CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DC 146.D46C5 
 
 Camille Desmoulins and his wife;passages 
 
 3 1924 024 299 400 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024299400 
 
PASSAGES 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE DANTONISTS 
 
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CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 AND HIS WIFE ' 
 
 PASSAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE DANTONISTS 
 
 Joanbtb upon Ifcfo anb |ji%rtff fflirgmblra^ Jotuments 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF 
 
 JULES CLARETIE 
 
 MRS CASHEL HOEY 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1876 
 
DC 
 
 Ajo-jifjf 
 
 Loeui 
 
 ^> 
 
1 
 
 TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 J. MICHELET 
 
 MY REVERED MASTER 
 
 J. c. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Scribitur ad narrandum veritatem. 
 
 The following history of the most dramatic and 
 touching episodes of the French Revolution has cost 
 the author many years of labour, which he regards 
 as the best employed period of his life. Just as he 
 had terminated his researches into the life and cha- 
 racter of the men on whom he proposed to form a 
 judgment, the late war between France and Prussia 
 broke out, and the terrible days which led France for a 
 moment to the brink of destruction ensued. Not until 
 after those dark days of cruel trial had come to an 
 end did the historian resume his interrupted task, 
 bringing to its fulfilment greater calmness of mind and 
 increased certitude of experience ; for, by the light of 
 events of which he has been the sorrowful eyewitness, 
 he has contemplated the facts of an eventful past not 
 yet a century old. 
 
 Such periods of national trouble as that through 
 which we have just passed have one element of conso- 
 lation amid their bitterness ; they force the least reflec- 
 tive minds into attention and thought. They are the 
 hours of ' examination of conscience ' for peoples. The 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 nations, and every' thinking being among them, ask 
 themselves whence has ruin come, and where has the 
 sin been ? Only by comparing the tempests of the 
 past with those of the present can we study them 
 scientifically, and define their causes and their results. 
 No study is more useful at the present day than that 
 of the French Revolution, undertaken in a free spirit, 
 untrammelled by any sectarian tradition, or traditional 
 idolatry, animated solely by the ardent love of liberty, 
 and of justice. Either the time has now come, or it 
 will never come, to press the experiences of yesterday 
 into the service of the realisations of to-morrow ; to 
 exhibit in their true light, with all their greatness, 
 and all their weakness, the men who, in the space of 
 three years, from 1792 to 1795, accomplished a task 
 which eight centuries of monarchy had' failed to 
 achieve ; who restored its natural boundaries to our 
 country, but who also set a Caesar over the aggran- 
 dized land. The right moment has come at which 
 to show the world how Republics perish, in order that 
 it may learn how Republics may be founded. 
 
 The author has attempted such a task. He knows 
 that a writer who ventures to tell the truth, without 
 making phrases, in troublous times like the present, 
 when parties are fighting almost at haphazard, like 
 sharpshooters at night, exposes himself to no small 
 obloquy. He knows that a work of historical criticism, 
 such as the present narrative, is likely to be equally 
 displeasing to friends and adversaries. The knowledge 
 does not disturb him. In the 'interior judge' of whom 
 Fenelon speaks, the writer has a sovereign adjudicator 
 — his conscience — placed above all other judges ; and 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 the law which he holds dominant over all laws is that 
 of respect for the truth as he believes it to be. ' I bend 
 no more before the red heel than before the red cap,' 
 said the Russian patriot, Alexander Herzen, one of the 
 manliest and most independent men of this century. 
 Like him, the author despises courtiership of every 
 kind, to whatever rank or power it may address itself. 
 
 This history may then be read with confidence. In 
 it will be found nothing insincere, nothing which is not 
 borne out by facts, based upon a document, or proved 
 by some written evidence, whether already known, or 
 published for the first time in this volume. Our era is 
 that of exactness and of patience in the matter of 
 historic research. It does not boast the lofty flights of 
 genius, but it has at least the virtue of respect for 
 . truth; which is, perhaps, the most praiseworthy of 
 virtues, for, to our mind, it leads to all the others. 
 
 It was no easy task for the author to make up his 
 mind to close this work, which was the joy and the hope 
 of his youth. What bright and happy dreams he had 
 dreamed over it ! With what intense pleasure he had 
 turned over the faded yellow papers of the Archives ! 
 With what emotion he had opened the records of 
 the revolutionary tribunals ! With what pain he had 
 watched the falling, one by one, of so many noble and 
 intellectual heads ! How he had rejoiced to find in those 
 faded pages the memory and the echo of many 
 glorious days ! When the following chapters shall be 
 read, a gloomy contrast must necessarily be drawn 
 between that past and the present, or rather, between 
 the past of eighty years ago and the past of yesterday. 
 How great France then was, soaring above the world, 
 
x Preface, 
 
 and, better still, illuminating it with her lustre, over- 
 awing it, astonishing it rather by her ideas than by her 
 arms ; offering the unique spectacle of a single nation 
 repelling the invasion of a world, and distributing the 
 standards captured from the enemy in its external strife, 
 to serve as bandages for the wounded in its civil wars. 
 
 That was a proud and lofty spectacle, even for the 
 conquered — aye, for the conquered above all ! Perhaps it 
 will make us reflect more seriously on our brief humili- 
 ation. If France is to be saved, and reconstituted, for 
 which I hope with all the strength of my being, it will 
 be by the picture of her past greatness, of the devotion, 
 the dissensions, the martyrdoms, the sufferings, and the 
 glories of other days. In them there is twofold profit, 
 twofold teaching. We learn at once to avoid the 
 sanguinary excesses into which our fathers fell, and to 
 imitate the self-denying examples by which they effaced 
 their severe measures;' their faults, and their errors. 
 May the perusal of these pages strengthen minds who 
 feel what republican virtue ought to be, in devotion to 
 liberty, respect for law, love of justice, obedience to 
 duty, and love of country — that sublime love for France 
 which sustains, engenders, and quickens all other 
 virtues. 
 
 This historical essay has no other aim. The 
 author's task will seem light to him if he shall have 
 succeeded in making his readers love, not only the 
 men whose tragical fate he narrates, but those great 
 things which rise above the men — Liberty and Country. 
 
 JULES CLARETIE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface . . . . vii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 i. The man and his natal soil — A journey to Guise — The old city 
 and the new^-The house in which Camille Desmoulins was born 
 — His family. 
 
 2. Birth and education of Camille — The college of Louis-le-Grand 
 — The Abbe* Berardier — Camille begins to practise at the Bar. 
 
 3. France in 1789 — The cdhiers of the States-General — An Electoral 
 Assembly at Guise — Camille's father — The Complaint of the 
 parish of Chaillevois — The ' Red Book.' 
 
 4. Broadsheets and pamphlets — The ' Philosophie au Peuple 
 francais 'of Camille Desmoulins (1788)— The ' Odes to the States- 
 General ' — Camille's youth— Chateaubriand — The Palais-Royal 
 — Momoro and ' La France libre ' — The 13th of July— The green 
 cockade— The taking of the Bastille. . . . 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1. An analysis of ' La France libre' — Camille and the Republic — 
 The ' Discours de la Lanterne aux Parisiens.' 
 
 2. Letters from Camille to his father — His connection with 
 Mirabeau — The 'Revolutions de France et de Brabant' — Freron 
 —A republican pamphlet and a royalist pamphlet — The ' Actes 
 des Ap6tres' — A fight with pens — Camille and the/^feof the 
 Federation in 1790 — Attacks upon Mirabeau— Mirabeau's death. 
 
 3- Polemics and law-suits — Mirabeau-Tonneau, Talon, Malouet— 
 The duellists — Desessarts the actor, and Sanson the execu- 
 tioner — Camille's attitude .62 
 
xii Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Camille's romance — Lucile Desmoulins — Portrait of Mademoiselle 
 Duplessis — Portrait of Camille — A young girl's journal — Reveries 
 —Lucile and Madame Roland— The red copy-book— Romances 
 of the eighteenth century — Sylvain Marechal— Camille's marriage 
 — Disputes with the cure" — The contract. 
 
 Happy days — Calumnies of the Royalist newspapers — The Abbe" 
 Terray— Peltier and Re"tif de la Bre"tonne— Bourg-la-Reine. 
 The Club of the Cordeliers— Camille's correspondence with his 
 father— Loustallot— The flight of Louis XVI.— Varennes— The 
 petition of the Champ de Mars — Desmoulins is proscribed— He 
 reappears at the tribune of the Jacobins — An advertisement by 
 Camille — Rupture with Brissot — Danton — Birth of Horace Des- 
 moulins. 
 
 The court and the nation — Roland's ministry — The hesitation 6f 
 the King — The 20th June — Unpublished fragment by Camille 
 — A letter to Lucile — Speech at the Jacobins upon the situation 
 of the capital — The 10th of August. 
 
 Camille on August 10 — Lucile's journal — Camille as general 
 secretary of the Ministry of Justice — The advice of Camille's 
 father .... 118 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. Election to the National Convention — Camille a deputy — His 
 hopes— rThe Convention — Montagnards and Girondins — The 
 Dantonists — Danton. 
 
 2. Herault de Se"chelles — His life, his character, and his works. 
 
 3. Pierre Philippeaux, General Westermann, and Fabre d'Eglan- 
 tine. . . 191 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Proclamation of the Republic (September 21st, 1792) — The death 
 of the King — Camille Desmoulins' vote — Lucile and Marie- 
 Antoinette — Struggle with the Gironde — Marat — Danton and 
 Camille— Clemency — Disheartenment — Arthur Dillon — Camille 
 undertakes his defence — The ' Histoire des Brissotins ' — October 
 3 1 — Macbeth. 
 
 ' Le Vieux Cordelier ' — Saint-Just and Billaud- Varennes-*- 
 Struggle with the H^bertists — Anacharsis Clootzand Anaxagoras 
 Chaumette — Camille and Tacitus — The infuriates — Liberty — 
 Camille denounced to the Jacobins — Pere Duehesne — The 
 Committee of Clemency. 
 
Contents. xiii 
 
 The last numbers of the ' Vieux Cordelier ' — Fragments by Camille 
 not printed in 1 794— Camille and Lucile — Lucile Desmoulins' 
 despair — Letter to FreVon — Brune — Cms moriemur ! — Robes- 
 pierre and Camille — The song of the swan. 
 Punishment of the Hdbertists — The arrest of the Dantonists is 
 resolved upon — Death of Camille's mother — The Dantonists in 
 the prison of the Luxembourg — Camille's letters to Lucile — 
 Saint- Just's report — The 'instruction' — The trial— Letter of M. 
 , Desmoulins the elder to Fouquier-Tinville — Horror of the 
 Tribunal— Testimony of Fabricius — The outlawry of the ac- 
 cused 238 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Last moments of the Dantonists — The Tumbril — The scaffold — 
 Death of Camille and of Danton. 
 
 Prison conspiracies — Lucile accused — Arthur Dillon — Desmou- 
 lins' widow and Hubert's widow — Lucile's death. 
 
 After the battle — Madame Duplessis — The young Horace — 
 Camille's son and Philippeaux's son — Unpublished letters — 
 Death of Horace Desmoulins — Relics of Camille . . . 342 
 
 Appendix. . . . 381 
 
 Additions to Appendix .... ... 471 
 
 ILL USTRA TfONS. 
 
 PoRTRA1T . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 Fac-simile of an Autograph Letter of Camille Desmoulins to 
 his Father tofacepage 136 
 
CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CAMILLE DESMOULINS AND THE DANTONISTS. 
 
 1. The man and his natal soil — A journey to Guise — The old city and 
 the new — The house in which Camille Desmoulins was born — His 
 family. 
 
 2. Birth and education of Camille — The college of Louis-le- Grand — The 
 Abbe" Berardier — Camille begins to practise at the Bar. 
 
 3. France in 1789 — The cahiers of the States-General — An Electoral 
 Assembly at Guise — Camille's father — The Complaint of the parish 
 of Chaillevois— The ' Red Book.' 
 
 4. Broadsheets and pamphlets — The ' Philosophic au Peuple francais ' of 
 Camille Desmoulins (1788)— The 'Odes to the States-General' — 
 Camille's youth— Chateaubriand — The ' Palais-Royal — Momoro and 
 la France litre — The 13th of July — The green cockade — The taking 
 of the Bastille. 
 
 A man always retains a little of the natal air which he 
 has breathed in childhood and in youth. In many 
 instances the temperament and the life of an individual 
 may be explained by the soil on which he was born. 
 Why should we not ask a village, a street, a paternal 
 dwelling, whether they have not preserved some secret 
 remembrance of the celebrated person whose first utter- 
 ances they have heard, whose first dreams they have 
 silently witnessed ? Inanimate. things, it seems to me, 
 ^ B 
 
2 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 may have their regrets, and we may find traces in 
 them of the beings whose birth, development, and 
 death they have beheld. Besides, the eager need of 
 knowing everything which belongs to our time 
 requires that the historian shall study the scenery and 
 decorations of his drama before he begins to unfold 
 its action. 
 
 It was on an April morning, while the cannon of 
 the civil war was roaring around Paris, that I resolved 
 to go to Guise and ask the little town for recollec- 
 tions of Camille Desmoulins, the 'gamin of genius,' 
 whom Paris attracted, seduced, and kept for ever. It 
 was not without emotion that I undertook this journey. 
 It seems to me that the shades of the famous dead 
 return to the places where the memory of them 
 dwells. I was eager to see and to interrogate Guise, 
 that quiet city of the Vermandois, which Camille in- 
 voked, in the wildest hour of the revolutionary tempest, 
 as an asylum too soon abandoned, a humble paradise 
 for ever lost. Had the town faithfully preserved the 
 memory of one of the most famous of her sons ? Was 
 this district of Picardy, formerly so far advanced in 
 literary culture, grateful to Camille Desmoulins for the 
 literary renown which he had reflected upon it ? The 
 spirit of the soil has changed within the last fifty years ; 
 the sharp, satirical, mocking, gossipping spirit, that of 
 the litterateur, and of the story-teller after the fashion 
 of the fabliaux, has been gradually silenced by the 
 opposite spirit of speculation and industry, which has 
 invaded the whole country. At Vervins and at Guise 
 there are to be found at present only a few speci- 
 mens of those old provincial scholars, deeply learned, 
 laborious savans, who toiled in semi-obscurity at 
 some patient task, far from the central light indeed, 
 
The Man and Ms Natal Soil. 3 
 
 but perhaps near to the truth. In all probability I was 
 destined to disappointment, and should not find even 
 the phantom of Camille Desmoulins at Guise. 
 
 The way from Saint Quentin to the hard-working 
 little town of Guise lies through a rich, productive, un- 
 picturesque country, where cornfields stretch away to 
 the horizon on either side of the road. Guise does not 
 announce itself in any way to the traveller, who hardly 
 sees the high tower of the chateau as he approaches ; 
 but, on descending a sloping road, which passes through 
 a kind of faubourg composed of houses with thatched 
 roofs, is surprised to find himself in a city of the past — 
 of strange, calm, sleepy aspect. The fortified chateau 
 stands, firm and imposing, upon the summit of a steep 
 ascent, and the houses, almost all dating from the seven- 
 teenth century, seem to nestle beneath it for shelter. 
 
 There are two distinct towns in this little city of 
 Guise : the old and the new ; but the old still maintains 
 its sway. The old town of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries, built upon the hill hard by the chateau, that 
 town which we see in the etching by Johannis Feeters 
 Delin (1572) with its ancient donjon and its ramparts, 
 it is true, no longer exists. The whole of Guise 
 seems contemporary with Desmoulins, with the early 
 years of the Revolution. But its quasi-antiquity was 
 sufficient for me. I was seeking only for traces of the 
 manners and the memories of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The tall roofs are covered with slates ; the streets 
 look as they looked in 1750. The dwellings of the 
 bourgeois and the small tradesmen bear the dates of 
 their construction, inserted into the building in figures 
 made of iron rods. As one walks along the narrow 
 but regular streets, one's fancy reconstructs the life 
 of the past ; and sees, in the traders of to-day, the 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Camille Desmoulihs and his Wife. 
 
 merchants and shopkeepers of former times, the mercers 
 and the drapers. Not for many a year has the slated 
 belfry of the little Town Hall resounded with the 
 peal of its tenant, but, though hushed, the tongue 
 is still there which celebrated all the joys and an- 
 nounced all the mournings of the community. How 
 small and humble this little Town Hall looks, stand- 
 ing at the foot of the chateau, frowned on by the 
 citadel and menaced by its guns. It exists, it might 
 be said, only under favour of this perpetual threat, 
 and the chateau could destroy it at a single blow. 
 But the huge pile of stone represents nothing more 
 than brute force, mere strength. The little build- 
 ing contains the papers of the city, the certificates 
 of births and marriages, registers, deeds — this old 
 house represents the law. The lofty tower, leprous 
 and unsightly with its yellow stains of time, rears 
 itself up, formidable, indeed, but useless, like a giant 
 disarmed by old age. This colossal construction, for 
 all the thickness of its mighty walls, could not have 
 arrested the German invasion in 1870 for two hours. 
 Its sonorous arches, its great gates with arms blazoned 
 in sculpture on the rock above them, its gloomy 
 galleries, are of no avail against modern warfare waged 
 with guns of steel. When I passed by, the Gardes 
 Mobiles were at their drill in the shade, while the 
 wind blew merrily over the height, whence! could see 
 distant fields, the rivers Aisne and Somme, groves 
 of trees, villages half hidden in verdure, or by the 
 undulations of the ground. On the horizon was 
 Wiege, where sleep the humble ancestors of Camille, 
 and at the foot of the citadel was Guise, with its lofty 
 roofs, its promenades, its trees, the buildings of the 
 Famislistere, wearing the gay and prosperous aspect 
 
A yourney to Guise. 5 
 
 of a small industrious town. I came and went, I 
 looked about, I sought out every association, and I 
 pictured to myself Camille Desmoulins, going to and 
 from the Picard town, following the course of the little 
 river, book in hand, reading, dreaming, exhaling his 
 youthful enthusiasm. Methought I came upon him 
 once more at the corners of the narrow streets, or in one 
 of those quiet old houses, full of books and the talk of 
 old times, or on the road to the chateau, climbing the 
 steep ascent to the citadel, stopping on his way to 
 listen, smilingly, to the music chanted in the church ; 
 reciting verses from Voltaire before the chapel, and 
 quoting Tacitus in front of the fortress. 
 
 The house in which Camille Desmoulins was born 
 stands in the High Street of the town, called in the 
 documents of the time ' the street of the Grand Pont, 
 in front of the Place d'Armes.' x It is a small, clean- 
 looking, cheerful house with a slate roof, and walls of 
 dazzling whiteness, manifestly the house of a bourgeois 
 family, honest, estimable people, accustomed to daily 
 labour, to the patient and uncomplaining endurance of 
 the cares and needs of life, and fain to accept with 
 gratitude the rest which succeeded to each day's work 
 well done. Not rich, of a surety, but content with 
 
 1 The following particulars have been obtained from the present 
 proprietor of the house : — 
 
 Last deed of sale (1852). A house at Guise, in the Grande Rue, 
 opposite the Place d'Armes, roofed with slate, with garrets and cellar, 
 stable, coach-house, yard, and garden ; the building facing the Grande 
 Rue, and extending backwards to the Place Lesur. 
 
 Preceding proprietors : — 
 
 1. Jean-Joseph-Benoni Ducrot, formerly advocate of the Cour 
 Royale at Paris, and Henriette-Florence Alix, his wife. 
 
 2. Pierre-Alexis Hennequierre, deceased, landowner at Guise, and 
 Genevieve-Laurence-Virginie Teffin, his widow. 
 
 3. M. Philippe-Francois Hennequierre et Madame Marie-Louisa- 
 Victorie Merlin, his wife. 
 
 4. Jean-Benoit-N kolas Desmoulins. 
 
6 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 their fate, satisfied with the lot that had fallen to 
 them, and prouder of their reputation for honesty 
 than of their narrow fortune. Not theirs, repose 
 with dignity, the otium cum dignitate of the ancients, 
 but a better lot, that of toil with dignity. The whole 
 house tells of habitual work, and it is easy for one's 
 fancy to refurnish those rooms, with their ceilings sup- 
 ported by beams of wood, and their plainly carved 
 panels ; to reconstruct the lawyer's study, with its great 
 table laden with papers, its bookshelves filled with 
 learned books, and heavy treatises on law ; and to 
 discern the housewife's favourite corner, the work- 
 table and the chair which were Madame Desmoulins'. 
 
 The front of the house facing the street has been 
 
 partly taken down ; it was in that portion that the 
 
 young pair lived at first after their marriage. The 
 
 small house in the garden, with the date of the year 
 
 1772 cut upon its walls, was no doubt built when the 
 
 former dwelling had been outgrown by the children 
 
 born to them and then growing up. In the second 
 
 building, erected during the childhood of Camille, we 
 
 find the shadows of many things of the past ; some 
 
 peaceful and some sad. There are the stairs which 
 
 resounded to the children's noisy tread ; the kitchen, 
 
 like one of Chardin's pictures, which was so busy and 
 
 bustling on days when that important personage Cousin 
 
 de Viefville des Essarts visited the house, or when the 
 
 Prince de Conti sojourned beneath the roof of the 
 
 Lieutenant-general. The past revives between these 
 
 white walls, in the flowery little garden, in this corner 
 
 of the world which seems to have preserved the 
 
 memory of the former dwellers in it, long after that 
 
 memory has died away from among the living; a 
 
 vanished past, a humble and gentle past, calm, peace- 
 
The House in which Camille was Born. 7 
 
 ful, simple and severe, like the upright life of the elder 
 Desmoulins, sad and tear-stained like the destiny of an 
 honest man. 
 
 In one story of this house, which is at present the 
 property of M. Bailly, there lives an old man, who was 
 formerly a dancing-master. He is an amiable old 
 man, very smiling, polite, and odd. Since 18 10 he 
 has never quitted his abode, which is filled with old 
 engravings and mineralogical curiosities of his own 
 collecting. ' I tried to awaken in the memory of this 
 charming little old man an echo of the noise which 
 Desmoulins made here formerly ; but in vain. M. Fey- 
 deau gently shook his head, whitened with the snows 
 of ninety years, a head like one by Holbein for saga- 
 city and wrinkles, as he answered to my prompting. 
 ' No,' he said, ' I do not know, I have never heard ; 
 the last time any one spoke of Camille Desmoulins 
 at Guise' — then, correcting himself, — 'spoke of the 
 Citizen Camille Desmoulins, was when our Prefect, M. 
 de la Forge, came here to review the Mobiles. I have 
 no remembrance of anything else.' The inhabitants 
 of Guise are all like this old man. They have for- 
 gotten their unfortunate townsman, the generous fool, 
 the mad-cap of genius, who gave his life to the Repub- 
 lic ; — they have forgotten, after having misunderstood 
 and perhaps calumniated, him. 
 
