peculiarities of the clergymen, was insufferable; but that twenty-race to which he belonged. When he first five millions of Frenchmen should be ruled left his own province he had attained his by a hundred thousand Parisians, was as it thirty-fourth year, and had acquired a high should be. The qualification of a member local reputation for eloquence and literature. of the new oligarchy was simply that he He had then visited Paris for the first time. should live near the hall where the Conven- He had found himself in a new world. His tion met, and should be able to squeeze him- feelings were those of a banished man. It self daily into the gallery during a debate, is clear also that he had been by no means and now and then to attend with a pike for without his share of the small disappointthe purpose of blockading the doors. It was ments and humiliations so often experienced quite agreeable to the maxims of the Moun- by men of letters who, elated by provincial tain, that a score of draymen from Santerre's applause, venture to display their powers bebrewery, or of devils from Hébert's printing-fore the fastidious critics of a capital. On the house, should be permitted to drown the other hand, whenever he revisited the mounvoices of men commissioned to speak the sense of such cities as Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Lyons; and that a rabble of half-naked porters from the Faubourg St. Antoine, should have power to annul decrees for which the representatives of fifty or sixty departments had voted. It was necessary to find some pretext for so odious and absurd a tyranny. Such a pretext was found. To the old phrases of liberty and equality were added the sonorous watchwords, unity and indivisibility. A new crime was invented, and called by the name of federalism. The object of the Girondists, it was asserted, was to break up the great nation into little in tains among which he had been born, he found himself an object of general admiration. His dislike of Paris, and his partiality to his native district, were therefore as strong and durable as any sentiments of a mind like his could be. He long continued to maintain, that the ascendency of one great city was the bane of France; that the superiority of taste and intelligence which it was the fashion to ascribe to the inhabitants of that city were wholly imaginary; and that the nation would never enjoy a really good government till the Alsatian people, the Breton people, the people of Bearn, the people of Provence, should have each an independent existence, and laws suited to its tastes and habits. His apparent zeal for the cause of humanity and order had its reward. Early in April came the tidings of Dumourier's defection. This was a heavy blow to the Girondists. Dumourier was their general. His victories had thrown a lustre on the whole party; his army, it had been hoped, would, in the worst event, protect the deputies of the nation against the ragged pikemen of the garrets of Paris. He was now a deserter and an exile; and those who had lately placed their chief reliance on his support Animated by such feelings, he was, till the were compelled to join with their deadliest close of May 1793, a Girondist, if not an enemies in execrating his treason. At this ultra-Girondist. He exclaimed against those perilous conjuncture, it was resolved to apimpure and bloodthirsty men who wished point a Committee of Public Safety, and to to make the public danger a pretext for arm that committee with powers, small incruelty and rapine. 'Peril,' he said, 'could deed when compared with those which it be no excuse for crime. It is when the afterwards drew to itself, but still great and wind blows hard, and the waves run high, formidable. The moderate party, regarding that the anchor is most needed; it is when Barère as a representative of their feelings a revolution is raging, that the great laws of and opinions, elected him a member. In his morality are most necessary to the safety of new situation he soon began to make himself a state. Of Marat he spoke with abhorrence useful. He brought to the deliberations of and contempt; of the municipal authorities the Committee, not indeed the knowledge or of Paris with just severity. He loudly com- the ability of a great statesman, but a tongue plained that there were Frenchmen who paid and a pen which, if others would only supply to the Mountain that homage which was due ideas, never paused for want of words. His to the Convention alone. When the es- mind was a mere organ of communication tablishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal between other minds. It originated nothing; I was first proposed, he joined himself to Verg- it retained nothing; but it transmitted every niaud and Buzot, who strongly objected to thing. The post assigned to him by his colthat odious measure. 'It cannot be,' ex-leagues was not really of the highest importclaimed Barère, 'that men really attached to ance; but it was prominent, and drew the liberty will imitate the most frightful excesses attention of all Europe. When a great meaof despotism!' He proved to the Conven- sure was to be brought forward, when an action, after his fashion, out of Sallust, that count was to be rendered of an important such arbitrary courts may indeed, for a time, event, he was generally the mouthpiece of be severe only on real criminals, but must the administration. He was therefore not inevitably degenerate into instruments of unnaturally considered, by persons who lived private cupidity and revenge. When, on at a distance from the seat of government, the tenth of March, the worst part of the po- and above all by foreigners who, while the pulation of Paris made the first unsuccessful war raged, knew France only from Journals, attempt to destroy the Girondists, Barère as the head of that administration of which, @eagerly called for vigorous measures of re- in truth, he was only the secretary and the pression and punishment. On the second spokesman. The author of the History of of April, another attempt of the Jacobins of Europe, in our own Annual Registers, apParis to usurp supreme dominion over the pears to have been completely under this derepublic, was brought to the knowledge of lusion. the Convention; and again Barère spoke with warmth against the new tyranny which afflicted France, and declared that the people of the departments would never crouch beneath the tyranny of one ambitious city. He even proposed a resolution to the effect, that the Convention would exert against the demagogues of the capital the same energy which had been exerted against the tyrant Louis. We are assured that, in private as in public, he at this time uniformly spoke with strong aversion of the Mountain. The conflict between the hostile parties was meanwhile fast approaching to a crisis. The temper of Paris grew daily fiercer and fiercer. Delegates appointed by thirty-five of the fortyeight wards of the city appeared at the bar of the Convention, and demanded that Vergniaud, Brissot, Gaudet, Gensonné, Barbaroux, Buzot, Pétion, Louvet, and many other deputies, should be expelled. This demand was disapproved by at least three-fourths of the Assembly, and, when known in the departments, called forth a general cry of in |