 I had been informed that an interesting portrait of 
 Camille existed in the Town Hall at Guise, and was 
 to be found in the municipal council chamber. I went 
 thither and asked to see the portrait. Two officials 
 who accompanied me pointed to some portraits of cer- 
 tain great personages of former times, clad in cuirasses 
 and wearing long curled wigs. ' It must be that one,' 
 said one of my guides, indicating a portrait of big, fat 
 
8 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 M. de Beaulieu, who defended Guise in the brave 
 days of old. Evidently this man thought I could 
 not be anxious to see any but a great personage. 
 The portrait of a small attorney, and a poor writer, 
 indeed ! ' It may be here, after all,' said the man, as 
 he opened a sort of dark press in the wall, where the 
 shiny black gowns and caps of judges, lawyers, and 
 officials of the court were hung up in dusty obscurity, 
 and the firewood destined for municipal consumption 
 was also stored. There, in a dark corner,, heaped 
 together, were a number of blackened and worn gilt- 
 frames, old portraits, and busts of dethroned person- 
 ages, kings and queens. These were the detritus of 
 our revolutions ; all that our poor France has by turns 
 welcomed with acclamation and then renounced and 
 repelled ; carried to the Pantheon with blind admiration 
 or flung into the gutter with mad fury ; all the fallen 
 and faded royalties, all the beaten ones lay there to- 
 gether, brought into incongruous contact by the 
 ironical community of destiny. A plaster bust of 
 the late Emperor faced a bronze bust of King 
 Louis Philippe. My guide dived among the heap of 
 frames, and brought up in succession a lithograph re- 
 presenting the Duke of Orleans; an engraving of the 
 Duke and Duchess de Berry ; Napoleon I., in an im- 
 perial mantle spotted with flies, and then a portrait 
 of Cavaignac. The glass frame of the latter was 
 broken. At last, he came upon Camille Desmoulins, 
 a lithographed portrait, after the painting by Francois 
 Bonneville, without any artistic merit. There it lay, 
 dusty, dirty, forgotten, exiled, as it had lain for 
 years, in the dust and darkness of the past. 'Born 
 at Guise ' was. written beneath the figure. Who knew, 
 or cared anything for that, in the little town in Picardy ? 
 
Camilles. Birth. o 
 
 No one is a prophet in his own country, it seems, not 
 even a martyr. 
 
 II. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins was born at Guise on the 2nd 
 of March 1760, and not, as several historians have 
 affirmed, in 1 762, though he supported their statements 
 himself by his reply to the President of the Revolution- 
 ary Tribunal, when, on being asked how old he was, 
 he said : ' I am thirty-three, the age of the sans-culotte 
 Jesus.' In 1794, Camille Desmoulins was thirty- 
 four. 4 He must have remembered this on the- day 
 after his condemnation, for he wrote in his last letter to 
 his wife — ' I die at thirty-four.' 
 
 Picardy, whose vigorous soil produced the human 
 plant, so to speak, more full of sap and vitality than 
 elsewhere, counts her fighting-men by tens. Picardy is 
 the country of Condorcet, who was born at Ribemont ; 
 of Babeuf the dreamer of equality, a native of Saint- 
 Quentin ; of old Calvin, of the Saint-Simons, and the 
 . Guises ; and, in more ancient times still, of the preacher 
 of the Crusades, the enlightened and ardent Peter the 
 Hermit The violent struggle for the emancipation of 
 the commons which the Middle Ages witnessed was 
 most desperate and most decisive in Picardy. One 
 
 1 1760. ' On the second day of the present month was born, and on 
 the third day of March was baptised, Lucie-Simplice-Camille-Benoist, son 
 of Maistre Jean-Benoist-Nicolas Desmoulins, civil and criminal lieutenant- 
 general of the bailiwick of Guise, and of dame Marie-Magdeleine 
 Godart, his wife ; godfather, M. Joseph Godart, maternal uncle, of the 
 parish of Wiege ; godmother, dame Magdeleine-Elizabeth Lescarbotte, 
 also of that parish, who have signed, together with us, the present act.'— 
 From the register of the parish of Guise. 
 
 Camille was baptised in the church of St. Pierre and St. Paul at 
 Guise (diocese of Laon). It' is an odd coincidence that he and his 
 wife were both called Lucie. 
 
io Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 might believe that Picard blood boils and beats more 
 readily than elsewhere; heads are hot there, and M. 
 Michelet, a Picard himself, calls his country ' choleric 
 Picardy.' 
 
 With all this, however, Picardy is the country of 
 reason and common sense, fortified by a prudent and 
 sagacious humour, which becomes cunning in the pea- 
 sant, and wisdom in the educated man. In the Des- 
 moulins family, we find in M. Desmoulins, lieutenant- 
 general of the bailiwick of Guise, a striking example of 
 calm reason, as opposed to the quick temper and ardent 
 impulse of the Picard. He was a grave and indus- 
 trious man, highly esteemed by his fellow townsmen, 
 whose interests he administered with strict honesty ; 
 he was faithful to his public duties, happy in his private 
 life, and he lived free from care and envy in the quiet 
 dwelling, where, when I visited it, I beheld the blue 
 uniforms of the Saxon dragoons. I picture to myself 
 M. Desmoulins in his modest, well-kept house, like one 
 of those legists, numerous enough in former days in 
 the country parts of France, who lived in obscure 
 retirement, labouring noiselessly at some profound and- 
 valuable work. Many a time were men of brilliant 
 renown, the pride of the Parliaments of Paris, obliged 
 to bow before the learning of these unknown scholars, 
 and respectfully to beg their aid. These laborious 
 seekers after knowledge, living in silence face to face 
 with their own works, took no pride in being con- 
 sulted by famous men, but, when they had spoken, 
 quietly resumed their interrupted tasks. Thus M. 
 Desmoulins undertook an 'Encyclopaedia of Law,' 
 which was never destined to see the light of 
 publicity. His manuscripts have all been dispersed 
 and lost. 
 
Camille s Father. i i 
 
 M. Desmoulins was not rich. His wife, Madeleine 
 Godart, of the village of Wiege, brought him a small 
 portion, which partly paid the expenses of the educa- 
 tion of the children born during their union, which was 
 one of true affection and tranquil happiness. They 
 had five children : three sons, of whom Camille was 
 the eldest ; (the others, named Dubuquoy and Se- 
 mery, became soldiers ;) and two daughters. One of 
 the daughters became a nun ; the other was still 
 living, when in 1838 M. Matton, a relative, published 
 an edition of the works of Camille Desmoulins for her 
 benefit. 1 
 
 Camille, the eldest son of M. Desmoulins, in- 
 spired his parents with the greatest hopes for his 
 future by his intelligence, by the light in his brilliant 
 black eyes, by the precocity of his repartees, and the 
 general liveliness of his mind. The father was so 
 proud of the child that he was prepared to make heavy 
 pecuniary sacrifices in order to develope his fine quali- 
 ties. He should be a man of law, an advocate at the 
 Parliament of Paris ; this fiery and resolute child should 
 attain to that which his father had renounced the hope 
 of ever reaching. Unhappily a complete education 
 cost much money in those days ; and, but for the aid of 
 
 1 Paris : Ebrard, publisher, 2 vols, in 8vo, Matton's edition, compiled 
 by a sincere admirer of Camille, and an educated and excellent man, has 
 been adopted as the type of all succeeding editions. On May 6, 1807, one 
 of the brothers was still living. This is proved by a deed of that date in 
 which the relatives of M. Desmoulins are named as follows : — 
 
 Jean-Louis-Deviefville des Essarts, conservator of woods and waters 
 at the residency at Amiens, residing at Guise, executor. 
 
 Nicolas-Semery Desmoulins, gendarme in the company of La Stura, 
 at the residence of La Chiesa. 
 
 Dame Anne-Francpise-Marie Bosdeveix, widow of M. Claude- 
 Etienne-Larridon Duplessis, guardian of Horace-Camille Desmoulins, 
 son of Benoist-Camille Desmoulins, and of dame Anne-Lucile-Philippe- 
 Larridon Duplessis. 
 
1 2 Camille Desmotilins and his Wife. 
 
 a distant relative, his parents could never have made of 
 Camille Desmoulins the wonderfully erudite scholar 
 he became. M. de Viefville des Essarts, formerly 
 an advocate at the Parliament of Paris, and subse- 
 quently deputy from Vermandois to the States-General, 
 obtained a ' bourse ' at the College of Louis-le-Grand 
 for the young Camille. 1 There, in the old school where 
 his memory still survives, Camille Desmoulins set him- 
 self to severe and ardent study, giving himself up, 
 body and soul, to that antique world which he never 
 ceased to love ; feeding on Athenian honey and 
 Roman marrow, learning from the great past a juve- 
 nile love for the great word Republic, whose meaning 
 he perhaps only half comprehended. He loved it 
 better than he understood it ; his whole soul glowed 
 with enthusiasm at the word, spoken in a harangue 
 of Cicero's with grace, in a tirade of Lucan's with bold- 
 ness, and in a chapter of Tacitus with clear precision. 
 At a later time, when he was wont to boast that he 
 had been the first to utter that word aloud, he must 
 have evoked the memories of those schooldays, of 
 that period of moral and intellectual incubation during 
 which the Republican germ was growing within him. 
 When still a youth,' he was already one of the ten Re- 
 ptifrlicans, whom, he said, it would have been hard to 
 find in Paris in 1 788. ' That which constitutes our 
 glory,' says Camille Desmoulins, ' is that we under- 
 . took the Revolution with such small beginnings. Our 
 
 1 The untruthful Leipzig ' Biography,' whose errors I shall have 
 frequent occasion to correct in the course of this history, affirms, contrary 
 to the facts, that Camille Desmoulins was educated at the College of 
 Louis-le-Grand at the cost of the chapter of the cathedral of Laon. M. 
 Edouard Fleury, the author of a severe and often inexact ' History of 
 Camille Desmoulins,' does not venture to affirm the authenticity of this 
 tradition. 
 
Camille s Education. 1 3 
 
 Republicans were, for the most part youths, who, hav- 
 ing fed on Cicero at school, had conceived a passion 
 for liberty. We were educated in the schools of Rome 
 and Athens, and in the pride of the Republic, that we 
 might live in the subjection of monarchy and under 
 the rule of Claudius and Vitellius. What an in- 
 sensate government, to imagine that we could be in- 
 spired with a passionate admiration for the fathers of 
 the Roman republic, the men of the Capitol, without a 
 corresponding horror of the men-eaters of Versailles ; 
 that we could admire the past without condemning 
 the present, ulteriora mirari, prczsentia secuturos! 1 
 
 In the above passage the secret of this independent 
 spirit is revealed. Camille was evidently from his 
 earliest years, and always remained, a political littera- 
 teur, if I may use the phrase ; and his admiration 
 for antiquity, which was to a certain extent artistic, 
 largely inspired his preference for a form of govern- 
 ment under which his dreams of an elegant democracy 
 and an ideal liberty invariably clothed themselves in 
 the garb of Greece or Rpme. Besides, the scholar 
 was always uppermost in him, and until his last hour 
 
 1 M. Eugene Despois, in a remarkable essay upon Camille Desmou- 
 lins, gives a curious extract from a collection of deliberations of the 
 College of Louis-le-Grand, page 211: 
 
 January 19, 1781. 
 
 ' Upon the report rendered by the Principal of the eminent talents of 
 the Sieur de Robespierre, boursier of the College of Arras, who is about to 
 terminate his course of study ; of his good conduct during the past ten 
 years, and his success in his classes, both with respect to the distribution 
 of University Prizes, and in the examinations in Law and Philosophy : 
 
 ' The Council have unanimously accorded to the said Sieur de Robes- 
 pierre a gratification of 600 livres, which shall be paid to him by the 
 treasurer of the College of Arras, and the said sum shall be allowed to the 
 treasurer in his account, on his reporting the expedition of the present 
 deliberation, and the quittance of the said Sieur de Robespierre? 
 
 In the same register we find, under a later entry, 'a bourse granted 
 to Desmoulins,^?" services rendered by his father.' 
 
14 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 he was the same man who was seen, one day, in trans- 
 ports of delight over a passage in the Book of Ezekiel, 
 in which he discovered that the Revolution was pre- 
 dicted word for word. 
 
 At the College of Louis-le-Grand, where several 
 boys from Guise were studying at the same time — 
 the future author of the 'Annuaire' among the 
 number — Camille Desmoulins met a youth of his own 
 age, also a ' boursier ' like himself, who was maintained 
 at Paris by the College of Arras. This was Maxi- 
 milian Robespierre. We can imagine the juvenile 
 talks of the thoughtful, fervid, precocious youths, the 
 clashing sentiments of two such opposite natures, the 
 one ardent and fanciful, the other meditative and 
 severe. What confidences, what hopes, what chimeras 
 must have been given to the wind under the trees in 
 the college gardens ! What dreams must have been 
 dreamed in that small room on the fourth floor, where 
 Gresset, the master, had composed his ' Chartreux,' and 
 where Camille was in the habit of shutting himself 
 up alone to concoct epistles ! ' I was born to write 
 verses,' said the unfortunate Camille, at the foot of the 
 scaffold, doubtless remembering, not without emotion, 
 the ' Epistle' which he addressed to MM. les Adminis- 
 trateurs du College Louis-le-Grand. In that epistle be 
 mentions, with an expression of gratitude which the 
 future bore out, the name of his best-beloved teacher, 
 the Principal of the College, whom he calls ' the good 
 Abbe Berardier,' a man of superior intellect and ex- 
 cellent heart, a friend who was destined to be his 
 adviser in later days, and to survive him. 
 
 In the ' Annee Litteraire' for 1784, we find the lines 
 in which Camille bade his teachers adieu in sincere 
 and touching language. The verses, quoted with just 
 
The A bbd Berardier. 1 5 
 
 praise, for their tone and sentiment (we are not now 
 considering their form), are as follows : — 
 
 .... J'oserai faire entendre une voix 
 Faible, mais qui, du moins, ne sera point vendue. 
 Desormais, 6 ma lyre, a jamais ddtendue, 
 Tu ne charmeras plus mes maux et mon ennui ! 
 Mais, cher a l'lnnocence, et du faible l'appui, 
 Je pourrai quelquefois gouter ce bien supreme : 
 Je ferai des heureux. Eh ! qui dans'ce sejour, 
 Elev£ pres de toi, n'en veut faire a son tour, 
 Berardier ? Ce lieu meme, ou, sur les rives sombres 
 Cresset, avant le temps, crut voir errer nos ombres, 
 Je l'ai vu sous tes lois, trop tard pour mon bonheur, 
 Retracer bien plus t6t le sejour enchanteur 
 Des bosquets d' Academe ou l'heureux Elys^e. 
 Que dis-je ? Pres de toi, doucement abusde, 
 L'enfance ici se croit sous le toit paternel. 
 Berardier, regois cet adieu solennel ! ' 
 
 1 The Abbe" Berardier, Principal of the College of Louis-le-Grand, and 
 whom Camille Desmpulins especially loved, was revered and beloved by 
 all his pupils. In the 'Journal de Paris ' of May 13, 1788, we find a letter 
 signed Brocas, curt de Saint-Benolt, addressed to ' the authors of the 
 journal,' and dated January 10, which relates that in October the pupils at 
 the college, threatened with the loss of the Abbe" BeVardier, and desirous 
 of giving him a last proof of their attachment, resolved to anticipate his 
 birthday, and celebrate it before he should have quitted his post. They 
 accordingly collected a sum of 696 livres. But the Abbe 1 BeVardier re- 
 fused to accept it, and requested them either to take back their subscrip- 
 tions or to devote this sum to ' some more useful good work.' ' They 
 have,' says the Abbe" Brocas, ' willingly adopted the second alternative. 
 In consequence, they have placed in my hands the sum of 696 livres to be 
 employed in procuring the liberty of poor and honest persons in my 
 parish who were threatened with captivity, or already assessed for small 
 debts, and in such other good works as I shall select.' 
 
 I have also found in an article by M. Despois this curious indication, 
 that Camille Desmoulins obtained in 1778, at the great Concotirs, an 
 accessit in Amplification francaise (which was the title given to speech- 
 making in the old university). The Palmare's, which was in Latin, 
 according to the ancient custom, cites : Camilla Benedictus Desmoulins, 
 Guisius, i Collegio Ludovici Magni. In the same year the first prize for 
 'Amplification' was awarded to Andre" Chenier, Andreas Maria de 
 Chinier, Constantinopolitanus, i Collegio Navarrcco. Here were two . 
 
1 6 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 We are not led by this epistle, of which an account 
 is given in the ' Journal de Paris' of August 12, 1784, 
 to believe that Camille Desmoulins would have been 
 a poet. His early verses are simply those of a rhetori- 
 cian ; only valuable from a psychological point of 
 view, as revealing to us the condition of this young 
 mind in the midst of the college of which Camille 
 draws an idyllic picture after the fashion of Gessner : 
 
 La, du patricien la hauteur est bannie, 
 
 Et la seule noblesse est celle du g£nie. 
 
 Tous cultivent les dons qu'en eux le ciel a mis ; 
 
 En comptant leurs rivaux ils comptent leufs amis ; 
 
 Leurs talents nous sont chers, leurs succes sont les n6tres. 
 
 Et le laurier d'un seul couronne tous les autres. 
 
 Je vis avec ces Grecs et ces Romains fameux, 
 
 J'^tudie une langue immortelle comme eux. 
 
 J'entends plaider encor dans le barreau d'Athenes : 
 
 Aujourd'hui c'est Eschine, et demain Demosthenes. 
 
 Combien de fois, avec Plancius et Milon, 
 
 Les yeux mouillds de pleurs, j'embrassai Cice>on ! ' 
 
 An enthusiast of this sort, on quitting Paris and the 
 class-rooms, must have appeared eccentric and exag- 
 gerated to the good people of Guise, and, indeed-, he 
 never quite got over the resentment with which their 
 surprised reception of him inspired him. He shows 
 this in many of his letters. He arrived in high spirits, 
 bringing his student's humour and recklessness to the 
 little town ; and he soon found that, with change of 
 place, these had become unseemly. The only recol- 
 lection he has left in his natal town is of this kind, a not 
 uncommon experience, it must be admitted, in the case 
 
 fated laureates. (See M. Despois on Michelet, ' Revue politique,' August 
 15, 1874.) 
 
 1 M. Ed. Fleury quotes these verses, but bis quotation contains two 
 unpardonable errors which are rectified here. 
 
Recollections of Camille. 1 7 
 
 of men whose ideas are in advance of those of their 
 fellow townsmen, and their former friends. Some 
 years ago I received a letter from M. Cherubin, a 
 resident at Guise/ which contained some recollections 
 of a very old lady who belonged to one of the most 
 ancient families of Guise, and who had preserved 
 her faculties intact to the extreme limits of human 
 existence. This lady retained a distinct recollection 
 of far distant events, and, when she mentioned Ca- 
 mille Desmoulins, always commented severely on what 
 she called his levity in social relations. In her old age 
 she still resented some of the risque'es jokes which he 
 had played off in her salon when she was a young 
 woman. 
 
 This is probably the tradition that M. Edouard 
 Fleury echoes in his work on ' Camille Desmoulins and 
 Roch Mercandier,' when, in his first volume (page 1 5), 
 he exhibits Camille as not only frolicsome, jesting and 
 given to levity, but violent, and passionately impatient 
 of all discussion. 
 
 ' A strange circumstance,' says M. Fleury, ' is related in 
 connection with Desmoulins' enthusiasm. It occurred during 
 a vacation, when he had been passing a few days at the 
 house of a relative. A dinner was given in his honour, to 
 which the local notabilities were invited. A person who was 
 present was aware of the readiness of the young student to 
 be carried away by any discussion upon his favourite heroes, 
 upon the perfections of democratic government, or the sub- 
 limities of republican metaphysics ; it was quite an after- 
 dinner amusement to rouse Camille into one of his ready 
 fits of anger by furnishing him with an active, eager, and 
 sincere antagonist. An opportunity offered, and the young 
 man fell into the trap. At first he replied politely and 
 with tolerable calmness ; but when his adversary shook his 
 head ironically as Camille developed what he called new 
 
 c 
 
x 8 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 principles, he first became compassionate, then tried to jest, 
 and afterwards, firing up, gave way to his irritation, flinging 
 himself against all obstacles and arguments. Sarcasms 
 drove him frantic, and " heresies," as he called them, made 
 him lose every atom of self-control. With eyes aflame, 
 trembling in every limb, and with insult in his words, he rose, 
 flung his dinner-napkin at the head of the obstinate royalist 
 who denied the glory of the Republic, bounded upon the 
 table, smashing all before him, and turned it into a tribune, 
 thus anticipating his future triumphs at the Cafe" de Foi. 
 Thence, undeterred by shouts of laughter from some of the 
 company, the reproaches of others, and the distress of his 
 relatives, he spoke long and excitedly, declaring his convic- 
 tions, denouncing tyranny, lauding to the skies his ideal idol, 
 repeating all the common-places which had hitherto been 
 relegated to the domain of theory, and which he was speedily 
 to remove into that of practice in the political life of the 
 nation which he helped to push into its excesses. Stream- 
 ing with perspiration, and heated with anger, he at length 
 descended from the table, amid a dead silence on the part 
 of some of his hearers, the openly expressed anger of others, 
 and the regret of all that such a scene had taken place.' 
 
 The writer from whom we borrow this anecdote 
 was anxious to prove that the natural violence of 
 Camille was such as to lead to those excesses of the 
 pen which we ourselves shall have to condemn. But M. 
 Fleury is too hasty in his anxiety to paint Camille in 
 dark colours ; he has exaggerated a mere burst of 
 juvenile enthusiasm into which the boy was provoked 
 by the teasing of Madame Godart de Wiege one day 
 during the vaoation of 1784, when she had invited 
 Camille Desmoulins to dinner. M. Matton the elder, 
 the editor of the works of Camille Desmoulins, gives a 
 much simpler and more veracious account of this 
 scene, which convicts the young student, whose head 
 was full of the ' Philippics of Cicero,' and the ' Revo- 
 
His 'Hobbies! 19 
 
 lutions Romaines ' of the Abbe Vertol, of nothing more 
 serious than vivacity which was at all events generous. 
 
 The ' Revolutions Romaines ' of Vertol filled him 
 with admiration. He was completely carried away 
 by those terrible dramas in which the austere face 
 of Brutus and the death-doomed heads of the Gracchi 
 appear each in its turn ; by the astonishing and super- 
 human (also inhuman) procession, in which Virginius 
 carries his poniard, Curtius spurs his horse into the 
 gulf, the Fabian brothers fight like the Maccabees 
 of Rome, and Cato falls upon his sword that he 
 may not survive defeat. That long martyrology of 
 heroes had accustomed Camille, and many others, 
 to discern nothing but a pompous tragedy in the 
 eternal strife of humanity. Rome, that antique she- 
 wolf, whose milk we have all drunk, does, in truth, 
 feed an ideal of fierce virtue in man, very different 
 from humble, sound, every-day goodness. In our 
 day, humanity is weary of theatrical heroism, and de- 
 sirous only of patient labour, of enduring devotion, 
 and of sacrifices to civic duty in which there is nothing 
 sculptural. It is better so. We do not desire to 
 reduce virtue to bourgeois proportions, but we think 
 it is time that it should be left to those which are 
 simply human. By this means it will be more surely 
 attained and diffused. 
 
 Camille, in all the intoxication of his favourite 
 studies, was in the stage of antique virtue — of the Ro- 
 man, indeed, the marble kind, if I may say so. He con- 
 gratulated himself that his parents had given him in 
 his baptism three Roman names, Camilhis, Sulpicius, 
 Luallus. He had worn out, or lost, at least six copies 
 of the ' Revolutions Romaines,' by Vertol, and invariably 
 had a volume of the book in his pocket. A copy of 
 
 C3 
 
20 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the 'Philippics of Cicero' covered with manuscript 
 notes, in which Camille recorded his correct impres- 
 sions as he read, has been preserved. These two 
 books he was never without. 
 
 Thus, hard-working and passionately devoted to 
 learning, Camille concluded his studies brilliantly. He 
 left the College of Louis-le- Grand with regret, which 
 he expresses in his verses, commenced his legal studies 
 immediately, took his bachelor's degree in September 
 1 784, became a .licentiate in March 1 785, and was sworn 
 in, the same year, as an advocate of the Parliament of 
 Paris. He was then twenty-five years old. We have 
 found but few traces of Camille's beginnings at the bar. 
 He was not born an orator. Admirably gifted as a 
 writer, with a truly astonishing rapidity of thought and 
 of expression, bold, pointed and ready, he was an in- 
 different speaker, and easily put down. And then he 
 stammered, though not after the ordinary fashion of 
 a stutterer ; his was rather the hesitation of a man 
 endeavouring to overcome emotion. He began his 
 phrases, started himself, so to speak, with a reite- 
 rated hon ! hon ! (Lucile gave him the name of 
 Monsieur Hon.) M. Moreau de Jonnes, who died in 
 1870, aged ninety years, has often told me about Ca- 
 mille Desmoulins' manner of speaking, which he re- 
 membered perfectly. At first he was unpleasant to hear, 
 his voice was hard and hesitating, but little by little the 
 stammer lessened, as the orator warmed to his subject, 
 until, when he was fully inspired and carried away by 
 his subject, Camille stammered not at all. He pleaded 
 seldom, and without brilliancy ; but the sacred fire of 
 authorship was always alight within him ; he inces- 
 santly felt the irresistible impulse which puts the pen 
 into the hand as it would put a sword ; he flung his 
 
Camille's Early Days iu Paris. 2 1 
 
 projects and his hopes on paper, and lived poorly 
 enough on the product of law-copying which he did 
 for attorneys. We find him composing rhymes for 
 songs, or fabricating epigrams, wandering hither and 
 thither in that great Paris where he dreamed of 
 making a place for himself; to-day he is listening to 
 Beaumarchais' Figaro, in the pit of the theatre, to- 
 morrow seeing Ginguene or Chamfort. Thus he was 
 polishing his arms, he was preparing for the coming 
 assault, he smelt powder in the air ; and, perhaps, in 
 his obscurity, in his garret-room, from the gloomy 
 depths of his unknown life, he already told himself, 
 ' I too shall shed my thoughts upon the world ! ' 
 
 III. 
 
 The hour had come when the world, shaken, 
 agitated, and giving way in all its parts, began to feel 
 a new germination within it. The task at which the 
 philosophers of the eighteenth century had wrought so 
 ardently was bearing its fruits in the old age of that 
 century. The revolution which had already com- 
 menced in the minds of men was about to enter into 
 the domain of facts, neyer again to be arrested in its 
 course. In vain should the partisans of the past engage 
 in the strife which still endures ; the movement, accele- 
 rated or retarded by turn, according to circumstances, 
 could never thenceforth be impeded. Voltaire, Diderot, 
 the encyclopaedists had not vainly sown the seed of 
 their thoughts on barren ground. The harvest was 
 near. 
 
 At that time every true French heart hoped for, 
 and desired, a peaceful development of the new and 
 inevitable problems ; but events were about to turn this 
 
22 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 fair dream into a tragedy. At the dawn of the year 
 1789, the nation had only reached the stage of hope; 
 and a deep breath of relief was breathed throughout 
 all France, when Louis XVI. convoked the States 
 General. 1 
 
 This convocation of the States General — demanded 
 at the assembly of the Notables, which closed on the 
 25th May, 1 787, — had been formally promised by Louis 
 XVI. at the Bed of Justice which he held, on the 24th 
 November, 1787, for the registration of two edicts. 
 It happened strangely that the king promised this 
 convocation in the year 1792, and 1792 was the year 
 which witnessed the destruction of the monarchy. 
 France, however, was thirsting for many reforms ; 
 she could not wait five years: 1792 lay too far in 
 the future. The date of the convocation was hastened. 
 The king, yielding to the national will, resolved 
 to assemble, in January 1789, those States General 
 which had not met for a period of 175 years (1614), so 
 that, in the Dictionnaire universel de la France, pub- 
 lished in 1 771, R. de Hesseln, quoted by M. L. La- 
 lanne, had said, under the heading Etats : ' The 
 States General are obsolete.' We may therefore im- 
 agine with what joy the nation learned that twelve 
 hundred and seventy-four deputies, three hundred and 
 eight of the clergy, two hundred and eighty-nine of the 
 nobility, and six hundred and eighty-one of the com- 
 mons, or tiers etat, were about to discuss its interests, 
 and regulate the new life to which it aspired. Many 
 were the dreams of happiness to which this intel- 
 ligence gave rise. Nowhere did hope spring up more 
 
 1 For information on the condition of Picardy before 1789, it would 
 be useful to consult a < Notice sur les Archives civiles de l'Aisne,' com- 
 piled by M. Matton, Archivist to the department. 
 
The * Cahiers.' 23 
 
 vigorously and brightly than in Picardy (especially in 
 Vermandois and Soissonnais, which had been reduced 
 to great poverty by the severity of the past winter) ; 
 all the poor people believed that their burthens were 
 immediately to be lifted off their bowed shoulders. 
 
 The statements, or cahiers, of the provinces, those 
 eloquent voices, the plaints of the multitude, were at 
 length to reach the ears of the king. The peasants, 
 bent, like La Fontaine's wood-cutter, beneath the weight 
 of their load, were to be permitted to appeal and com- 
 plain, without having to dread death as the only reply 
 to their lamentation. We may picture to ourselves 
 what happy dreams illumined the smoky cabins. ' The 
 king is at length going to learn what we suffer. Our 
 cahiers will tell him, and our deputies at Versailles 
 will not fail to repeat it to him. The king informed is 
 the nation saved.' What visions ! 
 
 This history must confine itself to that spot on 
 which Camille Desmoulins was born. The prepara- 
 tion of the cahiers and the nomination of the deputies 
 to the Assembly of the three orders were to take place 
 at Laon, on the 16th March. 
 
 At Guise, the first electoral assembly took place on 
 the 5th, and was presided over by M. Desmoulins, 
 lieutenant-general of the bailiwick of Vermandois ; M. 
 Saulce was the Procureur du Roi, and M. Mariage, 
 keeper of the records, was the secretary. The roll of 
 the commissaries of parishes showed that two hundred 
 and ninety-two were present. 
 
 The second assembly took place in the church of 
 the Friars Minors at Guise. • There seventy deputies 
 from Laon to the Assembly of the three orders were 
 nominated. If Camille's father had chosen, he might 
 have been one of those to figure at Versailles. 
 
24 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 ' The lieutenant-general,' (I quote from the Records- 
 office archives at Laon) 'having been unanimously 
 elected, with the exception of one vote from the parish 
 of Bernot, "applauded that vote as the symbol of 
 liberty," but declined on account of his health, after 
 having testified his sense of the honour done him by 
 such a trust.' Thus, from the commencement, we find 
 this unpretending, wise, and liberal man, refusing those 
 honours which his son was eagerly to desire, and which 
 were destined to cost not only that son t but both, so 
 dear. 
 
 On the list of the seventy-five commissaries, depu- 
 ties to Laon, I find the following names, in the order of 
 their election. 
 
 No. i. Jean-Louis Deviefville des Essarts, advo- 
 cate, and sub-delegate at Guise. 
 
 No. 2. Adrien-Jean-Louis Deviefville, mayor of 
 Guise. 
 
 No. 24. Lucie-Simplice-Camille-Benoit Desmou- 
 lins, advocate at Guise. 1 Together with these names 
 are those of attorneys, millers, sheep-salesmen, and es- 
 pecially labourers. The man who belongs to the earth, 
 the man of the soil, the peasant, comes up out of his fur- 
 row for the first time. These were only the preliminary 
 elections, preceding the decisive elections of the depu- 
 ties to the States General The report of the assembly 
 of the third estate at Laon registers a letter from the 
 Marquis de Condorcet, who ' demands that a desire for 
 the abolition of the trade in negroes may be introduced 
 into the Cakier.' On March 16, 1789, that assembly 
 
 1 Therefore Camille will presently sign his 'Ode to the States 
 General,' ' Camille Desmoulins, advocate, deputy from the bailiwick of 
 Guise.' 
 
The Electoral Assembly at Laon. 25 
 
 took place at Laon, ' in the hall intended for the public 
 exercises of the College of St. Jean de l'Abbaye.' It 
 was presided over by Caignart du Rotay, lieutenant- 
 general of the bailiwick of Vermandois. Some generous 
 impulses were already perceptible among the mem- 
 bers present at these meetings. Caignart du Rotay, 
 in his presidential address, when replying to a depu- 
 tation of the clergy to the tiers, gives us a glimpse 
 of that unhappily brief sacrifice which the electric 
 sitting of the 4th August was to produce. ' We 
 had read your hearts aright,' said he, ' when at the 
 assembly of the third estate on the ninth of this month 
 we announced that it should soon witness the great- 
 ness of soul of the two first orders ; that it should 
 most infallibly see them hasten to lay the voluntary 
 tribute of their pecuniary privileges at the foot of the 
 throne ; that it should behold this honourable offering 
 to the country!' Thus it was that several persons, 
 on leaving the place of meeting, hoped that not 
 only the abolition, but the voluntary renunciation of 
 privileges might result from this decisive stroke. 
 
 On March 20, 21, and 22 the nomination of deputies 
 to the States General took place : the assembly electing 
 M. Le Carlier, Mayor of Laon ; Vieville des Essarts, 
 deputy from Guise ; Devismes, advocate at Laon ; 
 Bailly, labourer at Cresy-au- Moth ; l'Eleu de la Ville- 
 aux-Bois, councillor to the king, elected in the elec- 
 tion at Laon ; Leclare, labourer at Lannois. 
 
 We shall speedily find Camille Desmoulins regret- 
 ting that his father has not just a little spark of 
 ambition, 1 but finding some consolation in reminding 
 
 1 Afterwards his memory dwelt upon those days. ' Remember,' he 
 wrote, ' the tears which I have seen in every eye while you were 
 
26 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 himself that the deputy from Guise is Vieville, or 
 rather' Deviefville des Essarts, sub-delegate from the 
 bailiwick of Guise, his cousin. 
 
 The deputies were nominated, — but were their 
 complaints about to be listened to at Versailles ? The 
 Cahiers of their corner of French soil contain and repeat 
 the greater part of those complaints which were uttered 
 in common by all France ; and when the entire collec- 
 tion of the statements to the States General shall have 
 been published, we shall be surprised at the unanimity 
 of the protests made by the various portions of that vast, 
 suffering, and oppressed body. It is indeed that ' same 
 cry,' the 'Universal cry' of which Camille was after- 
 wards to speak in his ' France libre.' The Cahiers of 
 the States General resemble each other, and demand, for 
 example, ' What purpose does the farm system serve ? 
 That of ruining the people.' Or again; they com- 
 plain : ' The distribution of taxes is made by favour. 
 The ecclesiastical estate has all the goods of France 
 and the nobility, and it pays no subsidy either to the 
 State or to the king.' (Complaints and grievances 
 of the commune and inhabitants of the parish of Wis- 
 signicourt to be laid before our lords the deputies of His 
 Majesty to the States General, at Laon, 16th March, 
 1789.) 'If the number of lacqueys and of persons 
 employed in farms were reduced,' said a voice from the 
 district of Monaigu, ' agriculture would be the gainer.' 
 The resigned tone of these almost submissive protests 
 is worthy of notice. 
 
 The small parish of Berrieux complains that it has 
 to pay taxes to the amount of 4,545 livres,. though it- 
 
 speaking, when, in your capacity as president, you opened the assembly 
 of your secondary bailiwick ; remember the 297 votes for- the deputation 
 which were given to you, out of the number of 298 electors.' 
 
The Complaint of Chaillevois. 27 
 
 reckons only one hundred and ten fires. Many equally 
 glaring cases of injustice existed, and had struck clear- 
 sighted men, long before 1 789. ' I know a village, 
 three leagues from Paris,' wrote Grimm, in 1 763, twenty 
 years before the general movement of the nation, ' I 
 know a village composed of two hundred fires, in a 
 wine-growing country, and consequently poor, — this 
 village pays to the king, every year, 15,000 livres 
 tollage and capitation tax ; the twentieths, the aids, the 
 control, and all the farrago of rates which make up 
 another sum of 15,000 livres. So that the king of 
 France extracts 30,000 livres yearly from one wretched 
 village. There are many princes in Germany who do 
 not receive so much from an entire bailiwick.' 1 
 
 But, perhaps from all France, there arose no cry so 
 tragic, so deep, so grief-laden as that uttered by the in- 
 habitants of the parish of Chaillevois. This dark page 
 merits to be quoted entire. 2 Ab uno disce omnes. 
 
 1 The bailiwick of Vermandois comprehended in 1789, 274 com- 
 munes. See Matteville's ' Histoire de Laon.' 
 
 The presidential bailiwick was composed as follows : — 
 
 M. Caignart du Rotay, Lieutenant- General. 
 
 M. Dogny, Lieutenant of Police. 
 
 M. Pelee de Treville, Criminal Lieutenant. 
 
 M. Francois, Lieutenant Assessor. 
 
 M. L'Eleu, ^ 
 
 Councillors. 
 
 M. Laurent, 
 
 M. De Martigny, 
 
 M. De la Campagne, 
 
 M. Dagneau, 
 
 M. Romain, 
 
 M. Fouant, Procureur du Roi. 
 
 M. Delatltre de Motte, King's advocate. 
 
 M. Dumoutier, Clerk. 
 
 '* ' If, at harvest time, and after the gleaning,' say the complaints of 
 Berrieux, ' a poor person who has a cow and no litter to give it, should 
 be found gathering the stubble stalks, he is mercilessly punished ; and if, 
 
28 Camille Desmottlins and his Wife. 
 
 ' The community of Chaillevois is composed of about '200 
 persons, fathers, mothers, children, and grand-children. The 
 most part of the inhabitants have no property whatever, those 
 who have any possess so little that it is not worth talking 
 about ; they are almost all vine-growers — that is to say, they 
 work at the vines as labourers. A vine-grower may cultivate 
 an acre of vines at most ; he pays for the cultivation of an 
 acre of vines of one hundred rods the sum of fifty livres, be- 
 side five livres for the dressing of the vines until the vintage, 
 after the principal culture, and five livres for digging after 
 the vintage, sum total sixty livres. The vine-grower is oc- 
 cupied in this culture from February 1 5 until the middle of 
 November, nine months of the year ; it is true that anyone 
 who is capable of harvesting work may do it in this interval ; 
 if he be a good workman his harvest work will be worth forty 
 francs : if he finds opportunity for doing some other day- 
 work in the other three months it will be so little that it is not 
 worth reckoning in the account, and thus it is evident from 
 this statement that the entire gain of a vine-grower is 
 reduced to one hundred livres a year. Supposing that the 
 wife earns one-half that sum, which cannot be supposed if 
 she has several children, their earnings will amount to 150 
 livres, with which they and their children must be lodged, fed, 
 and clothed. The ordinary food is bread steeped in salt 
 water"; it is needless to say the bread is not buttered ; as for 
 meat, it is never tasted except on Shrove Tuesday, Easter 
 Sunday, and the feast day of the patron saint, at a wedding, 
 
 in winter, a man kills a crow, he is severely punished under pretext that 
 by firing a gun he might set the village on fire, and that he is forbidden 
 to carry arms. But if a servant of the great house wants his diversion, 
 shots may be heard all over the village, and there is no pretence of 
 danger. We know that the gentry have their rights of the chase, but we 
 doubt whether the privilege extends to their servants.' 
 
 ' At the time in question, wine not being always consumed on the 
 spot, and means of transport being scarce, the barrels were emptied over 
 the fields to preserve the casks. We have seen the same thing done in 
 our childhood at Perigord. Since then railroads have turned the vine- 
 growing countries into wealthy districts.' (J. C.) 
 
 ' Correspondance littdraire et philosophique,' vol. iii. p. 411, concerning 
 a paper entitled ' La Richesse de 1'Etat,' by M. Roussel, councillor to the 
 Parliament. 
 
The Complaint of Chaillevois. 29 
 
 or when a man works at the wine-press for his master. A man 
 may sometimes eat haricots and beans when the master does 
 not forbid them to be grown among his vines. The king's 
 charges in tollage and capitation tax amount to six livres, 
 not including the corvte ; and he who has absolutely nothing 
 is obliged to pay for a pound of salt fourteen or fifteen sols, 
 according to the number of his children. 
 
 ' One year he must buy a pound each week, another year 
 a pound each fortnight ; one year more, another less ; this 
 price is enormous, and causes many to be unable even to eat 
 what is called soup. If, unhappily, either the husband or the 
 wife have contracted the habit of using snuff, it is only by' 
 depriving themselves and their children of bread that they 
 can procure a few ounces from time to time. If a poor vine- 
 grower falls sick, all his means fail ; if he sends for a surgeon, 
 he will charge him more than he can earn in a week for a 
 journey, for bleeding him, for a dose of medicine ; if he be 
 summoned by anyone for a debt or any other cause, he must 
 pay the process-server more than he can earn in two weeks, 
 and a sentence of any kind must utterly ruin him ; his greatest 
 scourge is justice. If he makes a piece of wine he must not 
 sell it .by the bottle, and he may die of hunger while waiting 
 for a customer to purchase it in the piece ; and even if he 
 sells it so, he must give seven or eight livres to the farmer. 
 This is how the common people live under the best of kings, 
 and in the midst of a nation which boasts to be the most 
 generous of all nations, in an age in which nothing is talked 
 of but humanity and beneficence ; and nevertheless the 
 common people are the most precious portion of the nation, 
 because it is they who do the most work ; but the fate of 
 working people is almost the same everywhere, they have 
 barely bread to eat, water to drink, straw to sleep on, and a 
 hut to shelter them. Their condition is worse than that of 
 the savages in America. If the king did but know the value of 
 three sols, and that there are millions of inhabitants in his king- 
 dom who, by working from morning to night, cannot earn three 
 sols to live upon, for that is evident from the calculation just 
 made ! Such are the griefs of the inhabitants of Chaillevois. 
 May God grant that their complaint may touch the hearts of 
 
30 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 His Majesty and of the States General who are about to be 
 assembled to work the regeneration of France. 
 ' In which faith we have signed : 
 
 ' Joseph Flamant ; Balidoux ; Flamant ; 
 
 ' Aubin ; Druet ; Joseph Payen.' ' 
 
 Was this touching complaint ever read, this lamen- 
 tation of the ' common people,' so fitted to ' touch the 
 heart of His Majesty,' and to give to the future a true 
 picture of the lamentable state of things which the 
 Revolution was about to destroy ? We often speak, 
 from the depths of our national trouble — (and without 
 correcting ourselves in order that we may attain to it), — 
 of the regeneration of France ; but they had a better 
 right than we to talk of it, they, who like the poor 
 people of Chaillevois had ' barely bread to eat, water to 
 drink, and straw to sleep upon,' and who contented 
 themselves by uttering in the hearing of Louis XVI. 
 those words, solemn as a passing bell, ' If the king did 
 but know the value of three sols' 
 
 When we have read the Memoires du Marquis 
 d'Argenson, there is nothing to astonish us in com- 
 plaints like these. For a long time the government of 
 France had been, as D'Argenson said, in 1751, a 
 ' spendthrift anarchy,' and the Court also, according to 
 the Marquis, the 'tomb of the nation,' the tomb of 
 those poor creatures of whom La Bruyere speaks, who 
 creep of nights into their lair, and live on black bread, 
 roots, and water. 
 
 Poverty, mortal, hideous, incredible, rose like a tide. 
 
 1 M. Claretie gives this touching and terrible document in the 
 original form, and with the extraordinary orthography, which makes 
 it difficult to read. The directness, simplicity, and good sense of the 
 statement contrast strangely with the ignorance of the undoubtedly 
 capable men who drew it up. (Translator.) 
 
 This complaint will be found in the original among the complemen- 
 tary documents. 
 
The Testimony of D 1 Argenson. 31 
 
 The cure of a village writes in his parish register 
 in 1 709 : ' I certify to all those whom it may concern, 
 that all the persons who are named in this parish 
 register have died of famine, with the exception of M. 
 Discrots and his daughter.' And then he adds a 
 note to this effect : ' The people have been eating dead 
 carrion for a fortnight past ; there is no corn, and women 
 have smothered their children for dread of having to 
 feed them.' * 
 
 Thirty years later, D' Argenson writes that want 
 and misery advance within the kingdom to an unheard- 
 of degree ; men die, he says, ' as thick as flies, of 
 poverty, and the living are eating grass.' The first 
 president of the Court of Taxes, Le Camus, in his 
 harangue to the king, ventured to bring under the eyes 
 of His Majesty ' the people who were groaning in their 
 wretchedness without food or money, obliged to dis- 
 pute their sustenance with the beasts of the field.' 
 D'Argenson was yet to say in his glowing emphatic 
 manner that 'the peasants are no longer aught but 
 poor slaves, beasts of burden fastened to a yoke.' In 
 ten years, pestilence having come to the aid of famine, 
 the population of France had diminished one-third, and 
 the two remaining thirds were bowed down with want. 
 In 1752, on a certain occasion when the king and queen 
 and the dauphiness were going to Notre Dame, a poor 
 man clung to their carriages and held out a loaf of 
 black bread for them to see. ' Misery, famine ! ' he 
 cried ; * see what they make us pay three sous a pound 
 for.' Was not this like a prologue to those days 
 when the people should go to Versailles to seek the 
 
 1 See ' La Famine de 1709 dans le val de la Loire ' (MJmoires de 
 la SociiUd' Emulation de Moulins). 
 
 Ed. Severer, 'Etude sur d' Argenson et la, France sous Louis XV.! 
 
32 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 ' baker,' the ' baker's wife, and the ' little baker's-man.' 
 The starving multitude was already exasperated. 
 ' When the people no longer fear anything, they are 
 everything,' said D'Argenson, and added in a tone of 
 true prophecy : * All these matefials are combustible.' 
 Again he said, after 1751 : 'A disturbance may give 
 place to a revolt, and the revolt to a total revolution, 
 when real tribunes of the people may be elected, and 
 the king and his ministers be despoiled of their excessive 
 power to do harm.' And again, later : ' The revolution 
 is certain ; there is nothing left but to detach oneself 
 from one's country, and to prepare to pass under the 
 rule of other masters.' The revolutionists, at least, so 
 far from detaching themselves from their country, 
 attached themselves to her more closely and stronger 
 than ever, and would have none but her for their 
 sovereign and mistress. 
 
 But in the meantime expiring France was uttering 
 poignant lamentations. 
 
 While the poor people, La Bruyere's ' animals 
 with human faces' lived, or rather languished thus, a 
 heartless, frivolous, worthless society, steeped in plea- 
 sure, whirled about the summit of the weird edifice of 
 which the suffering multitude formed the base. The 
 time was not far off when the publication of the 
 ' Livre rouge ' was destined to disclose into whose hands 
 the public money passed, and for whom the toiling 
 masses worked. 1 Mistresses, abbes, marshals, nurses, 
 
 1 The ' Red Book/ or list of secret pensions paid by the Treasury, 
 contained the names and quality of the pensioners, the nature of their 
 services, and observations upon the motive which had led to their being 
 pensioned. It was printed at the Royal press in 1790. This book, 
 printed in red, appeared in sections. It gave rise to the publication of a 
 Cahier, in 8vo, entitled ' Coup d'ceil severe mais juste sur le livre intitule" 
 le Livre Rouge.' The author writes : ' These are vengeances unworthy 
 
Abuses of the Pension List. 33 
 
 procuresses, pimps, readers to the queen, croziered and 
 mitred personages, received pensions, some of them 
 enormous ; many reversionary, or else gratuitous 
 donations, and wealth in kind. 'M. Ducrot, hair- 
 dresser,' Camille Desmoulins tells us, ' received a re- 
 tiring pension of 1700 livres, for his services as hair- 
 dresser to Mademoiselle d'Artois, who died at three 
 years old, before she had any hair, and Mademoiselle 
 
 X enjoyed 1500 livres per annum, because she 
 
 once washed the late Dauphin's ruffles. ( ' Revolutions 
 de France et de Brabant,' No. 20, page 227.) l All this 
 
 of a National Assembly. Nevertheless it is only by letting light in 
 everywhere that truth is reached. ' Truth, that is my god ! ' was the 
 motto of the editor of the ' Livre Rouge.' 
 
 1 This is no calumny on the part of Desmoulins ; all historians, worthy of 
 credit, agree upon the point. (Lacretelle, ' Histoire du dix-huitieme Siecle,' 
 vol. iv. p. 274 ; Droz, vol i. p. 66 ; Henri Martin, 4th edit. vol. xvi. p. 298 ; 
 Michelet, 'Revolution Francaise,' vol. i. pp. 76, 126, 270.) We will 
 be satisfied with quoting Droz, who is certainly not to be suspected of 
 exaggeration : 
 
 ' Terray prohibited exportation in a certain province, and grain fell in 
 price ; then he bought a quantity, and sold it again in a certain other 
 province which he had starved by exciting exportation from it. Louis XV. 
 resorted to the same kind of traffic to increase his private wealth. 
 Louis XV. was subject to a curious aberration of mind, which led him to 
 regard himself as two distinct personages, the man and the king, and the 
 man frequently speculated, and gambled in stock-jobbing against the 
 king and against France. The'Almanach National' for 1774 disclosed 
 the name of an individual designated as Treasurer of grain on the king's 
 account, and thereby excited horror. The indiscretion of the printer 
 was punished, but the manuscript page had been read at the General 
 Controller's office, and, doubtless, a clerk, worthy of Terray, had seen 
 nothing to be surprised at in the fact that Louis XV. traded on the bread 
 of his subjects. 
 
 In 1781, Mirabeau loudly stigmatised this infamous speculation by 
 Louis le Hen aime". ' The king,' he said, 'horrible- to think of, the king, 
 not only authorising, but practising a monopoly at the expense of the sub- 
 sistence of his people.' — Lettres de Cachet, chap. xii. p. 303. 
 
 And again in Note 35, p. 317, he quotes, as proof, the express official 
 mention which is made in the 'Almanach Royal' of 1773, of the sieur 
 Mirlavaud as Treasurer of grain on the king's account. On this indication, 
 afforded by Mirabeau, incredulous persons have searched the ' Almanach 
 
 D 
 
34 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 is apart from the fact that the king, as stated in ' La 
 France Libre,' publicly claimed the monopoly of grain ! 
 ' Oh, a fine time, and a splendid reign ! ' exclaims the 
 annotator, ' but what will posterity say ? ' 
 
 Posterity will remember favourably for the king 
 that when he signed the ' Decree concerning the Con- 
 vocation of the States General of the Kingdom,' July 
 5th, 1 788, his desire was to try to give a more liberal 
 form to the government of France ; but posterity will 
 likewise remember, with reproach, how this same 
 monarch yielded to those who pursued the new ideas 
 with hatred as active as it was stupid. Posterity will 
 declare it deplorable that from 1789, the country, 
 suffering and dislocated, but unanimous in its desires, 
 was not permitted to hail the advent of the definitive 
 reign of liberty. Guilty indeed are they who oppose 
 to such desires their private repugnance and resistance. 
 Malouet, who was averse to excess of any kind, who 
 was one of the most moderate men in the National 
 Assembly, of whom Burke said that he was the best 
 ' who had watched by the bedside of the dying 
 monarchy,' pointed out to the ministers of Louis XVI, 
 the line of conduct which they ought to have adopted. 
 ' The will of France,' said he, ' has summoned the 
 States General ; it is indispensable that that will should 
 be obeyed. You have been forced to invoke the 
 counsel and the succour of the nation, yoit cannot go on 
 any longer without the nation ; from its strength you must 
 
 Royal' for 1773, and not having found any such entry, have pretended 
 that the fact alleged by him was false. They are correct in stating that 
 the almanack for 1773 does' not contain the important item, but they 
 would have only had to look in that for 1774, the last which appeared 
 under Louis XV., to discover it. The table of contents also includes 
 (p. 571 B) the title of the office : Treasurer of grain on the king's account. 
 The almanack for 1773 does not include it.— See Prudhomme, Introduc- 
 tion to •' Revolutions de Paris,' p. 34. 
 
Broadsheets and Pamphlets. 35 
 
 draw your own.' The monarchy might, perhaps, have 
 been saved, if the advisers of the king had compre- 
 hended that, thenceforth, agreement between the king 
 and the nation was necessary, and that neither 
 material nor moral forces were on the side of the past. 
 But it is bootless to speculate upon the point. It was 
 fated that Louis XVI. should allow himself to be 
 dragged to his destruction by her whom Monsieur (the 
 Count of Provence), and the pamphleteers inspired by 
 him, dubbed The Austrian, before the people, imitating 
 the court, gave her that name ; and by men who, like 
 M. de Montmorin, seemed bent on ruining that mo- 
 narchy which, in their blindness they believed they 
 served. 
 
 Great political excitement had been caused by 
 the convocation of the States General. Pamphlets 
 cropped up in all directions. Did not the Decree of 
 the 5th of July, 1788, say: His Majesty 'invites all 
 the learned and instructed persons of his kingdom, and 
 especially those who compose the Academy of Inscrip- 
 tions and belles-lettres, to address information and me- 
 morials on the objects of the present decree to the 
 Keeper of the Seals ' ? Men's brains seem to have 
 taken fire like gunpowder, All the ' heads big with 
 folios,' as Camille Desmoulins says, began to bring 
 forth. Mangourit, with his ' Tribun du peuple au 
 peuple,' sounded the first drum-tap. Count Avenel 
 d'Entraigues published a quasi-republican 'Memoire.' 
 The writings of Necker, Mirabeau, and the Marquis 
 de Beauvau, in which they put the ideas which were 
 - common to the great mass of the nation in circulation ; 
 — such as the equalisation of taxation, and abolition of 
 exemptions — were re-printed, or re-read. »The work of 
 Linguet, the adversary of the Bastille, in which he 
 
36 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 attacked privileges, apropos of the land tax, and 
 fiercely combated the fiscal system of the old regime, 
 was warmly discussed. The famous pamphlet by 
 Sieyes, ' Qu'est-ce que le Tiers Etat ? ' was, it may be 
 said without exaggeration, in almost every hand. 
 Thirty thousand copies of it were sold in three weeks. 
 Cerutti, Target, Rabaut Saint-Etienne ; Servan, 
 Thouret at Rouen ; Volney in Brittany ; Claviere, Con- 
 dorcet, Brissot, all brought their contingent of mili- 
 tant pamphlets to swell the mass of writings which 
 were read and commented upon everywhere, with 
 feverish eagerness. Carra already ventured to write, 
 in the ' Orateur pour les Etats-Generaux,' ' The 
 People is the true sovereign, and the King is only his 
 head clerk.' 
 
 What was Camille Desmoulins doing at this time ? 
 Had his spirit not taken fire at such a spectacle ? In 
 the list of the most influential of the political writings 
 which preceded tfie opening of the States General, I 
 find (see the ' Introduction Historique' to the ' Moni- 
 teur ') a pamphlet enumerated : ' La Philosophic au 
 Peuple Francais,' par M. Desmoulins, 1788. 
 
 A thought of Seneca's forms the epigraph to this 
 essay : Expergiscamur ut errores nostros coarguere pos- 
 simus. Sola autem nos philosophia excitabit, sola somnum 
 excutiet gravem. — Seneca, de Philosophia. 
 
 The ' Moniteur ' quotes a passage from this essay, 
 which enables us to judge of the whole. 
 
 ' It is time that you should lift up your head, and keep 
 it uplifted ; it is time that you should re-enter into your 
 rights, and recover your original liberty (this phrase is fine, 
 and denotes the Desmoulins of " la France Libre ") ; the enter- 
 prise is formed, the first movements are made ; but that is 
 not enough ; you must resist until you shall be certain of 
 
The Ode to the States General. 37 
 
 your triumph. Ah, how much to be pitied you would 
 be, if you should ever give way before your enemies ! 
 You would then be a hundred times more miserable than, 
 you were before you ever dreamed of shaking off your chains. 
 You would fall back into the sad and shameful servitude of 
 your ancestors,' &c. 
 
 ' The author,' adds the ' Moniteur,' ' proceeds to 
 develope the principles of a plan for a Constitution.' 
 
 Is this pamphlet really written by Camille ? In 
 my opinion, it is impossible to doubt it. In 1788, 
 Desmoulins was twenty-eight years old ; he was still un- 
 known, and ' disposable ; ' active, and a ready writer. 
 How can it be supposed that the general fever had 
 not infected him, impelling him to write, and proclaim 
 his ideas upon the future Constitution ? It would have 
 been difficult for an advocate, and a man of letters, to 
 keep silence at a moment when all France was talking. 1 
 Almost at the same time, Camille's enthusiasm for the 
 States General, who would — as, in common with the 
 majority of the nation, he believed — secure the welfare 
 of the country, Camille's admiration of the ' tribunes ' 
 inspired him with an Ode, which for a long time 
 defied all my researches, but which at length I had 
 the good fortune to find, and which I have reprinted 
 in my edition of the ' Works of Camille Desmoulins.' 
 The ode is but indifferent poetry, like all the verses 
 which bear the signature of Desmoulins, but it has the 
 interest of a symptom, and it indicates the position, in 
 T788, of those rare spirits which an exclusively 
 classical education had prepared for the love, if not for 
 the clear conception of the Republic. 
 
 1 The author's phrase, 'en un moment oil la parole dtait a la 
 France toute entiere,' is untranslateable. It is equivalent to our parlia- 
 mentary expression, ' catching the Speaker's eye.' (Translator). 
 
38 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 In the Ode, Camille Desmoulins lauds the king, 
 whose desire is to put truth in the place of falsehood. 
 
 'Cher prince, des rois le model©,- • 
 Eh bien nous doutions de ta foi, 
 Et qu'au-dessus de Marc-Aurele 
 La France dut placer son roi ! ' 
 
 Satire, bitter and sad, upon the condition of 
 the nation, has, however, a larger place in the poem 
 than the praises of the sovereign who has hearkened 
 to the prayers of the people : — 
 
 ' Pour les nobles, toutes les graces, 
 Pour toi, peuple, tous les travaux,' 
 
 says Camille, and continues in the same key : — 
 
 ' L'homme est estim£ par les races, 
 Comme les chiens et les chevaux. 
 Pourtant, au banquet de la vie 
 Les enfants qu'un pere convie 
 Au meme rang sont tous assis : 
 Le ciel nous fit de meme argile, 
 Et c'est un fil aussi fragile, 
 Que tourne pour eux Lachesis. 
 
 L'imp6t prend sa course incertaine : 
 Dans le pare et dans le chateau 
 II ne pose son pied qu'a peine, 
 Et foule vingt fois le hameau. 
 Ton glaive trop longtemps repose : 
 Du pauvre prends enfin la cause, 
 Venge Naboth, Dieu protecteur ! ' 
 
 Necker ' comes down from the mountain,' accom- 
 panied by Reason, and with the tables in his hand, like 
 Moses, he is about to overthrow the golden calf : — 
 
 La peuple sort de dessous l'herbe : 
 Deja, de ses mille cites, 
 
The Ode to the States General. 39 
 
 II voit, plein d'un espoir superbe, 
 
 Partir ses mille deputes. 
 
 La Priere lente et boiteuse 
 
 De son succes, n'est plus douteuse, 
 
 Elle a monte devant Louis. 
 
 Then Camille addresses the deputies in conclusion : — 
 
 Tonnez, et tribuns de la plebe 
 De l'esclavage et de la glebe, 
 Effacez les restes honteux ! 
 
 These were not the only verses written at this period 
 by Camille Desmoulins. The collection entitled 
 ' Satires, ou Choix des meilleures Pieces de vers qui ont 
 precede et suivi la Revolution (32 p., in 8vo., a Paris, 
 l'an I de la Liberte, avec gravures),' contains several 
 pieces signed with the name of Desmoulins. There 
 are some infamous verses among the number ; and 
 Camille's biographer, M. Ed. Fleury, does not hesitate 
 to accuse him of them, although Camille, in the twenty- 
 ninth number of his ' Revolutions de France et de 
 Brabant,' vigorously defends himself against the charge 
 of having written them. He denounces these verses 
 as ' shameless ' and ' cynical,' and adds, ' some of them 
 are disgustingly gross.' And he concludes thus : — 
 
 ' The libeller has adopted an epigraph taken from Vol- 
 taire, but he would be better fitted with the saying of Des- 
 fontaines : " Every one must live." When shall we have a 
 good law on the liberty of the press ? However great my 
 regard for liberty, I am forced to feel how much danger it 
 may conceal when I see my name set down three times at 
 the bottom of sets of verses in this infamous collection.' 1 
 
 The ' Ode to the States General ' attracted very 
 
 1 There is, however, in the ' Recueil,' a set of verses in which it is 
 impossible not to recognise the peculiar turn of Camille's humour, when 
 cured of his affection for Louis XVI., whom he no longer compares to 
 
4-0 Camille Desmoulins and' his Wife. 
 
 little attention, and Desmoulins was probably some- 
 what piqued. The epoch was coming, however, which 
 was to bring him his hour. I can see Camille wan- 
 dering about Paris, which already began to smell of 
 gunpowder ; coming and going to and fro ; rushing 
 off to Versailles, where the deputies were assembling, 
 his imagination excited by the solemn procession, on 
 which the May sun shone brightly, on the eve of the 
 opening of the States General ; x returning to Paris, 
 where every one was in a ferment ; listening to the 
 talk in the streets,; and the discourse of the politicians 
 of the cafe Procope ; gliding among the excited groups 
 which thronged the Palais-Royal ; then going to the 
 clubs, and cafes, attracted by the . pleasure of listening 
 to ' the admirable plans of the zealous citizens.' How 
 high must the pulses of the young man have bounded ! 
 for he was certain of his strength, full of spirit and 
 talent, burning with ambition, ' inflaming others ' (to 
 use his own expression,) and 'inflaming himself.' 
 
 Marcus Aurelius. Two years later, in 1790, Desmoulins wrote a satire 
 upon the King and Queen. (See ' Complementary Documents.') These 
 verses contain mere amenities compared with those which the 'Recueil 
 des Satires ' attributes to Camille and to Marie-Joseph Che"nier. 
 
 1 ' Yesterday was one of the brightest days of my life/ wrote Camille 
 to his father, May 5, 1789. ' One must have been a very bad citizen not 
 to have taken part in the festivity of that sacred day. I think if I had 
 come from Guise to Paris only to see the procession of the Three Orders, 
 and the opening of the States General, I should not grudge the pilgrimage. 
 I have only one regret, that you are not among the deputies. One of my 
 school-fellows has been more fortunate than I — De Robespierre, deputy 
 from Arras. He has been wise enough to plead in his own province.' 
 And again, ' I have felt very spiteful towards you, and your gravel. Why 
 have you shown so little eagerness to obtain so great an honour ? That 
 was the first of my griefs.' 
 
 Camille adds afterwards : ' I wrote yesterday to Mirabeau to get 
 myself made, if possible, one of the staff of the famous gazette of all that 
 is about to take place at the States General. They are subscribing to it 
 here by thousands, and it will bring the author 100,000 crowns, people 
 say. Shall I subscribe for you ? ' 
 
At Versailles. 41 
 
 Chateaubriand, who saw him at this time, paints him 
 for us in his ' Memoires d'outre Tombe ' in repellant 
 colours, as ' sallow, shabby, and needy.' Things were 
 indeed going hard, just then, with Camille. This was 
 a time of darkness, uncertainty ; of hope suddenly cast 
 down, of despondency, followed by nervous excitement. 
 He had already in his head his first successful pam- 
 phlet, ' La France Libre,' and he wrote to his father 
 that it occupied him wholly. I see him, in my mind's 
 eye, at Versailles, during the two days, Monday, the 
 twenty-second, and Tuesday, the twenty-third of June, 
 1789, when the deputies, shut out of the hall where 
 the ' seances royales ' took place, were running about 
 the streets in search of a room where they might 
 assemble. What fiery anger must have filled his 
 Picard soul on seeing the representatives of the nation 
 so treated ; but what enthusiasm must have succeeded 
 to that anger when he heard them take their famous 
 oath, never to separate until they should have founded 
 the liberty of their country ! 
 
 ' They all exhibited ' (he writes to his father, in his letter of 
 June 24) 'a -Roman firmness, and are determined to seal our 
 liberties with their blood. All Paris is aflame. The Palais- 
 Royal is as full as an egg ; the Duke of Orleans is received 
 with transports of applause. The King passes by, but all is 
 silence ; M. Bailly, President of the Assembly, appears, the 
 crowd clap their hands and cry, Vive la Nation ! ' 
 
 In these letters we follow the revolution step by 
 step. We feel the pulse of feverish Paris. Very soon 
 Camille will write : ' The conflagration is spreading.. 
 J am proximus ardet Ucalegon. The guards, who have 
 fraternised with the people, are torn away from the 
 prison of the Abbaye. Already, even in this very 
 month of June, the question of marching on the 
 
42 Camille Desmotdins and his Wife. 
 
 Bastille and Vincennes is mooted.' Camille, who is 
 carried away by the current, writes to his father, a 
 friend of the Prince de Conde, who dined frequently at 
 M. Desmoulins' house at Guise : ' Your Prince de 
 Conde" dares not appear. He is reviled, laughed at, 
 hissed, lampooned.' In the same letter, Camille 
 draws a picture of Paris in those days, which he 
 himself afterwards called ' the dog-days] with a quick, 
 skilful, picturesque, thoroughly French touch : — 
 
 ' A few days ago a Countess was whipped in the Palais- 
 Royal, where she was holding forth against M. Necker. 
 Relays of talkers with stentorian voices succeed each other 
 there every evening. They read the strongest things that ' 
 have been written each day about the basiness of the time. 
 The silence is only interrupted by bravos at the most power- 
 ful passages. Then the patriots cry Bis ! Three days ago 
 a child of four years old, full of intelligence and well-taught, 
 was carried round the garden at least twenty times, in broad 
 daylight, on a porter's shoulders, crying out, " By decree of 
 the French people, Polignac is exiled to one hundred leagues 
 from Paris ; Cond4 idem ; Conti, idem ; D'Artois, idem ; the 
 Queen " — but I dare not go on ! ' 
 
 This ferment of the populace produced some 
 terrible results. Presently we find Camille relating 
 the exemplary punishment inflicted at the Palais- 
 Royal on a police spy. 
 
 ' He was stripped, and found to have been whipped and 
 branded. The people found a whip on him, one of those 
 whipcord handcuffs which these wretches use. They flung 
 him into the basin, and then forced him like a stag in the 
 water ; they flung stones at him, rained blows of their canes 
 on him ; one of them struck his eye out of the socket. At 
 last, notwithstanding his cries and entreaties for mercy, they 
 flung him back into the basin. His sufferings lasted from 
 midday to half-past five, and he had fully ten thousand 
 tormentors.' 
 
A Scene at the Palais-Royal. 43 
 
 What furious madness that must be which seizes 
 on a crowd at certain times, when Camille Desmoulins 
 could be infected by it to such an extent that he 
 experienced none of the rage and disgust with which 
 this hideous crime ought to have inspired a man like 
 him. He was carried away by the frenzy of the ' ten 
 thousand tormentors.' A little later, and he will see 
 that the punishment inflicted upon the police spy is 
 but the prologue to other crimes of the same kind. 
 Who can tell but that there were some of the future 
 ' September murderers ' among the people who expen- 
 ded their rage for five hours upon a half- dead wretch ? 
 
 In the meantime the war was going on and organ- 
 ising itself. On the one side, three camps were 
 formed around Paris, with parks of artillery, like that 
 at the bridge of Sevres ; on the other, motions were 
 made, and speeches delivered. 'It rains pamphlets, 
 each more bright than the others,' writes Desmoulins. 
 ' The soldiers are mingling with the people. The 
 universal cry is Vive le tiers e"tat ! ' Camille, having 
 worked hard at his pamphlet ' La France Libre,' 
 handed it over to his publisher on the twentieth of 
 June. This man, whose name was Momoro, already 
 styled himself the first printer of the national liberty. 
 He was nevertheless a very prudent printer, and he, 
 who was afterwards to accuse Camille of being a 
 ' moderate,' and to become a Hebertist in '93, refused, 
 in '89, to publish Desmoulins' work. He declared 
 that it was too venturesome. Poor Camille was wild 
 with anger. ' If I had the 1 means,' he writes to his 
 father, ' I would buy a printing-press, so much am I 
 disgusted at the monopoly of these rascals.' 
 
 Momoro, however, the honest tradesman, who, we 
 are told by Arnault, loaded pistols, saying, ' these are 
 
44 Camille Desmotrfins and Ms Wife. 
 
 for people who bring bills,' though he hesitates and 
 trembles on the eve of the fourteenth of July, when 
 the patriots are menaced by Swiss and German regi- 
 ments, will be totally free from nervousness after the 
 taking of the Bastille ; and ' La France Libre,' printed 
 since the beginning of June, 1 789 will be sold freely 
 after July 18, when the people have won. This pru- 
 dent Momoro was essentially one of those who, accor- 
 ding to the sage precept of Mathurin Regnier, knew 
 how to trim his sails according to the wind. 
 
 The taking of the Bastille was about to confer sud- 
 den popularity upon Camille Desmoulins ; he was soon 
 to climb upon the table in the garden of the Palais- 
 Royal and to make it^ the pedestal of his fame. The 
 Palais-Royal was, as we' have seen, the burning 
 centre, the very heart of the Paris of '89. Newsmon- 
 gers, suggesters of motions, speechifiers, and agitators 
 elbowed each other around the Cracovian tree. 
 There, where Diderot had formerly conversed with 
 Rameau's nephew, Saint-Huruge now disputed with 
 Fournier the American ; and the feverish, excited crowd 
 gathered about, every one who had anything to tell or 
 to say, in the busy, nervous, easily-moved groups which 
 always collect in stormy times. 
 
 The relative situation of the court and the nation 
 was, in July 1789, very much 'strained.' Necker, who 
 was popular, and at that time devoted to the interests 
 of the people, 1 was endeavouring to withdraw the king 
 
 1 Necker, the favourite of the nation, had also been a favourite with 
 the nobles. The general liking for him was of long standing. A 
 few days after he was, for the first time, dismissed from Calonne's 
 Ministry (May 1781), the Duchess de Lauzun, who was the gentlest of 
 women, and remarkably timid, was seen to attack an unknown in- 
 dividual in a public garden, whom she had overheard speaking ill of 
 Necker. 
 
Necker. 45 
 
 from that ' buzzing of counsel, violent of project, but 
 without capacity of execution', of which Malouet speaks. 
 
 Louis XVI., instead of yielding to the superior 
 wisdom of Necker, leaned, quite evidently, to the side 
 of those who talked of using severe measures ; or 
 rather, the king was, to use the expression of his 
 brother, the future Louis XVIII., to the Count de la 
 Marck, like a ball of oiled ivory, which would slip 
 through one's fingers. 
 
 ' The disdain with which the popular party was 
 was talked of at court,' says Malouet, ' persuaded the 
 princes to believe that they had only to put on their 
 hats to disperse it, and when the moment came they 
 did not even know how to put on their hats.' The 
 king, who sometimes actually pretended to sleep while 
 his councillors were talking, in order to disguise his 
 feebleness and hesitation, did, however, for once, take 
 the more violent course : he did put on his hat. N ecker 
 was sacrificed ; the dismissed minister was even re- 
 quired to leave France. 
 
 When Paris learned that its favourite had been 
 exiled, the popular wrath was great. The Palais- 
 Royal fever redoubled. It was no longer ferment, it 
 had become fury. Sunday, the twelfth of July, was 
 destined to cost Royalty dear. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins, angry and resolute, in the midst 
 of a fiery group, and fiery like themselves, stimula- 
 ting his neighbours, and stimulated by them, alive to 
 every symptom of the anger of the multitude, and im- 
 pelled by those who immediately surrounded him, 
 made himself the mouthpiece of all. He jumped upon 
 a table, and addressed the mob, conquering his habitual 
 stammer in the enthusiasm of the moment. ' Citi- 
 zens ! ' he cried, ' you know that the whole nation had 
 
4-t> Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 demanded that Necker should be preserved to it ! I 
 have just returned from Versailles— Necker is. dis- 
 missed ! This dismissal is the tocsin of the St. Bartho- 
 lomew of the patriots, To-night, the Swiss and Ger- 
 man battalions will come forth from the Champ de Mars 
 to massacre us. There is not a moment to lose ! We 
 have only one resource; it is to arm ourselves in- 
 stantly, and to put on cockades by which we may recog- 
 nise one another.' ' I was choked by a multitude of 
 ideas which surged up in my brain all at once,' wrote 
 Desmoulins two days later, ' and I spoke without any 
 method, but my burning words went straight to the heart 
 of the crowd.' So then, this unknown young man, 
 black haired and with keen black eyes, sparkling with 
 life, entered suddenly into "history by a fiery improvi- 
 sation, giving voice in his ardent vehemence to all the 
 anger pent up in the breasts of the six thousand citizens 
 who stood around him. The outrage had been inflicted 
 upon all, but one single voice uttered the cry of protest 
 in the name of the entire nation. 
 
 ' What colours will you have for our rallying sig- 
 nal ? ' continued Desmoulins. ' Will you have green, 
 the colour of hope, or blue, the blue of Cincinnatus, 
 the colour of American liberty, and of democracy ? ' 
 The crowd responded, ' green ! green ! green cock- 
 ades ! ' And so the Revolution commenced, as the 
 Spring commences. 
 
 Camille was the first to fasten a green ribbon into 
 his hat. The trees of the garden, stripped of their 
 leaves in a twinkling, furnished the electrified citizens 
 with cockades. It was like a shower of verdure under 
 the lime trees. The sun shone upon this new summer 
 fashion, and Camille, animated, brilliant, still stand- 
 ing on the table, above the heads of the shouting 
 
The Green Cockades. 47 
 
 crowd, drew two pistols from under his coat, and 
 showing them to the people, cried : ' My friends ! the 
 police are here ! They observe, they watch me. Well 
 then, it is I who call my brethren to liberty ! But I 
 will not fall alive into the hands of the police ! Let all 
 good citizens imitate me ! To arms ! To arms ! ' 
 
 The spark had been struck out I 1 It had fallen 
 from the table which citizen Beaubourg, who was show- 
 ing Camille up at the back, was afterwards to call the 
 magic table. Camille crossed the garden, followed by 
 the crowd, who formed an escort for him. This young 
 man of twenty-nine years old, with the green ribbon in 
 his hat, draws them after him ; henceforth, they shall 
 follow him whithersoever he leads them ; in him are 
 incarnat© now, and shall be incarnate for the future — 
 the Revolution and Hope. 
 
 All Paris was on foot. The Prince de Lambesc 
 added to the popular ferment, by sabreing the exaspe- 
 rated crowd at the Pont Tournant ; and several charges 
 of the Royal Allemand regiment helped to drive the 
 people into insurrection. The soldiers were received 
 on the first occasion with showers of stones, on the 
 next they will have to encounter swords and guns. 
 Camille scoured the boulevards, sweeping along with 
 him a growing torrent of furious men. The play- 
 houses were closed, as a sign of public mourning. The 
 crowd invaded the Opera, and insisted on having the 
 curtain put down. Some went to the sculptors' wax- 
 work galleries, and carrying off the busts of Necker 
 and the Duke of Orleans, they covered them with black 
 
 1 ' I got down from the table half smothered with embraces ; some 
 pressed me to their hearts, others bathed me with their tears ; a citizen 
 of Toulouse, fearing for my life, declared that he would never leave 
 me.' — Camille Desmoulins, Le Vieux Cordelier, No. 5. 
 
4^ Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 veils, and paraded them through Paris. The artist- 
 people of Paris must always have a mise-en-sclne. 
 
 The night fell. The great city, patrolled and 
 guarded by divisions of soldiers of the watch, of 
 gardes-frangaises, and of the corps of armed citizens, 
 rested but badly, being disturbed by shots fired at in- 
 tervals. What did they mean ? They meant that the 
 respectively inimical patrols, meeting in the darkness, 
 had come to loggerheads. On all sides were heard 
 dismal sounds, the threatening cries of night warfare, 
 and heavy blows were struck upon the shutters of the 
 shops. These were the appeals of the patriots to the 
 gunmakers, whom they forced to open their establish- 
 ments, and furnish arms to the first-formed battalions 
 of the urban guard. Camille Desmoulins, with Gene- 
 ral Danican, was at the head of those troublers of the 
 night. * I had,' says he, in ' Le Vieux Cordelier,' ' at that 
 time all the daring of the Revolution.' 
 
 Meanwhile, Versailles was preparing for the strife. 
 The king's body-guards passed the night in battle ar- 
 ray. The bridge at Sevres was protected by cannon. 
 Orders were issued to blow it up if it could not be de- 
 fended. On Monday morning, 13th July, Paris was 
 swarming with men armed with guns, sticks, pikes, 
 swords, and pistols. The armourers had given up every- 
 thing, even their old halberds. All these did not suffice, 
 and it became known that on the 14th the mob would 
 go to the H6tel des Invalides, to seize the arms. So 
 large an armed force, let loose in Paris, might prove 
 terribly dangerous. Among the frantic multitude 
 were many who talked of setting fire to the hotels of 
 the aristocrats. The H6tel de Breteuil and the Palais- 
 Bourbon were already menaced. The Electors, as- 
 sembled at the H6tel de Ville, protected the city from 
 
The Tricolour Cockade. 49 
 
 this pressing danger ; they made order out of disorder 
 itself, by creating a corps of citizen-militia con- 
 sisting of 78,000 men, divided into sixteen legions. 
 The Marquis de la Salle was elected commander-in- 
 chief, and the Chevalier de Saudray second in com- 
 mand of this militia, which afterwards became the 
 National Guard. 
 
 This citizen-guard admirably comprehended the 
 part it had to play. On the same evening, it disarmed 
 forty men, who could not give an account of themselves, 
 but the greater number of whom had pillaged the house 
 of the Lazarists that morning, and under pretext of 
 finding corn hidden in the cellars, had broken into them 
 and gorged themselves with wine. 1 
 
 Now come citizens, ' of every rank, of every order, 
 of every age,' to inscribe their names upon the list of 
 the ' soldiers of the country,' and to adorn themselves 
 with the green cockade which Camille Desmoulins has 
 just invented, as though he were the poet of the Revo- 
 lution. This cockade will speedily be replaced by 
 blue and red cockades and ribbons, the colours of the 
 good city of Paris, the green being rejected because it 
 is the colour of the Count d'Artois. A little later, 
 when white, the king's colour, shall have been added, 
 the tricolour cockade will have been invented, that 
 tricolour which accompanies our standards all over 
 the world, and, linked with the destiny of our dear 
 France, shares all its glory, and all its humiliation. The 
 standards of the city are unfurled, the tocsin rings out, 
 salvos of artillery are fired, the faubourgs are barri- 
 caded (how long before had D' Argenson predicted those 
 
 1 Thirty wretched men and women were found the following day 
 drowned in promiscuous heaps, or expiring in floods of wine. — See ' Le 
 Moniteur' (July 17-20, 1789). 
 
 E 
 
50 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 barricades ? ), three thousand of the ' Gardes-francaises ' 
 go boldly over to the ranks of the people ; every 
 bit of iron in Paris is turned into a weapon; 
 lead is melted down into bullets, and the Per- 
 manent Committee of Electors continues to watch 
 over the city, which is filled with tumult and the stir 
 of arms. 
 
 During the strife of those terrible days, many 
 magnificent deeds of heroism were performed, which 
 are now forgotten. At two o'clock in the morning of 
 July 14, some people came to the Hdtel de Ville 
 and announced that 15,000 men from the faubourg 
 were coming along the Rue St. Antoine, towards 
 the Place de Greve, to take possession of the Hdtel 
 de Ville. 
 
 ' They shall not take it,' said Le Grand de Saint- 
 Ren6, one of the Electors, ' for I will blow it up 
 first.' 
 
 He made the city guards roll six barrels of powder 
 into the cabinet which adjoined the great hall, and 
 there he waited quietly until an attempt should be 
 made to attack the Hotel de Ville. Before such calm 
 intrepidity, the mob fell back, not one dared to lift his 
 hand against the Communal Palace. 
 
 The fourteenth of July was destined to witness the 
 fall of the Bastille. 
 
 Un beau soleil a ftte" ce grand jour, 
 
 says Beranger, who walked, when a child, upon the re- 
 mains of the towers, while yet the rubbish cumbered the 
 ground. The truth is that the sky was dull and cloudy 
 during the greater part of the day. 1 On the preced- 
 
 1 See the ' Journal de Paris.' The lamps, lighted at fifty-five minutes 
 past eight, would, at that time of year, have been burnt out by midnight. 
 
The Bastille. 5 1 
 
 ing day a great deal of rain had fallen, and a violent 
 thunder-storm had taken place in the evening, which 
 would have have driven all the Parisians back into 
 their own houses, if Petion's mot had been invariably 
 true. But the matter in question now was not a 
 disturbance. It was a revolution which all Paris was 
 turning out to see. 
 
 It has been said that the Bastille was defended by 
 only a handful of men, eighty-two invalided soldiers, 
 two of whom were cannoneers of the company of Mon- 
 signy, and thirty-two Swiss, of the regiment of Salis- 
 Samade, commanded by a lieutenant of grenadiers, 
 Louis de Flue, who made his men swear that they 
 would fire upon the invalids if those veterans should 
 refuse to obey the Governor. In all, less than one 
 hundred men. But, behind the walls of the fortress,- 
 these few men with their fifteen pieces of cannon 
 turned upon the ramparts, three field-pieces in the 
 great square, fourteen chests of bullets with their 
 cartridges attached, fifteen hundred cartridges, and 
 heavy shot, and two hundred and fifty barrels of 
 powder containing twenty-five pounds each ; might 
 surely have successfully resisted the attack of a 
 mob. M. de Launey, the Governor, had had twelve 
 rampart guns taken out of the magazine of arms ; these 
 guns were of a kind called amtcsettes de Saxe and each 
 carried a pound and a half of balls. Besides, the 
 great ditch* of the fortress sufficiently defended the 
 approach to the castle, ' which, without being very 
 strong,' wrote Saint-Foix, ' is one of the most re- 
 doubtable in Europe.' 
 
 We must not, however, exaggerate the military 
 importance of the Bastille. In 1578, the garrison of the 
 
 E2 
 
52 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Duke of Guise had capitulated there, speedily enough, 
 before Henri Quatre. In 1649, the gunners of the 
 Fronde sent one ball among the royal troops,— one 
 only— and the twenty -two men who formed the garri- 
 son surrendered without firing even one shot in reply. 
 The cannon of the Bastille was better served in 
 165 1, when Mademoiselle de Montpensier put the 
 match to the guns with her own white hands, in order 
 to create a diversion for Conde when he was closely 
 pressed in the faubourg. But these are not very great 
 feats of war, and July 14 marked the most famous date 
 in the history of the Bastille, whose demolition began 
 two days later. 
 
 Since the morning, a great cry had rung through 
 Paris, ' To the Bastille ! ' The population wished to 
 make an end of it. The guns of De Launey, turned 
 upon the faubourg, looked like provocation. Thuriot 
 de la Rosiere, deputy from the district of Saint- 
 Louis de la Culture, demanded of the Governor 
 that they should be dismounted. De Launey re- 
 fused ; but his officers swore that they would make 
 no use of their arms unless they should be attacked. 
 Meantime the people and the Gardes-francaises 
 assembled in vast, muttering, and menacing masses in 
 front of the Bastille. When Thuriot came out, a great 
 number of unarmed citizens presented themselves, 
 demanding arms and ammunition. The Governor 
 ordered the drawbridge to be lowered, and 'the crowd 
 swarmed in ; but the bridge was immediately raised (by 
 whom was that order given ? ), and the citizens, who 
 had penetrated into the outer square, were received 
 by a rolling fire of musketry. They were literally 
 shot down ; -and their exasperated comrades on the 
 
The Battle of the Bastille. 53 
 
 outside rushed off to the H6tel de Ville crying aloud 
 for vengeance. 
 
 From that hour the multitude was unchained. Thou- 
 sands of men armed with sabres, swords and hatchets, 
 rushed upon the Bastille with all the vehemence of 
 fury. Women and children swelled the human tor- 
 rent which surged around the walls of the fortress. 
 ' Soldiers, workmen, firemen, officers, abbe's,' says the 
 ' Moniteur,' 'all were moved by one common impulse.' 
 The strife commenced quickly. A former soldier of the 
 Dauphin's regiment, Louis Tournay, and an ex-soldier 
 of the Royal-Comtois regiment, Aubin Bonnemere, 
 staved in the outer gates, and the fight raged around 
 the drawbridge. One of the assailants, named Ber- 
 nard, fell, with thirty-three wounds in him, no doubt 
 from an amusette. A second who was carried off said 
 to his companions, 'Hold firm, my friends ; I die, but 
 you will take it.' 
 
 When deputies from the H6tel de Ville, carrying 
 a white flag, reached the scene of action, it seemed 
 for a moment as if the strife might be arrested. But 
 this only caused a lull in the storm of the popular fury. 
 The fortress three times refused to ' treat," and continued 
 its fire. We can quote here only a few of the consolatary 
 traits which testify at once to the rage and to the 
 heroism of the assailants in the fierce strife which grew 
 fiercer with each moment of its duration. In the court 
 of the Bastille the crowd seized a young girl whom 
 they dragged away to the first bridge, while furious cries 
 were raised of, ' Kill her, kill her ! She is De Launey's 
 daughter ! Let him surrender the place, or see his 
 daughter killed ! ' Some wretches flung the girl upon 
 a heap of straw, and were about to set fire to it when 
 
54 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Aubin Bonnemere rushed forward, tore the girl from 
 their grasp, handed her over to the soldiers, and con- 
 tinued the fight. Less than a year afterwards 
 (February 5, 1790,) Aubin Bonnemere received a 
 sword of honour, and, from the hand of the girl her- 
 self (she was Mademoiselle de Monsigny), a civic 
 crown, which she placed upon her deliverer's head 
 with tears. 
 
 The narrative of the ' Moniteur,' the most complete 
 and important account we have of the events of that 
 memorable day, gives us a vivid picture of the phy- 
 siognomy of the obstinate, fierce, heroic fight. It 
 shows us the Governor, De Launey, waiting for the aid 
 promised by M. de Bezenval, and M. de Flesselles, 
 hesitating, temporising, and ' taking the most danger- 
 ous line of all, none.' For a moment, when the 
 fortress was plainly in the hands of the assailants (the 
 first to climb the tower was J. W. Humbert ; Herault 
 de Sechelles followed him), M. de Launey, distracted 
 with rage and grief, resolved to blow up the Bastille. 
 An officer prevented him from going down to the 
 powder-room and setting fire to it. The exasperated 
 Governor went hither and thither, seeking for a barrel of 
 powder, repeating to his soldiers that they must bury 
 themselves under the ruins of the fortress ; but the 
 ' parley ' was already sounding, and the white flag of sur- 
 render was hoisted upon the tower of La Baziniere. 
 A moment more and the besiegers would have thrown 
 themselves into the arms of the invalids and the Swiss, 
 who cried Bravo ! as they rushed in ; but unhappily 
 this fraternisation did not last. A fresh discharge of 
 musketry, a fierce panic, and the crowd which swarmed 
 over the Bastille resumed all its former fury. They 
 fought no more, indeed, but they killed. B£quart, the 
 
The Victory. 55 
 
 same officer who had just before hindered the Governor 
 from blowing up the fortress, fell, pierced by several 
 sword-thrusts, his hand was struck off at the wrist by 
 a sword-stroke, and ' that hand to which so many citi- 
 zens owed their safety' was carried by the crowd 
 in triumph through the streets of Paris, while the 
 unhappy Bequart was fastened to a gibbet on which he 
 died, by the side of one Asselin, his companion in arms 
 and in suffering. 
 
 M. de Launey, resolved not to survive, endeavoured 
 to pierce his heart with his sword cane (he was not in 
 uniform, but wore a gray frock with a ponceau ribbon) ; 
 but Arne, a grenadier, one of the conquerors of the 
 Bastille, snatched the weapon out of his hand. While 
 the crowd were clutching at the Governor's grey hair, 
 and threatening him with their swords, he turned to 
 Arne and Hullin, who had hold of him, and were pro- 
 tecting him, and said : ' Is this what you promised me ? 
 Do not forsake me.' 
 
 A short time later (but when his agony had been 
 too long and too sharp already), M. de Launey was 
 killed upon the steps of the H6tel de Ville, whither he 
 had been taken. We have discovered the name of the 
 chief of his murderers, — for many hands struck him at 
 once. The man was one Denot, a cook, who had. 
 come thither by chance, and who told of himself 
 that, ' seeing a man pass by whom they were dragging 
 up the steps of the H6tel de Ville, and " larding " with 
 shortened bayonets, he just hit him in the back, and 
 cut his head off With his knife.' l 
 
 1 ' Documents ine'dits.' Examination of the said De"not. ' Being 
 asked if it was with this knife that he had mangled (travaille - ) the head of 
 the Sieur de Launey, he answered that it was a black knife, a smaller one ; 
 and on its being observed to him that it was impossible to cut off heads 
 with so small and weak an instrument, he answered that, in his capacity of 
 
56 Camille Desmotdins and his Wife. 
 
 A latent ferocity suddenly developed itself— a phe- 
 nomenon which occurred only too frequently at the 
 time — in this humble actor in a great drama. 
 
 The fury of the populace was terrible. M. de 
 Launey's ' Major,' M. de Losme, was killed, and his 
 head was stuck on the end of a pike. M. de Meray, 
 the ' assistant- major,' was killed, in the Rue des Tour- 
 nelles ; M. de Persan, lieutenant of invalids, on the 
 Port-au-ble, and M. de Montbarey, a former Minister of 
 War, were als o massacred. Nevertheless a great cry 
 was arising from thousands of breasts ; a great cry of 
 pity and clemency. ' Grace ! ' cried the Gardes-fran- 
 caises, ' Grace, grace ! ' One of the heroes of the day, 
 Elie, a hero in goodness as well as in courage, hit 
 upon the true word wherewith to end the massacre. 
 ' Mercy for the children /' he cried, to those who were 
 dragging away young lads among their captives. 
 Standing proudly before them, his hair bristling upon 
 his sweat-bedewed brow, a bent sword in his hand, this 
 man's words sent a thrill of pity through the crowd. 
 ' Let not our hands be stained with blood,' he said, 
 ' before the turrets of the Bastille fall, for to-morrow's 
 sun shall shine upon that fall. Let all these prisoners, 
 who are unfortunate rather than guilty, swear, in this 
 place, to be faithful to the Nation ! ' 
 
 The blood and powder stained multitude ap- 
 plauded this sentiment, and the prisoners of the 
 Bastille, swore, standing before Elie, to give their 
 lives, in the future, no longer to the King, but to 
 France. 
 
 cook, he knew how to manage meat.' At a later period of the interro- 
 gatory he said : ' In acting thus, he thought he was doing a patriotic act, 
 and that he deserved a medal for destroying a monster.' Denot also 
 accused De Launey of having given him a kick. 
 
The Liberation of the Prisoners. 5 7 
 
 During this time crowds were penetrating into the 
 dungeons, examining with terror the old instruments 
 of torture, the old fantastic engines of war, and iron 
 corslets (had Louis XVI. abolished the use of them 
 also in abolishing torture ? ) and setting free the seven 
 prisoners who were still shut up in the fortress. M. 
 de Solages, who had been imprisoned, in 1782, at the 
 request of his father, in consequence of his extrava- 
 gance in money matters, had not received a single 
 letter from his family or friends for seven years. He 
 was ignorant of everything that had happened in France 
 since his arrest ; he did not know that his father was 
 dead ; that M. Lenoir was no longer Lieutenant of 
 Police, and that the king had assembled the States 
 General at Versailles. ' Having asked his jailer,' says 
 the ' Moniteur,' ' what was the cause of the shots which 
 he heard from his room, he was told that the people 
 had revolted in consequence of the high price of 
 bread. M. de Solages soon saw that it was not a 
 revolt, but, in truth, as the king was told at the time, 
 a revolution. 
 
 Another prisoner, Tavernier, the natural son of 
 Paris Duverney, had been immured in the Bastille 
 since August the 4th, 1 759. He began to believe, after 
 those thirty years, that ' there existed on earth no other 
 human beings beside his jailers.' A third, of the 
 name of Whyte, appeared in the light of day without 
 any one's knowing whence he came ; or indeed who 
 he was. He had been transferred one day from 
 Vincennes to the Bastille. How many years had he 
 been there? Nobody knew, and he, having become 
 insane, could give no information respecting his previ- 
 ous life. He looked at the captors of the Bastille 
 without seeing them ; he heard them speak without 
 
58 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 understanding their words. Unheeding, the madman 
 was borne through the rejoicing city. He exchanged 
 his prison only for a cell ; after a few days they shut 
 him up at Charenton. 
 
 That day cost the life of ninety-eight of the as- 
 sailants ; eighty-three were killed on the spot, fifteen 
 died of their wounds ; seventy-three were wounded or 
 maimed. ' The besieged,.' says the ' Moniteur,' ' lost 
 one man only during the fight, four officers and four 
 soldiers were hanged, or otherwise killed after the 
 action.' 
 
 Two days later, 16th July, the Permanent Com- 
 mittee of the Hotel de Ville decreed that the Bastille 
 should be pulled down without loss of time, and even 
 to its foundations, under the direction of two architects. 
 We learn from the memoirs of Bailly that the General 
 Assembly of Electors approved and confirmed this 
 decree, which was proclaimed by the city trumpets, in 
 the courtyard of the Hotel, in the name of the General 
 Commandant, Lafayette. A certain individual named 
 Palloy, who awarded to himself the appellation of 
 ' Palloy the Patriot,' and whose muse did homage to 
 all governments in turn, 1 made small models of the 
 Bastille out of the stones of the demolished fortress, 
 forged swords of the prisoners' chains, and made frames 
 for pictures, representing the doings of July the 14th, of 
 the leaden pipes. A year later, on the site of the 
 old citadel, an inscription, with an ironical ring in its 
 gaiety, announced, ' Dancing here.' 
 
 It was not only a strong stone building which the 
 Parisians had destroyed ; it was the Past which they 
 had utterly overthrown. The material facts of July 
 
 1 Among his republished papers are verses addressed to Napoleon I. 
 and Louis XVIII. 
 
The First Results. 59 
 
 the 14th were of considerable importance; but the 
 moral achievement, which those who endeavour to 
 obscure the bearing of the contest do not recognise, 
 was immense. Everything represented by the lofty 
 towers of the Bastille, which was a deed of arbitrary 
 power, and of evil memory, — lettres de cachet, the viola- 
 tion of personal freedom, the perpetual menace to 
 public liberties, all the old abuses signified by that 
 colossal petrified form, had suddenly crumbled into 
 ruin. The honours of the strife vanished before such 
 an unhoped-for reality, so ' inconceivable,' as Camille 
 Desmoulins said, was the meaning of those words : The 
 Bastille is taken. . 
 
 The nation had proved its strength ; thenceforth, it 
 might hope that its right would not be contested. The 
 next day, Louis XVI. went, according to the advice of 
 the Due de Liancourt, to the National Assembly, ac- 
 companied only by his brothers, and without any escort. 
 He addressed the deputies, 'standing and uncovered.' 
 For the first time, the king, instead of speaking of 
 the States-General, called the Assembly by its true 
 name, that name which it holds in its own right, the 
 National Assembly. ' Our deputies,' writes Desmou- 
 lins, 'brought him back in triumph to the chateau. 
 They assert that he wept profusely. He returned on. 
 foot without any other guard than the deputies who 
 escorted him.' The deputies mingled together, without 
 distinction of orders, and formed a living rampart which 
 protected him against the swarming crowd. How was 
 it that Louis XVI. did not comprehend, that day, that 
 his best, his sole support consisted in this gathering of 
 men, who only asked him for the freedom of their 
 country ? But, no. On the evening of the terrible 
 day of the taking of the Bastille, Louis XVI. con- 
 
6o Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 tented himself with writing in- the Journal, to which 
 he confided, his daily impressions, the strange, in- 
 credible, impossible word, Nothing! 1 It is inscribed 
 under the date 14th July. Nothing! when everything 
 had begun ! 
 
 During those tumultuous days, Camille Desmoulins 
 was, like Paris, in a fever. He had given the signal 
 for the loosing of the tempest, he had been seen, 
 marching alongside of Turgot, with a drawn sword, join- 
 ing the popular triumph ; and he was on the breach of 
 the Bastille by the side of the men who hoisted the 
 colours of the French Guard. In his letters we find 
 the dash and spirit of those burning days. While the 
 Comte d'Artois and his two sons, Prince de Conde, 
 the Due de Bourbon, the Due d'Enghien, Prince de 
 Conti, the Due Jules de Polignac and his wife, the 
 Princes de Lambesc and de Vaudemont, the old Mare- 
 chal de Broglie, the Due de la Vauguyon, Baron de 
 Breteuil, and others, forsook the king, and the 
 emigration dated from the 16th of July, the nation 
 felt sure of itself; and it might have been said of the 
 Bastille, delivered up to demolition, as Gothe said of 
 Valmy, ' From this place and this day dates a new 
 era in the history of the world.' 
 
 Camille relates that, in the evening, the patrol of 
 militia and French guards, to which he was attached, 
 met a detachment of hussars coming in at the Porte St. 
 Jacques a little before midnight. ' Who goes there f 
 cried the gendarme who commanded the patrol. The 
 officer of hussars answered, ' France ! The French 
 Nation! 
 
 France ! It had just been born ! The new France 
 
 ] See the publication of the King's ' Journal,' by M. Nicolardot. 
 
' The Nation.' 61 
 
 in love with liberty, intoxicated with hope, demanding 
 her regeneration from the democracy. France ! That 
 which, only the day before, was incarnate in the king, 
 and which, henceforth, was to be composed of the 
 entire nation, assembled under the tricoloured flag, 
 had been born amid the roar of battle, and was 
 already redolent of gunpowder. 
 
62 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 i. An analysis of 'La France Libre' — Camille and the Republic — The 
 Discours de la Lanteme aux Parisiens.' 
 
 2. Letters from Camille to his father — His connection with Mirabeau — 
 The ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant' — Fre"son — A republican 
 pamphlet and a royalist pamphlet — The 'Actes des Apotres' — A 
 fight with pens — Camille and the ftte of the Federation in 1790 — 
 Attacks upon Mirabeau — Mirabeau's death. 
 
 3. Polemics and law-suits — Mirabeau-Tonneau, Talon, Malouet — The 
 duellists — Desessarts, the actor, and Sanson, the executioner — Ca- 
 mille's attitude. 
 
 I. 
 
 On the twelfth of July 1789, Camille Desmoulins may 
 be said to have entered into history, never again to 
 disappear from its records. Thenceforth, he belonged, 
 body and soul, to the triumphant Revolution. Thence- 
 forth, until April 1794, he was to be the most brilliant 
 and personal of journalists ; and to reflect all the 
 thoughts, hopes, and fantasies of the multitude through 
 his nervous, feminine, easily excited temperament, readily 
 carried away to every excess, but capable, never- 
 theless, of the ' second thoughts ' which, in spite of the 
 too famous saying, are not always the worst, and also 
 by his passionate eloquence and irresistible wit. Day 
 after day, he was to be the registrar of all the results of 
 the new and prodigious activity ; the chronicler, in his 
 style of exquisite irony, of all that was to be born and 
 to die during those volcanic years. The day after the 
 taking of the Bastille, Camille published ' La France 
 
' La France Libre.' 63 
 
 Libre,' which he had written in the months of May and 
 June 1789. The opposition of his publisher only had 
 prevented the pamphlet from appearing, as we have 
 already seen ; and it is highly unjust to accuse Camille, 
 as M. Ed. Fleury accuses him, of having 'profited by 
 the moment ' to publish a book which would have been 
 courageous the day before, but which needed no cour- 
 age the day after. Once for all, let us render to 
 Momoro what is due to Momoro. 
 
 ' La France Libre,' that patriotic work, as Desmou- 
 lins calls it, made a great noise, notwithstanding the 
 delay. Everyone read it; it was a clever and well- 
 informed criticism upon the .past ; it was full of the 
 spirit of combat, and of aspiration towards the future. 
 The politicians of the Palais- Royal applauded it, just 
 as they had applauded the burning words of the enthu- 
 siastic young writer a few days before. Mirabeau, to 
 whom the new pamphlet owed some of its inspiration, 
 took the little work under his protection, which it well 
 deserved. In these pages the first cry of liberty found 
 utterance. It was, to quote a saying of M. Louis 
 Combes, like the 'song of the Gallic lark,' saluting 
 the dawn of freedom. So brisk and attractive was its 
 tone that Camille was speedily attacked by many who 
 were alarmed by his juvenile daring and impetuosity. 
 Not only people like Malouet, for example, or Mallot 
 du Pan (whom Camille afterwards called Mallot 
 pendti — a sorry joke), who desired to transform, to 
 reform, but not to overthrow the monarchy ; but, 
 even the most vehement royalists flung themselves 
 on the book, being unable to get at the author. Some 
 monks pillaged ' the shop of a bookseller at Oleron, 
 who was guilty of offering ' La France Libre ' for sale. 
 A row ensued, and the unlucky bookseller was ' lamed 
 
64 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 for the rest of his life.' 1 The Parliament of Toulouse 
 went even further ; it censured Camille's pamphlet 
 and condemned it to be burned by the comriion execu- 
 tioner. Camille revenged himself by dedicating his 
 second work, the ' Discours de la Lanterne,' to ' Nos 
 seigneurs du parlement du Toulouse,' adding : ' May 
 my dear Lanterne obtain the same favour at your 
 hands. I doubt not that this younger bantling will 
 have as much good fortune as the elder ; but I beg of 
 you not to sow jealousy in my family.' 
 
 ' La France Libre ' certainly did not deserve the con- 
 demnation of the Parliament of Toulouse ; and Pascal 
 would, no doubt, have said that the anger of the monks 
 of Oleron was not a reason. In this little work, 
 Camille, analysing the different questions which were 
 under consideration during the first part of the year 
 1 789, discussed in their turn ' deliberation by head and 
 by order,' placed the rights of the nation and those of 
 the nobility in opposition to each other with rare talent 
 and surprising readiness of style ; made war upon the 
 clergy as a mere political body ; and did this with eru- 
 dition and wit worthy of the author of the ' Lettres 
 Provinciales ' himself ; then after having shown that a 
 democracy is not incompatible with nobility of a cer- 
 tain kind, i.e., that of personal worth, not of rank, 
 he passed in review the long list of the kings, 
 with studied severity, indeed, but not always without 
 truth, drawing with a powerful pen a picture of what is 
 often called ' the good old time.' This satirical picture 
 has sometimes been compared with the worthless book 
 of Lavicomterie, ' Les crimes des rois de France ; ' but 
 the style of Camille, his wit, his dash, and his irony are 
 very different. They are keen, caustic, and telling 
 
 1 Ed. Fleury, ' Camille Desmoulins et Boch Marcandier.' 
 
Camille a Patriot. 65 
 
 The most characteristic chapter of ' La France 
 Libre,' that which defines its sense and. its aim, is the 
 sixth, in which Desmoulins asks : ' What constitution 
 is best suited for France ? ' 'I am prepared for the 
 clamour which this paragraph will excite,' he says. In 
 fact, after having framed an indictment against kings, 
 he concludes, quoting Diocletian, against royalty itself. 
 ' How can people have placed their hopes in one 
 single man ? ' he asks. This was proclaiming, by im- 
 plication, that the constitution which Desmoulins 
 desired and demanded for France was a republican 
 constitution. ' The nation shall govern itself after the 
 example of America, after the example of Greece. 
 This is the only government fit for men, for French- 
 men, and for the Frenchmen of this age.' ' What 
 parity is there between a king and a nation ? ' he 
 adds. ' Put Louis XVI. on one side, and on the 
 other the National Assembly. On which side are 
 experience and wisdom to be found ? ' As for the 
 Republic itself, Desmoulins would have it one, as it 
 was to be proclaimed afterwards : ' Why should we 
 wish to be Bretons, Bearnais, Flemings ? Could there 
 be under heaven a finer name than that of Frenchmen ? 
 To that famous name ought all to sacrifice our own.' 
 Like all the men of that epoch, Camille was essen- 
 . tially a patriot. Under Louis XIV., Saint Simon 
 only used that word ; in 1 789, every one gloried in 
 it. But everybody was not republican. On this point 
 Camille was a precursor ; and he, perhaps, was, of 
 all the writers, the first to demand the advent of the 
 Republic. Yet no, I am mistaken. The Comte 
 d'Entraigues, in his * Memoires sur les Etats-Generaux ; 
 leurs droits, et la maniere de les convoquer,' written in 
 1788, says: 'It was, doubtless, in order to give a 
 
 F 
 
66 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 country, worthy of them, to the most heroic virtues, that 
 Heaven willed that Republics should exist ; and, per- 
 haps, it is in order to punish the ambition of men that 
 Heaven permits the rise of great empires, kings, and 
 masters.' D'Entraigues had preceded Camille ; but 
 his pamphlet was speedily forgotten. ' La France 
 Libre,' on the contrary, literally set fire to the powder. 
 It was thus that Camille took credit to himself for 
 having been first, among the first, to demand a re- 
 publican constitution. 
 
 ' On July 12,1 789,' he writes in his ' Fragment de 
 1' Histoire- secrete de la Revolution' (page 8), 'there 
 were, perhaps, not ten republicans in Paris, and what 
 covers the vieux Cordeliers with glory is, that they 
 commenced such an enterprise as the Republic with 
 such small means.' 
 
 Then he adds a note : — 
 
 ' Our republicans were for the mo.st part youths, 
 who, having been fed on Cicero at school, had there con- 
 ceived a passion for liberty. We were educated in 
 the schools of Rome and Athens, and in the pride of 
 the Republic, to live in the subjection of monarchy, 
 and under the rule of Claudius and Vitellius. What 
 an insensate government to imagine that we could 
 be inspired with a passionate admiration for the 
 fathers of those countries, for the Capitol, without 
 a corresponding horror of the men-eaters of Ver- 
 sailles ; that we could admire the past without 
 .condemning the present, ulteriora mirari, prcesentia 
 secuturos ! ' 
 
 It was the famous sixth chapter of ' La France 
 Libre' which let loose the crowd of royalist writers 
 upon Camille. The Vicomte de Mirabeau, Mirabeau- 
 Imncau, replied fiercely to him, and the future author 
 
C ami lie's Enthusiasm. 67 
 
 * 
 of ' Les Revolutions de France et de Brabant' after- 
 
 wardsrnade him pay dearly for the answer. 1 
 
 Camille, who was in his element in noise and stir, 
 and enchanted with his success, was intoxicated with 
 his dawning popularity, and the joyous ardour which 
 animated the nation. His letters to his father are full 
 of enthusiasm and excitement. 
 
 ' You cannot form an idea,' he -writes, ' of the joy 
 which our regeneration causes me. Liberty must be 
 a grand thing, since Cato tore out his entrails rather 
 than have a master.' 
 
 Then the young man, who, at least, cannot be re- 
 proached with reticence, adds frankly : — 
 
 ' But, alas ! I wish earnestly to regenerate myself, 
 and I find still the same weaknesses in myself— must I 
 
 1 In evidence of this we find the following verses, in which Camille 
 attacks the two Mirabeaus at the same time : — 
 
 La Question difficile ct rhoudre. 
 
 ' Mes amis, des deux Mirabeau, 
 Ou du pendard ou de l'ivrogne, 
 De"cidez qviel est le plus beau 
 Et lequel a moins de vergogne : 
 Le colonel, brave a trois poils, 
 Surpasse, d'estoc et de taille, 
 Le vieux preux de langue d'oils 
 Et ceux du quai de la Ferraille. 
 On admire dans le combaf 
 Ce Laridon et ce Paillasse ; 
 Codes, aux portes du sabbat, 
 Brave lui-meme la populace, 
 Et presente sa large face 
 Aux pistolets com me aux crachats. 
 Mais pour son frere Barabas, 
 Celui-la n'est rien moins que brave ; 
 Bien qu'aide" d'un manche a balai, 
 Sans cesse il rosse son valet, 
 Presentez-lui le pistolet, 
 De rouge comme une betterave 
 II devient plus blanc qu'un navet.' 
 f 2 
 
68 Camille Desmotdins and his Wije. 
 
 say, the same vices ? At least, Tack of love for my 
 father is not one of them.' 
 
 No, indeed ; but, among these vices we are forced to 
 recognise a dangerous one, vanity. Camille, who was 
 greedy for fame, contented himself too easily with a 
 second-rate renown. Notwithstanding the ironical 
 and aggressive style of ' La France Libre,' it was 
 written for educated men and thinkers ; but before 
 long we shall find him writing his ' Discours de la 
 Lanterne ' for that section of the public which confers 
 a flashy popularity, but not a solid reputation founded 
 on respect. 
 
 What a pamphlet that was, notwithstanding ! 
 What marvellous astuteness and vigour were displayed 
 in the ' Discours de la Lanterne aux Parisiens,' which 
 forms the antithesis of the ' Vieux Cordelier ' among 
 the works of Camille Desmoulins. The ' Discours ' 
 reveals to us a Camille whose laughter is terrible ; and 
 it was, indeed, a sinister notion to place his work 
 under the invocation of that ' lanterne ' on which 
 a white-haired man, one of the invalides, who had 
 acted as a spy of M. de Launey, and, three months 
 afterwards, Foullon and Francois, the baker, had been 
 hanged. This ' lanterne ' was an iron pole without 
 a lamp, which projected at the corner of the Place de 
 Greve and the Rue de la Vannerie, over the front of a 
 grocer's shop ; and thither the howling mob dragged 
 those whom they were resolved to hang. The 
 terrible cry — A la lanterne — was raised also beneath a 
 sign bearing these words : au coin du Roi. There is 
 irony in most human things. It was this lamp-pole, 
 this iron rod, this street-lamp which Camille Des- 
 moulins made famous ; to it he gave the first place in 
 his pamphlet, which he further adorned with an 
 
His Wit and Severity. 69 
 
 epigraph taken from St. Matthew : Qui male* agit odit 
 lucent : or, as he translated it : ' Rogues object to the 
 lamp-post.' 
 
 Never was there, in fact, anything more tragical 
 than this pamphlet, which, in later days, Camille 
 Desmoulins was bitterly and vainly to repent, and 
 which procured for him the title (unhappily he sought 
 it) of procureur-ge'ne'ral de la lanterne. But also, 
 never was there anything more eloquent. Its wit, 
 even while it seems ill-employed in deadly personalities, 
 dazzles us. 1 
 
 1 Camille Desmoulins had already sounded this aggressive note, in the 
 following passage of • La France Libre ' : — 
 
 ' It was reserved for our days to behold the return of liberty among 
 the French. Yes, she has already been brought back to us ; she has not 
 yet a temple for the States General, like that of Delphos, in Greece, for 
 the assembly of the Amphictyons ; or that of Concord, in Rome, for the 
 assembly of the Senate ; but she is already adored in tones louder than 
 a whisper, and the worship of her is public. For forty years philosophy 
 has been undermining the foundations of despotism in all their parts ; 
 and, as Rome before Caesar was already enslaved by its vices, so France 
 before Necker was already enfranchised by its intelligence. 
 
 ' From Paris and Lyons, from Rouen and Bordeaux, from Calais and 
 Marseilles, from one end of France to the other, the same universal cry 
 comes to our ears. With what pleasure all good citizens scan the cahiers 
 of the provinces ! With what rage must the perusal of them fill the 
 breasts of our oppressors ! I thank, thee, O Heaven, that thou hast 
 decreed my birth before the end of this century. I shall behold the 
 erection of that bronze pillar which the Paris cahier demands, that 
 pillar on which our rights and the history of the Revolution shall be 
 inscribed ; and I will teach my children to read in this citizen's cate- 
 chism. Everywhere the nation has uttered the same aspiration. All 
 desire to be free. Yes, my dear fellow- citizens, we shall all be free ; who 
 shall prevent us : Will the provinces of the North demand other things 
 than the South? are the districts of election in opposition to the dis- 
 tricts of states, so that we should have to fear a schism and a civil war ? 
 
 ' No, there will be no civil war. We are the strongest, we are the 
 most numerous. Look at the capital — that hot-bed of corruption, where 
 the monarchy, the born enemy of morality, seeks only to deprave us, to 
 enervate the national character, to degrade us by multiplying the snares 
 of seduction for youth, by creating facilities for debauch and besieging us 
 with prcstitutes — the capital itself contains more than thirty thousand 
 
jo Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 The erudite writer multiplies quotations, com- 
 parisons, - and anecdotes with singular felicity. The 
 pamphlet is a model of aggressive dexterity. But what 
 a war! In vain does Camille say, making the. hn- 
 terne speak for him : ' Not that I like justice to be 
 too expeditious ; you know that I gave signs of dis- 
 content on the occasion of the ascent of Foullon and 
 Bertier ; that I broke the fatal loop twice ; ' the truth is, 
 that he urged vigorous measures. He denounces 
 • people, he, who shall afterwards stigmatise in- 
 formers so ruthlessly ! A year later, we find him con- 
 gratulating himself upon having ' resigned his functions 
 as procureur-gendral de la lanterne ; ' and, referring to 
 the fury of the crowd of self-made dealers in justice, 
 he says, 'It is a great evil that the people should 
 become familiar with games of this kind.' He makes 
 this reply to Marat (in his ' Revolutions de France et 
 de Brabant'), and adds: 'Executions by the people 
 are atrocious, now that they send the halter about with 
 
 men who are ready to bid adieu to all its pleasures and join the sacred 
 cohorts of our country at the first signal, so soon as liberty shall have 
 raised her standard in one province, and rallied its good citizens around 
 it. Paris, like the rest of France, calls aloud for liberty. The infamous 
 police, 'that monster with ten thousand heads, seems at last to be 
 paralysed in all its limbs. Its eyes no longer see, its ears no longer hear. 
 The patriots only raise their voices. The enemies of the public welfare 
 keep silence, or, if they dare to speak, they are instantly punished for 
 their felony or their treason. They are compelled to sue for pardon on 
 their knees. Linguet, who had the impudence to steal in among the 
 deputies, is hunted out by them ; Maury is driven away by his host ; 
 Desprdmesnil is hissed even by his lackeys ; the Keeper of the Seals is 
 harried and covered with contumely, even in the midst of his guards ; 
 the Archbishop of Paris is pelted with stones ; Cond<5, Conti, D'Artois, 
 are publicly devoted to the infernal gods. Patriotism spreads, day by 
 day, with the devouring rapidity of a great conflagration. The young 
 take fire ; old men cease, for the first time, to regret the past ; they blush 
 for it. The people bind themselves by oaths in a solemn engagement to 
 die for their country.' 
 
The ' Discours de la Lanterne! $i 
 
 as much facility as the Sultan sends the bowstring. 
 Marat, you are getting us into serious trouble.' His 
 remorse was to follow quickly ; but that, for even one 
 day, Camille Desmoulins should have filled the 'great 
 office ' of procureur to the lamp-post is a terrible fact, 
 and, at a later period, he was destined to shed bitter 
 tears over those pages which no tears can ever efface. 
 
 On the other hand, let us hasten to point out that 
 there are other things in this ' Discours de la Lanterne ' 
 than personalities and denunciations ; there is true 
 patriotism, and thoroughly French fervour. He 
 makes known the Republic (which he had pre- 
 sented to the world in ' La France Libre '), such as 
 he would have it to be ; elegant, refined, cultivated, 
 accessible ; such as the Mondain of Voltaire might have 
 conceived it, and as far removed from the oppression of 
 despotism, as from the icy austerity and the ferocious 
 rule of a Jacobin Republic. He desires files and 
 pleasures, the free repasts of the antique cities, a sort 
 of immense federation and mutual embrace ; a Re- 
 public where kisses shall sound louder than cries of 
 hate ; a fraternal Republic, all love and pleasure. 
 Before the eyes of this modern Gaul floated the vision 
 of Athens. ' What consoled me for not being able to 
 make my readers laugh as much as Moliere did,' he 
 says somewhere, ' is that Moliere was sad. I am not so 
 taciturn and melancholy.' Then he demands a little 
 gaiety from the State. ' I had dreamed,' said he, in 
 later days, ' of a Republic in which everyone would 
 have laved! Let us retain this saying ; it was, in truth, 
 his last will and testament. 
 
 Desmoulins, in fact, when we look closely into his 
 mind at that time, was by no means so well satisfied 
 with the ' Discours de la Lanterne ' as he had been 
 
72 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 with ' La France Libre.' A scholar's secret instinct 
 warned him that he had, so to speak, forced the 
 ' note,' and shot beyond his aim. He had pub- 
 lished this anonymous pamphlet, in the first instance, 
 because he was afraid of ' declining in opinion.' The 
 pamphlet having been sold out, he hesitates for a 
 moment about issuing a second edition, for ' we are 
 tired of all these writings.' How easily we recognise, 
 in this hesitation and discontent, the ill-balanced 
 man, of febrile temperament, who wrote to his father : 
 ' At one moment I think life a delicious thing, and the 
 moment after it seems almost insupportable ; and this 
 happens to me ten times a day.' Such natures are 
 dangerous to themselves and to others, when they are 
 engaged in the struggles of a revolution. They are 
 made for the free existence of men of letters, for a life 
 in which their very hesitations serve to put new faces 
 upon their talent, and act upon them daily like whip 
 and spur. 
 
 II. 
 
 At this epoch in his life (September, 1 789), Camille 
 Desmoulins was not happy either morally or materially. 
 He lodged at the Hotel de Pologne, opposite the Hotel 
 de Nivernais ; he was in needy circumstances, and 
 more than once we find him asking assistance from 
 his good parents at Guise. ' You will oblige me by 
 sending me some shirts and two pairs of sheets, as 
 soon as possible,' he writes on September 20. He 
 is tired of living in these little Parisian hotels. ' I 
 hope to have a house of my own by Saint- Remy's day.' 
 — ' Send me six louis,' he writes soon after to his father. 
 No doubt his first pamphlets brought him very little 
 money ; but he at least won fame by them. ' I have 
 
The Growing Reputation of Camille. 73 
 
 made myself a name, and I begin to hear it said, 
 " There is a pamphlet out by Desmoulins," not any 
 longer, " by an author called Desmoulins ; " and then, 
 " Desmoulins has just been defending the Marquis de 
 Saint-Huruge.'" 1 This 'name' which he has made for 
 himself evidently consoles Desmoulins for his poverty. 
 Now, he hardly regrets that his father, who would not 
 accept the mandate of a deputy, did not at least lend 
 his influence to the election of his son. 
 
 ' You made a blunder in policy,' wrote Camille to 
 him, ' when last year you would not come to Laon and 
 recommmend me to the person who could have had 
 me nominated. But I can afford to laugh at them 
 now. I have written my name on the history of the 
 Revolution, in larger letters than those of all our 
 deputies from Picardy.' 
 
 Nevertheless, he refers more than once again to 
 this sort of abdication on his father's part ; he cannot 
 understand the love of calm which satisfied the hard- 
 working man. 2 ' You lack activity,' he says ; ' you 
 remain in your study ; and, in democracies, one must 
 show oneself.' M. Desmoulins must, many a time, 
 have smiled sadly on perusing these letters ; for his 
 head was by no means turned by the sudden fame of 
 
 1 Victor- Ame'dee, Marquis de Saint-Huruge, the popular agitator, had 
 just been arrested, and taken to the Chatelet. Desmoulins defended him 
 (September 1789) in a pamphlet entitled 'Reclamation en faveur du 
 Marquis de Saint-Huruge,' which has now lost much of its interest. ' I 
 will not say in his defence,' wrote Camille, ' that he is a gentleman, and 
 the godson of the king of Sardinia ; I will say, he is a French citizen.' 
 The marquis, who was born at Macon in 1750, died, forgotten, in 1810, 
 after having been one of the most fiery of the mob- orators. 
 
 2 The enemies of Camille have tried to make out that he hated his 
 father. ' His first case,' says the Leipzig biography, ' was against his 
 father, who had refused to make him an allowance.' ' You are on your 
 way to the scaffold,' replied M. Desmoulins. All the letters from 
 the father to his son triumphantly refute these infamous calumnies. 
 
74 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 his son. On the contrary, he pursued his slow and 
 modest task, at Guise, more resolutely than ever. 
 
 During this time, Camille, having made himself a 
 name, was making friends. The author of the 
 ' Tableau de Paris,' introduced him at several houses. 
 Mirabeau invited him to his house at Versailles ; and 
 thence, where he enjoyed himself, Camille wrote, 
 gaily :— 
 
 ' I feel myself corrupted by his table, which is too 
 profuse and too dainty. His Bordeaux wine and 
 Maraschino have merits which I vainly endeavour to 
 disguise from myself; and I find it very difficult to 
 resume my republican austerity, and to detest the 
 aristocrats whose crime is to set store by these excel- 
 lent dinners.' 
 
 Desmoulins was evidently, for the time, under the 
 inspiration of Mirabeau, just as, at a later period, he 
 was under that of Danton. Weak natures like his 
 need stronger for counsel, as the ivy needs a support 
 for growth. 
 
 Although he was more or less pleased with his 
 growing renown, Camille was troubled and discontent 
 at his heart. He was always preoccupied about 'what 
 they would say ' in his native town, and the accounts 
 of him which might reach his parents. He writes to 
 his father as follows : — 
 
 ' If you hear any evil said of me, console yourself 
 by recalling the testimony which has been borne to me 
 by MM. de Mirabeau, Targot, M. de Robespierre, 
 Gleizal, and more than two hundred deputies. Reflect 
 that a great part of the capital numbers me among the 
 chief authors of the Revolution. Many even go so 
 far as to say that I am its sole author.' 
 
 Here, Camille goes too far. But his self-love had 
 
A Boasting Letter. 75 
 
 something to depress it more than a little when the 
 guest of Mirabeau, on returning to Paris, was obliged to 
 remember that in all the great city, he had no home 
 except a room in a third-rate inn. And I am thirty 
 years old ! he says, with a sort of frightened bitterness 
 Thirty years ; the first step towards decisive maturity ; 
 the age at which the smile becomes less confident upon 
 the contracted lips ; the hour at which one sees ob- 
 stacles uprising on every side where all lay smooth at 
 twenty ; the age at which having hitherto counted 
 one's friends only, one begins to reckon one's rivals. 
 Camille was thirty years old, and still vegetating ! 
 We must do him the justice to admit that as soon as 
 this thought assailed him, he made a violent effort to 
 stifle it ; for he was ardent, inspired, earnest, and full 
 of die love of his work. He resolved that he would 
 not be content with a few pages printed in pamphlet 
 form ; he desired to found one of those personal 
 journals of which so many existed at the time ; and 
 from the month of November 1789, he set himself 
 firmly to accomplish this project. The first number 
 of the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant' appeared 
 on November 28. Desmoulins' journal was destined 
 to last until July 1792 (No. 86), when Camille, who 
 was in danger in consequence of the affair of the 
 Champ de Mars, sent in, as he said, his resignation as a 
 journalist, to La Fayette. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins followed the prevailing fash- 
 ion by borrowing the title of Revolutions from the 
 journals already in favour, and he added the name of 
 Brabant to that of France, because Brabant had 
 rebelled so gallantly against the Empire. 1 This 
 
 1 He afterwards struck out the name of Brabant, declaring that he 
 gave up a people stupid enough to kiss Bender's boots. 
 
76 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 journal is incisive, and sparkling, and, though often the 
 most cruel, yet always the most inspired monument of 
 the French Revolution. It consisted of a weekly 
 pamphlet, in a grey paper cover, and was adorned with 
 an engraving, generally a caricature, for which Garnery, 
 the publisher, was responsible. Camille dwells upon 
 this detail. He frequently repeated, ' I protest against 
 the engravings placed at the head of my sheets. The 
 Assembly has not abolished every kind of servitude.' 
 
 It is much to be regretted, apart from political 
 considerations, that no publisher has yet ventured to re- 
 print those ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant ' in 
 their integrity, for they form a masterpiece of lan- 
 guage and polemic, a repertory of knowledge, and a 
 marvel of wit. I do" not know, I will not say in 
 journalistic literature only, but in the entire literature 
 of our country, a pamphlet more brilliant, more varied, 
 one in which sarcasm, passion, wit, emotion, anger and 
 irony have so much place, and succeed each other so 
 rapidly, ever satisfying and ever new. We may say of 
 Camille, in respect of his pamphlets, what Suetonius says 
 of the soldiers of Julius Caesar, ' They knew how. to 
 fight, perfumed though they were, etiam unguentati pug- 
 nare! With what unparalleled vigour he pursues his 
 enemies and pitilessly riddles them with the barbed 
 arrows of his pen. He was thoroughly secured by the 
 sound classicism of his education, and he called to his 
 aid all the resources of that antiquity which was his 
 familiar source of argument and illustration. 1 
 
 I have in my possession a manuscript book full of 
 curious quotations, collected by Camille, in the course 
 
 1 Camille was no pedant, though he draws at every page on the 
 resources of antiquity. In one of his writings he finds the idea of pro- 
 
Camille's Pamphlets. 77 
 
 of his reading, classed according to their subjects, and 
 to which he evidently referred in his polemics. 
 
 ' The universe and all its follies,' he had said, ' shall 
 be included in the jurisdiction of this hypercritical 
 journal.' According to Mangourit, he was about to 
 sound the second drum-tap. A Journalist ! It was not 
 long since ' that unfortunate gazetteer of Holland,' as 
 ' La France Libre ' called him, had been shut up in the 
 ' cage ' at Mont St. Michel. But a new era had 
 commenced, and speech was free ! 
 
 During the first months of the publication of the 
 ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' which had a 
 rapid success, Camille Desmoulins did the whole of the 
 work unassisted ; but in July 1790, he allowed a por- 
 tion of it to devolve upon Stanislas Freron, his friend, 
 who was afterwards his nominal collaborator in the 
 ' Tribune des Patriotes ' and his colleague at the 
 National Convocation. 
 
 Freron, who was a man of quick intelligence, was 
 the son of Freron, the critic, who was so severely casti- 
 gated by Voltaire, and exactly calculated to ' double ' 
 Camille Desmoulins, as he was said to do. He was a 
 cultivated and humorous writer ; he read and trans- 
 lated Petrarch. Arnault said of him that he was 
 ' neither spiteful nor ambitious.' The following deed 
 of agreement between him, Camille, and Laffrey, the 
 publisher, will give a strange idea of the prices paid to 
 journalists at that time, and of their relations with book- 
 
 gress indicated in the inscriptions, or rather in the songs and choruses, of 
 Lacedemonian/?/^, of which Plutarch speaks : — 
 
 Les Enfants. 
 
 Les Vieillards. 
 
 Nous avons 6t6 jadis 
 Jeunes, vaillants et hardis, 
 
 Et nous bient6t le serons, 
 Qui tous vous surpasserons. 
 
 '■ Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' No. 35, vol. iii. p. 515. 
 
78 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 sellers. It appears in print for the first time in these 
 pages : — 
 
 We, the "undersigned, Camille Desmoulins and Stanislas 
 Freron, the former living in the Rue du Theatre Francais, 
 the latter in the Rue de la Lune, Porte St. Denys, of the one 
 part ; and Jean-Jacques Laffrey, living in the Rue du Theatre 
 Francais, of the other part, have agreed as follows : — 
 
 i. I, Camille Desmoulins, engage to delegate to Stanislas 
 Freron the sum of three thousand livres, out of the sum of ten 
 thousand livres, which Jean-Jacques Laffrey has bound him- 
 self, by a bond between us, to pay me annually as the price 
 of the editing of my journal, entitled ' Revolutions de France 
 et de Brabant,' of three printed sheets, under the express 
 condition that the said Stanislas Freron shall furnish one 
 sheet and a half to each number, and that during the whole 
 term of my agreement with the said Laffrey. 
 
 2. I, Stanislas Freron, engage to furnish for each number 
 of the said journal of the ' Revolutions de France et de Bra- 
 bant,' composed of three sheets, one sheet and a half, under 
 the direction of the said Camille Desmoulins, with the under- 
 standing that this sheet and a half shall form one-half of the 
 three sheets of which each number is composed. I engage to 
 deliver a portion of the copy of this said sheet and a half on 
 the Wednesday of each week, and the rest during the day 
 on Thursday, and this counting inclusively from the thirty- 
 third number until the close of the agreement between 
 Camille Desmoulins and Jean-Jacques Laffrey. 
 
 3. I, Jean-Jacques Laffrey, accept the delegation made 
 by Camille Desmoulins of the sum of three thousand livres, 
 payable, in equal payments, at the issue of each number, to 
 Stanislas Fre>on, to the clauses and conditions herein-under ; 
 and I engage, besides, to pay to the said Stanislas Fre>on the 
 sum of one thousand livres, also payable in equal payments, 
 on the publication of each number, which thousand livres 
 shall be over and above the said salary of three thousand 
 livres on condition that the said Stanislas Freron shall furnish 
 to the said journal an additional sheet per week which shall 
 be devoted to news — to begin from the thirty-ninth number, 
 which commences the approaching quarter. 
 
Frtron and Laffrey. 79 
 
 And I, Stanislas Fre>on, engage to furnish, at the stipu- 
 lated periods, the said sheet over and above, in consideration 
 of the sum of one thousand livres, in addition to the three 
 thousand livres delegated by Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 Done, in triplicate, between us, at Paris, July 4, 1790. 
 (Signed) Stanislas Freron. 
 
 Approved the above (Signed) Laffrey, 
 
 C. Desmoulins. 
 
 The ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' had 
 existed for hardly a year, and, as we see, Camille had 
 already ceased to be a needy man. ' My first number 
 is considered perfect,' he writes to his father, in 
 November '89, 'but shall I be able to keep up to this 
 mark ? ' He did keep up to it, bravely. 
 
 This journal is the best known and the most 
 entirely personal of Camille's works. In it his 
 sarcasm, his wit, his elegance, and his ardour are most 
 brilliantly and easily displayed. In it, let us hasten to 
 say, his talent is most formidable, and, too often, most 
 cruel. He sharpens the edge of his wit until it cuts 
 like a steel blade wrought by an artist's hand, delicate 
 as jeweller's work, but which pierces the heart of an 
 enemy only the more quickly for that. A journalist in 
 his soul, impelled by the imperious necessity which 
 drives men of that particular temperament -to fling 
 their red-hot" ideas on paper,' and send sheets on "which 
 the ink is not yet dry to the printers, Camille Desmou- 
 lin's programme was the eternal ' Quid novi ? ' of the 
 gazetteers. ' Quid novi ? ' This is the epigraph of his 
 prospectus. He sought for novelty, for ' actuality ' as 
 we now call it, everywhere ; at the Assembly, irf Paris, 
 at Versailles, at the popular meetings, at literary gather- 
 ings, and in the streets. His journal is the living 
 chronicle of the doings of Paris in those stormy days. 
 
80 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 It is, in truth, in the ' Revolutions de France et de 
 Brabant ' that posterity finds the most vivid picture of 
 the troublous time between November 28, 1789, 
 and July 1792. The collection formed by those 
 eighty-six numbers is unique in the history of Journal- 
 ism ; they are in reality a succession of pamphlets, in 
 which noisy enthusiasm, anger, and laughter alternate, 
 with felicity of expression, grace of form, boundless 
 audacity of tone ; a series of satires, harangues, epi- 
 grams, personalities, jests, now resembling the invective 
 of hatred, again like the trumpet-blare saluting liberty ; 
 brilliant and incisive pages, by turns witty and fierce, 
 the Menippean Satire of the French Revolution. They 
 have the youth, the fire, the dash, the joyous readiness, 
 and the gaiety of the Gallic nation, acidulated some- 
 times by a more bitter laughter ; Lucian and Aristo- 
 phanes could not have invented raillery more cutting 
 than that of Desmoulins. 1 His arrows have barbed points 
 which wound and bury themselves far beneath the sur- 
 face. Camille is an implacable adversary. This Athe- 
 nian Picard had yet to learn the supreme virtue, pity. 
 
 He amuses himself with everything, with the dawn 
 of enfranchisement which seems rising over the world. 
 He 'drinks in punch the health of the English who 
 drink the health of France in wine.' He cheers the. 
 patriots of Brabant, who have risen against Joseph II. — 
 perhaps, to give his gazette a legitimate right to its 
 title : — ' Courage, men of Brabant,' he says to them ; 
 ' remember that the French behold you.' Every 
 week men and things pass under review in his pam- 
 phlet, enriched, or, as I think, weighted by an engraving 
 
 1 A portrait of Desmoulins, in verse, by M. Emanuel des Essarts, a 
 poet of rare merit, who has closely studied the revolutionary epoch, will 
 be found in the Appendix. 
 
' Les Revolutions! 8 1 
 
 against which Camille protests repeatedly. He vigo- 
 rously attacks courtiers who still retain influence, and 
 abuses which are not yet uprooted. 1 In his pages the 
 act of accusation against the old Monarchy is swollen 
 to portentous dimensions. 
 
 Here is an example : — 
 
 ' Let us see to what an extent they have pushed the art 
 of inventing pensions,' says Desmoulins. ' The incomparable 
 Pierre Lenoir created pensions for himself on oils and 
 tallows, on sand and cloacina. Associations of swindlers, 
 every kind of vice, and every sort of filth, were tributary to 
 our Lieutenant of Police, who, in virtue of his position, ought 
 to have been magister morum, the guardian of the public 
 morals. At length, he contrived to put the moon under 
 contribution, and assigned to one of his mistresses a pension, 
 known under the name of pension of the moon. I know of 
 one minister who assigned to his mistress a pension of 1 2,000 
 livres, raised on the contract for the bread supplied to the 
 convicts at the galleys, which she enjoys to this day.' Again : 
 ' In the list of pensions I see that four are granted to a 
 German prince, the first and second for his services as a 
 colonel, the third and fourth for his services as a non-colonel. 
 Total of the German prince's pensions ; 48,000 livres.' 
 
 Camille allows nothing to pass, neither folly, nor 
 time-serving. He exposes everything of the kind 
 with extraordinary skill and point. M. de Boufflers 
 makes a speech before the king and queen in which he 
 vaunts the ' almost divine grace ' of Marie Antoi- 
 nette : — 
 
 1 ' I protest,' he says in No. 17, 'against the woodcut at the head of 
 my last number. I haVe already stated that I do not meddle with the 
 frontispiece and the figures, except in three or four instances when I gave 
 the idea. But I owe it none the less to my character and to my principles to 
 declare that I am not an accomplice in the insolent outrage inflicted on 
 theassembled nation by the plate in No. 16. It is a crime of Itee-nation on 
 the part of the engraver, and I denounce him to the Chatelet for having 
 represented the king with his hat on his head in the presence of the 
 National Assembly, during the sitting of February 4.' — ' Revolutions de 
 France et de Brabant.' 
 
 Ci 
 
82 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 ' Boileau,' writes Camille Desmoulins, ' said to Louis XIV., 
 " L'Univers sous ton regne a-t-il des malheureux ? " but he 
 belonged to the French Academy ! A far more surprising 
 fact is that the Chancellor de l'Hdpital, in his poem on the 
 States General, said to Francis II., " Has there ever existed 
 a gentler or more indulgent woman than his (the king's) 
 respectable mother (Catherine de M^dicis) ? " All kings and 
 queens are, like the unfortunate Francis II., poisoned through 
 the earl . 
 
 The ' detestables flatteurs ' of Racine is not more 
 eloquent than these two lines written by Camille 
 against courtiers. 
 
 When Desmoulins is discussing a projected law or 
 a political doctrine we can trace the legist in him, and 
 his eloquence is equalled by his knowledge. When 
 the Assembly talks about the ' silver marc, and quali- 
 fication,' which it proposes to exact from eligible 
 citizens, he says : — ' Then Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Cor- 
 neille, Mably, would not have been eligible.' ' Priests 
 of a proletarian God,' he adds, addressing himself 
 more particularly to the deputies of the clergy, ' respect 
 that poverty which He has ennobled.' Courageous 
 utterances like these are not rare in the numbers of 
 Desmoulins' Journal, but his personality pleases us 
 better when he delivers battle to some enemy, direct, 
 and face to face. The Abbe Maury, the Vicomte 
 de Mirabeau (known as Mirabeau-Tonneau), and the 
 queen furnished his arrows with unfailing targets. No 
 doubt the hour came when he regretted that he had 
 attacked a woman ; for the wheel of persecution, 
 turning, like that of fortune, struck in her turn the 
 woman whom he loved ; but we may be quite certain 
 he never regretted the epigrams that he darted at 
 Mirabeau ' the tun,' or at Maury. 
 
Camille attacks Mirabeau. 83 
 
 ' Duclos,' writes Desmoulins, ' has said in his " Caracteres : " 
 " There are societies in which parts are distributed just as they 
 are distributed on the stage ; one man is cynical, another 
 grave; one is good-natured, another caustic ; one melancholy, 
 another given to laughter; one a philosopher, another a 
 scamp ; a third plays the buffoon who at first thought 
 to take a leading part, but found the buskin bespoken." 
 Now this latter is exactly the case of our Vicomte de Mira- 
 beau ; his brother has left him nothing but the sock.' 
 
 This is one of the mildest of the continual attacks 
 made on the brother of the great orator whom 
 also Camille praised and assailed by turns. The 
 Vicomte de Mirabeau was the butt of Desmoulins' 
 fiercest jests. While he praises ' M. de Robes- 
 pierre, his dear school friend, the ornament of the 
 Northern Deputation,' he heaps ridicule on Mirabeau- 
 Tonneau, not only in words, but by the illustrations 
 of his journal. He did not indeed execute them 
 himself, but the caricature emphasising the pamphlet 
 is a. terrible weapon against one's enemies. The 
 graver aided the pen in its spiteful, indeed more thar 
 that, its murderous work? 
 
 Camille did more cruel things.even than those ; and 
 when, in after days, in his prison, he was forced to re- 
 member writings which he then admitted to have been 
 too numerous, doubtless he bethought himself of the 
 pages in which he contrived, by I don't know what 
 sophistry, to justify the murder of Favras. Favras had 
 been 'judged, and legally condemned by thirty-eight 
 judges.' 
 
 ' Out of these thirty-eight votes,' says Camille, ' thirty-two 
 were for death. When we remember that one Adrien, a 
 labouring man, was tried, condemned, and hanged within the 
 space of twenty- four hours for having carried a seditious note 
 to different houses, though he did not know how to read, it 
 
 G2 
 
84 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 seems strange that there should be persons found to protest 
 against the condemnation of Favras, who was convicted upon 
 a multitude of much graver accusations. So difficult is 
 it to uproot certain aristocratic prejudices, such as the belief 
 in a difference of specific gravity between a labourer and a 
 marquis, in the scales of justice ! ' l 
 
 True, but is that a reason for writing as follows ? — 
 
 ' I will not accuse the people's joy at this execution of 
 being barbarous. What ! because such was the good pleasure 
 of the prince, an army of a hundred thousand Frenchmen 
 went to shoot, disembowel, and put to the sword Englishmen 
 and Hanoverians, as foolish as themselves, and who knew 
 no more than they did why they were murdering each other 
 on the open field by thousands ! It did not come into any- 
 body's head to tax those soldiers with cruelty, who, in 
 cold blood, drove their bayonets into the breasts of the 
 men opposite to them, whom they did not know, and who 
 had not done them any harm ; and shall I listen to accu- 
 sations of barbarity against a people who rejoice that human 
 justice sometimes acts in the place of divine vengeance ! ' 2 
 
 1 ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' vol. ii. p. 7. 
 
 2 ' Not the people, but the despot is the tiger. There ha^ never been 
 a people-Caligula, or a people-Nero, if I may speak thus. Without 
 quoting these monsters, let anyone show me a people who has kept its 
 enemy in an iron cage for eleven years, as Louis XI. kept Cardinal de 
 la Balue, and Louis XIV. kept the Dutch gazetteer ; let anyone show 
 me a people who had Bastilles, or ordered a massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 or, like so many tyrants, condemned men to death for insulting them by 
 libels. On the criminal code the character of the government is impressed ; 
 let us look at the cruelty of punishments under monarchy. In monarch- 
 ruled countries, we find the wheel, the stake, the burning steel, we 
 have angels tortured, impaled, and sawn asunder. The people gave 
 henbane to drink at Athens ; they flung from the Tarpeian rock at Rome ; 
 or they stoned to death among the Jews ; but when the people cried, 
 " Crucify, crucify," it was because the Roman praetors had corrupted them by 
 introducing the punishment of the cross, invented by the aristocracy 
 for slaves. It is, then, an absurd calumny to call the people tigers. 
 The people are gentle when they are the masters, and how should 
 they not be compassionate ? They suffer too much to be aught but 
 tender-hearted ; it is rather against their compassion that they ought to 
 be warned than against their severity.' — No. 15, p. 88. 
 
Camille pistifies the Mob. 85 
 
 ' We should have been lost,' he adds, ' if the 
 people could have witnessed the punishment of such 
 men as De Launey, Berthier, and Favras, unmoved. 
 As for me, notwithstanding the cries of fury uttered by 
 the aristocrats against what Barnave said 1 — Barnave 
 who is as eloquent as an orator as he is excellent as a 
 citizen — I will repeat with him : Was Brutus a bar- 
 barian when, showing the people the poniard which 
 still reeked with the blood of his benefactor, he con- 
 gratulated himself upon having delivered his country ? 
 Was Cicero a barbarian when, after he had had 
 Lentulus and Cethegus strangled, he clasped Cato's 
 hand and proceeded to his place in the Senate with 
 ill-dissembled joy, saying, They have lived ? Was 
 Aristogeiton a barbarian when he said, with such 
 elation, of Hipparchus, Tyrant, would that all thy 
 slaves were dead ; hit at least I shall have caused the 
 death of thy best friends ! ' 
 
 Accursed be antiquity if it inspires us only with 
 the ideal of an extrahuman virtue ! The classical re- 
 miniscences of Camille led him astray. To this 
 tirade he added a final touch, alleging that the firm- 
 ness with which Favras died was all pretence and 
 parade ; he ventured to write that it was ' that of a 
 gladiator, who, being mortally wounded, strives to fall 
 with decency and dignity.' 
 
 Well, and is it not something to know how to die ? 
 One day Camille will learn that it is so. It is not easy 
 to fall ' with decency and dignity.' 
 
 How infinitely preferable to these sanguinary pages 
 are those enthusiastic ones in which Desmoulins 
 
 1 ' The blood that is flowing, is it then so pure ? ' When Barnave was 
 on his way to execution, a royalist, who saw him pass by, flung these 
 same words at him. 
 
86 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 relates his entry into the 'district of the Cordeliers; of 
 which he said that ' even if the seven sages of Greece 
 had been members of it, logic could not have been 
 sounder there.' 
 
 ' Since I came to dwell in this land of liberty,' he says, 
 ' I have longed to take possession of my title as an honour- 
 able member of the illustrious district. Therefore, I went 
 one day lately to take my civic oath and salute the- fathers 
 of the country, my neighbours. With what pleasure I in- 
 scribed my- name, not on those useless baptismal registers 
 which could not defend us from despotism, royal, sacerdotal, 
 magisterial, or feudal ; and from which Ministers and Pierre 
 Lenoir, lawyers and harlots, efface you so readily, leaving 
 no trace of your existence ; but upon the tablets of my 
 tribe, upon the register of Pierre Duplain, upon this true book 
 of life, the faithful and incorruptible depository of all those 
 names, and which will give an account of them to the ever- 
 watchful district.' 
 
 ' I cannot but yield,' he adds, ' to a religious senti- 
 ment ; I could believe myself to have been born again.' 1 
 
 When the ceremony, which was very simple and agi- 
 tating only to a novice, was terminated, Camille writes : 
 
 'I was about to retire thanking God, if not, like 
 Pangloss, for being in the best of all possible worlds, 
 at leas.t for being in the best of all possible districts, 
 
 1 Camille Desmoulins, although not mentioned by M. E. Rebold, in 
 his ' Histoire Generate de la Franc-Magonnerie,' among famous masons, 
 was a freemason, like Voltaire, Helvetius, D'Alembert, Gustavus III. of 
 Sweden, Boucher, Champfort, Parny, Delille, Lalande, Joseph Buona- 
 parte the future king of Spain, Eugene de Beauharnais, Bernadotte, 
 Augereau, Fichte, Condorcet, Massena, Oudinot, &c. In the eighteenth 
 century freemasonry was powerful ; since then it has lost its influence. 
 I have in my possession the Rosicrucian decoration (a little triangular 
 ornament, with a pelican tearing its breast, in the middle) which Desmou- 
 lins wore at all the ceremonies of his lodge. This historical curiosity 
 came into my hands through those of M. Armingaud, who had it from his 
 father-in-law, to whom it was given by Horace Desmoulins, the son of 
 Camille. It.is, therefore, perfectly authentic. 
 
The ' Actes des Apdtres! 8 7 
 
 when the sentinel called the doorkeeper, and the door- 
 keeper announced to the President that a young lady 
 positively insisted on coming into the hall. 
 
 ' This was the celebrated Mademoiselle Thdroigne, 
 who demanded permission to speak, and to propose a 
 motion ? ' 
 
 A strange one it must be admitted. Thdroigne was 
 simply about to propose that a Temple to the National 
 Assembly should be constructed. 
 
 ' It is the Queen of Sheba come to visit the Solo- 
 mon of the districts,' cried Desmoulins, quite dazzled 
 by the strange beauty of this woman, who has been 
 alleged, by some writers, to have become his mistress. 
 
 Anne Terwagne, 'the fair Lidgeoise,' whom the 
 Court Journal, ' Le Petit Gauthier,' confounded with 
 Madame de Stae'l (perhaps to please the Queen, who 
 fyated Necker's daughter to the point of refusing to owe 
 her safety to her, as Malouet tells us), was at that time 
 hardly twenty years old. She was rather one of the ' un- 
 classed ' and artist world than a courtesan ; her seducer, 
 a German baron, had basely abandoned her, and she 
 rushed into extravagance and violence, in the bitter- 
 ness and grief caused by his desertion. Calling herself 
 Thdroigne de Mericourt, or, rather, de Marcourt 
 (Luxembourg), she attracted some of the deputies to 
 the National Assembly to the hdtel de Grenoble in the 
 Rue du Bouloi, where she lodged ; and, like the Greek 
 courtesans, who, following the example of Aspasia, 
 surrounded themselves with philosophers, she sought 
 her associates among thinkers and politicians armed for 
 the strife. 
 
 ' Her principles are those of the Portico,' said 
 Champcenetz, alluding to her in his ' Actes des Apo- 
 tres ;' but she would not object to those of the ' Arcades.' 
 
88 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 The defenders of the. throne respected women as 
 little as its enemies; the allusion to the 'Arcades' 
 was aimed at the Palais-Royal and the women who 
 frequented it. Nor was this all. The ' Ap6tres ' 
 invented a marriage between Theroigne and Populus, 1 
 stigmatised the poor girl, insulted her through her past 
 life, her present life, her unhappy love, even her per- 
 sonal appearance. In every way they harassed the 
 unfortunate creature, who was afterwards, on the ioth 
 of August, to exhibit herself, astride upon a cannon, 
 as the Fury of the civil war, and ultimately to be driven 
 quite mad by the cowardly treatment inflicted upon her 
 by the ' Muscadins,' who had her flogged upon the 
 terrace of the Feuillants. 
 
 I have mentioned the ' Actes des Apotres ' as the 
 most overt enemy of Camille Desmoulins. It was a 
 laboratory of royalist calumnies and abuse. The 
 ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant' may be re- 
 proached for its cruelty, but let us consider the vileness 
 of Peltier's journal. It was at Gattey's, in the Palais- 
 Royal that Peltier first published the paper which, as 
 is evident from its nominal title, was intended to turn 
 the acts of ' the Apostles of liberty ' into ridicule. All 
 the contributors to this aggressive publication are not 
 known ; they were, if its own statement be believed, 
 forty-five. More than once they dub themselves the ' 
 forty-five apostles. Camille calls them 'disciples of 
 Jerome VadeV Their boudoir pleasantries have a 
 flavour of the fish market about them. ' The " Actes 
 des Apotres," ' said Camille, ' form the highest eulogium 
 on the tolerance of the National Assembly, just as 
 the blasphemies of Atheists form the highest eulogium 
 
 1 See the monograph of M. Marcellin Pellet, ' Les Actes des Apotres ' 
 (1789-1791), vol. i. 1873. 
 
The ' Actes des Apotres' 89 
 
 on the clemency of the Supreme Being ' (' Revolutions 
 de France et de Brabant,' No. 17, p. 148). Learned 
 Voltairians, angry nobles, unfrocked abbes, idle beaux 
 esprits, Rivarol, Champcenetz, Suleau, Bergasse, Mont- 
 losier, the Comte de Lauraguais, the Abbe de la 
 Bintinaie, Canon Turmenie, and many others, had 
 banded themselves together to make a war of little 
 epigrams and big calumnies against the new-born Revo- 
 lution. To read them is like being present at a 
 farewell orgie of the departing age. Licentious verse 
 diverges into virulent attack ; libertine song shows its 
 teeth in an attempted smile. Smart wit turns to gall, 
 jests are steeped in venom. The good taste of the 
 quiddities of old times is replaced by a blind rage which 
 deprives these enemies of the new epoch of all their 
 graces of style. 
 
 Here and there, however, a man of true wit lets 
 fall a perfumed and acid drop into the deluge of heavy 
 insolence. More than once in these pages we find the 
 mark of Rivarol's talons. While the celebration of the 
 Fete of the Federation was going on in the Champ de 
 Mars, it rained heavily ; and the following lines ap- 
 peared in the ' Actes des Apotres : 
 
 ' Toujours de l'eau ! quel temps maudit ! 
 Disait, au Champ de Mars, Damis le d^mocrate. 
 C'est fait expres, je l'avais bien pr^dit, 
 Que le Pere Eternel £tait aristocrate.' 
 
 These Apostles were defenders of the Altar, as 
 well as of the Throne, after the fashion of men who 
 combine impiety with gallantry. Their god was, in fact, 
 Voltaire, who could have done very well without their 
 worship. They were by way of being champions of 
 royalty, and they accustomed the nation to disrespect 
 
go Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 for the National Assembly which then represented 
 France. The sound of the President's bell inspired 
 them with such verses as this : 
 
 ' Encor ce bruit original 
 
 " Gredin, Gredin ! " dont toute 1' Assemble 
 
 A comme moi, la cervelle felee ; 
 
 Que dit-il done ? C'est l'appel nominal ! ' 
 
 ' Liberty, gaiety, royal democracy,' wrote they upon 
 their programme. They might have added ' Licence 
 and abuse.' Upon the organisation of the new tri- 
 bunals, Robespierre is nominated to a judgeship at 
 Marseilles, and they write : — 
 
 ' Juger vaut mieux qu'etre pendu, 
 Je le crois bien, mon bon apdtre, 
 Mais differe n'est pas perdu, 
 Et l'un n'empechera pas l'autre.' 
 
 Mirabeau, whom they call a ' magnificent scoundrel,' 
 is not spared. 
 
 ' De forfaits, de crapule, execrable assemblage, 
 L'enfer, qui le vomit pour l'horreur de notre age, 
 Aurait comble^ nos maux, si de sa lachete 
 L'exces n'etait egal a sa ferocite.' 
 
 This was the prevailing tone. And we are aston- 
 ished at Camille's occasional violence ! The servitors of 
 royalty gave the pitch-note. 
 
 In the royalist pamphlets, such attacks upon Cam- 
 ille as the following were to be found : — 
 
 ' The journalists have bread now, since honest folks lack 
 it. The scribbler Desmoulins, who formerly slept on a bed 
 of straw, now sleeps on one hung with blue damask. For- 
 merly he fared like Strabo's valet, dining on fruit, onions and 
 a bottle of water ; but now he eats at Meot's, at nine francs 
 a head.'— ' Petit Dictionnaire des Grands Hommes et des 
 
The ' Actes des A p6 ires' 91 
 
 Grandes Choses qui ont rapport a la Revolution,' composed 
 by a Society of Aristocrats, 179 1. : 
 
 Was there not even some talk of imposing silence 
 on him ? Did not Suleau 2 throw in his teeth the ' shame- 
 lessness which well becomes liberty ? ' More and more 
 low and stupid became the abuse which was heaped 
 upon him. Everyone knows the dull, oft-quoted jest 
 which dubbed Camille, I'dnon des moulins. It must 
 have made him smile pityingly ; but, perhaps, it also 
 enraged the editor of the ' Revolutions de France et 
 de Brabant.' 
 
 ' Aux moulins de Montmartre est un petit etnon, 
 
 Sans force encor, mais aussi traitre, 
 
 Aussi tetu qu'un ane pourrait £tre ; 
 
 En un mot, la terreur des enfants du canton. 
 
 Sa manie est de toujours braire ; 
 
 Mais quand le bruit qu'il fait etourdit les voisins, 
 
 Cent coups de baton dans les reins 
 
 Le font cesser ; c'est de cette maniere 
 
 Qu'.on impose silence a. I'dnon des moulins! 
 
 Not by blows, but by elegant epigrams did Des- 
 moulins reply to these vulgar attacks. The mere lawyer 
 gave lessons in politeness and in fence with words to 
 these frantic 'gentlemen.' He laughed at their clumsy 
 wit, and though he condescended too often to imitate 
 their misplaced buffoonery (he called Fontanes, Font ane, 
 and Mallet du Pan, Mallet Peridu), he rallies them for 
 
 1 At a later date I find in the ' Journal Francais ' the following 
 ' will' of Count Journiac Saint-Mddard : ' I bequeathe to Camille, a bottled 
 viper ; to Billaud, the first crop of my hay ; to Anarchasis Clootz, a con- 
 juror's box and balls ; to Danton, a wren of the smallest species, stuffed 
 with the greatest care.' 
 
 s ' Who does not know the famous Suleau, who, like Robespierre, 
 comes from the College of Louis-le-Grand, but has profited far better by 
 the lessons of Royou, his teacher, so that he has become the Don 
 Quixote of the aristocracy, and, as he informs us, he is called the knight 
 of difficulty ? '— ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' No. 68. 
 
92 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the most part with a charming tone of superiority. 
 For instance, when he speaks of Rivarol, and Peltier. 1 
 The latter, indeed, was completely crushed by Camille's 
 deadly pleasantries. Here is a passage about Peltier. 
 ' A district having invested the printing-office of M. 
 Didot has seized a great number of copies of the " Actes 
 des Apdtres." M. Didot sent back to M. Manuel the 
 manuscript signed Peltier. The apostle immediately 
 repaired to M. Manuel's presence, invoked the indefi- 
 nite liberty of the press, and perorated in these words : 
 " What will the Queen say if she has not the number 
 to-morrow morning ? " Happy Peltier ! It was not, 
 then, enough for thee that a charming Greek, who had 
 held in her hands the urn of Achilles, came express to 
 the banks of the Seine, but the wife of the King must 
 look for the reading of thy productions as for the 
 morning dew ! I am no longer astonished at thy mar- 
 vellous riddles, at thine inexhaustible gaiety and those 
 divine fictions of the child-bed of Target and the loves 
 of M. Populus!' 2 
 
 1 Camille sometimes rhymed his epigrams ; for example, he writes 
 about D'Espremesnil — (the language is very curious) : — 
 
 ' II aimait fort le hiznfitiblic : 
 En lui c'e'tait vraiment un tic, 
 Et seul n'entendait mieux le chic' 
 
 On the branding of Madame de la Motte : — 
 
 ' Maintenant peut-on douter 
 
 Que des Valois la Motte soit la fille ? 
 
 Un arr£t lui fait porter 
 
 Les armes de sa famille ! ' 
 
 Calonne also, whom in ' La France Libre ' he called ' 6 mon cher 
 Calonne,' comes in for his share of raillery :— 
 
 ' Calonne a beau faire la chattemite, 
 Puis-je croire a la poule au pot, 
 Lorsque pour payer son impot 
 II me fait vendre la marmite ? ' 
 
 2 No. 22, p. 417. 
 
Camille's Cruel Jests. 93 
 
 Bergasse is the most hardly dealt with of all, and 
 No. 23 of the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant ' 
 is a masterpiece of keen raillery. It relates to Bergasse 
 and to Guillaume Kornmann ; and Camille affects the 
 lyrical style in order to mock more effectually at Ber- 
 gasse, in love with Kornmann. He represents Bergasse 
 as gone mad for love : — 
 
 ' Now,' he says, ' Bergasse, a second Narcissus, loves no 
 one but himself. Not, however, like the young shepherd, 
 who, bending over a fountain, contemplated his image in the 
 mirror of the waters, does he indulge his passion ; but in his 
 arm-chair, under the shade of an acacia, he reads, without 
 ceasing, his projects of laws ; there he admires the beauty of 
 his genius, there he worships himself, and falls into prolonged 
 ecstasies.' 
 
 In this there is finished and exquisite humour ; 
 infinitely preferable, even from the point of view of the 
 quarrel in which he was engaged and of its final 
 result, to the pages in which Desmoulins boasts of being 
 procureur-gindral de la lanterne} 
 
 One of the most reprehensible errors of Camille 
 was the idea of making an individual the justice-dealer, 
 and substituting the mob for the law. The famous 
 cobbler of Messina, the anonymous executioner of the 
 ' perverse,' was an ideal in Camille's eyes. According 
 to this notion, he would have accepted a Republic super- 
 intended by free-judges. Could such a state of things 
 be even imagined, much less desired ? And yet 
 Camille writes : — 
 
 1 ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' No. 24.— Desmoulins had 
 said of Bergasse that he received from the king's party eighteen livres 
 a-day. ' What an impudent scoundrel ! ' exclaimed Bergasse. Camille 
 retorted by printing in his journal, ' We must let Bergasse off' the lamp- 
 post, because he is a fool.' The unhappy Camille was playing with 
 death, as a child plays with a sword. 
 
94 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 'This much-calumniated people is moved by principles 
 of equity ; it has wholesome notions in this respect, and 
 nothing angers it so much as injustice. Let us remember 
 the cobbler of Messina ! He was born with an intense love 
 of order and justice, and, rendered indignant by monopolies, 
 tricks, public robberies, and the impunity of the guilty, he 
 set to work, without any more ado, to purge society of the 
 criminals. He asked for none of the ordinary formalities 
 which accompany the punishment of evil deeds. His vigilant 
 eye spied out every crime ; and, after a trial with closed 
 doors, he added the duties of the executioner to those of the 
 prosecutor and the judge. He purchased a short arquebuse, 
 which he carried hidden under his cloak (perhaps there 
 were no lamp-posts at Messina in his time) ; and when the 
 malefactors walked abroad in unfrequented ways, or, in pursuit 
 of their criminal business, prolonged their nocturnal expe- 
 ditions, this friend of order tracked them and shot them 
 down fairly, with five or six bullets in their bodies. After such 
 an exploit he quietly went his way, without ever touching a 
 coi'pse, and regained his home with the satisfaction of a man 
 who had just killed a wolf or a mad dog.' l 
 
 Camille's masterpiece, the most remarkable number 
 of the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' is 
 No. 34, in which he thus describes the Fete of the 
 Federation, on the morning of the taking of the Bastille 
 (July 14, 1790) ; a fete which he had hailed as 'the 
 Pasch ' a month before, in No. 30, page 285 : — 
 ' This is the day of release from the servitude of 
 Egypt, and of the passage of the Red Sea. This is 
 the first day of .the first year of Liberty. This is the 
 day which the Prophet Ezekiel predicted, the day of 
 destiny, the great feast of lanterns! One turns gladly 
 from the fresh stroke of cruelty which terminates 
 his biblical enumeration to the evidence of the pro- 
 
 1 ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' No. 27, p. 21. 
 
Camille' s Masterpiece. 95 
 
 foundly artistic nature of Camille, which we find in 
 the emotion with which he writes about the music 
 which is to usher in the festival : — 
 
 ' I dearly love that- idea for the opening of the f£te. I 
 remember, the first time that I followed the crowd, which 
 took me that day to the Tuileries, with what pleasure I 
 listened to the serenade, which was still given in honour of 
 the king. I was far off from the lights, and the sky was dark 
 with clouds. Alone in the crowd, and a hundred leagues away 
 from it in the isolation of my spirit, I closed my eyes that I 
 might hear the better, and awaited the first scrape of the bow.' 
 
 After the fete was over, Camille retraced all its 
 incidents" with such enthusiasm that, even now, when 
 eighty-four years have passed away, we cannot read his 
 words without a thrill of retrospective excitement. What 
 happy dreams were those of the early days of the 
 French Revolution ! What hours of hope, during 
 which men believed that Liberty had really been won ! 
 What bursts of patriotic gladness, the joyous intoxica- 
 tion of a people who did not foresee the trials and 
 misfortunes to come ! 
 
 National guards from the Departments swarmed 
 into Paris. Platforms for the patriots were in course 
 of construction in the Champ de Mars, when it was 
 rumoured abroad that fifteen thousand workmen were 
 not sufficient to finish the work in time. A simul- 
 taneous impulse moved the entire population at -the 
 report ; and Camille shows us how in the Champ de 
 Mars there was 'an ant-hill of a hundred and fifty 
 thousand workmen, trundling wheelbarrows and digging 
 the ground in a workshop forty thousand yards in width, 
 and whose length went clean beyond sight.' 
 
 •Every district, every corporation, every family was 
 
96 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 represented there ; drums were beating, bands were 
 playing, women and children came on three abreast, 
 with spades upon their shoulders, singing the new song, 
 ' Ca ira.' Old men and old women aided in erecting 
 the altar of the country, of the civic oath, of the oath 
 of liberty and equality! We learn how Saint- Just, 
 while trundling his wheelbarrow, met Madame du 
 Barry with a spade in her hand. Whether this be 
 a true incident or a fable, it shews us the enthu- 
 siasm of Paris, that enthusiasm which animates the 
 ardent, eloquent, febrile pages of Desmoulins. ' A 
 patriot tears the barrow from the hands of a languid 
 abbe and pitches the earth on the dust-heap.' The 
 pensioners of the Hotel des Invalides come to the 
 scene of general activity ; peasants flock thither, 
 headed by Mayors begirt with their scarves ; a man 
 with broken ribs is hoisted on the shoulders of an 
 old invalid of the time of Louis XIV., who works away, 
 notwithstanding his wooden leg. Collegians, school- 
 boys, the whole Montagne-Ste-Genevieve, students 
 of the Academy of Painting, of the Veterinary School, 
 the flower of Auvergne (the water-carriers), market 
 porters, 'who are as good as the strong men of 
 Israel,' printers, — those of M. Prudhomme decorated 
 with the cover of ' Les Revolutions de Paris,' — 
 charcoal-burners, Chartreux, headed by M. Gerle, 
 who had quitted their living sepulchres, and were 
 asking in bewilderment, ' What is this psalm, " Ca 
 ira " ? ' thither they came, full of enthusiasm ; and 
 Camille, in depicting them, seems to have dipped 
 his pen in sunshine. The women laughed and danced 
 around the bewildered monks. Swiss guards, French 
 guards, women from the markets, and even court-ladies 
 were there. The king came, and they applauded him. 
 
The Champ de Mars. 97 
 
 La Fayette came and they applauded him more loudly 
 than the king. All was confidence and fraternity 
 during those blissful hours. Not a theft took place. 
 A young man left his two watches on the ground 
 while he was working. A generous citizen wheeled a 
 barrow laden with a barrel of wine, and gave the 
 grateful drink gratis to the patriotic labourers. A 
 marquise removed her glove to shake hands with a 
 coalporter. The whole scene was like an immense 
 ball. Camille described it as a stage ballet, the scene 
 being ' The Reunion of the Orders.' Eleven hundred 
 Bretons had come from Brittany, on foot, carrying 
 their arms. Numerous inscriptions drew atten- 
 tion to the object of this f£te, and the dream of the 
 people. 
 
 ' Les mortels sont £gaux. Ce n'est pas la naissance, 
 C'est la seule vertu qui fait la difference.' 
 
 ' La loi dans tout Etat doit 6tre universelle.' 
 
 Delicate hands wielded the pickaxe, young girls 
 coveted callosities which should testify to their 
 patriotism. ' Ah,' cries Camille, ' at least let not the 
 hard leather strap of the truck hurt the delicate breasts 
 of that young girl. Let it not hinder those two 
 faithful witnesses from deposing to the secret desire of 
 her heart ! ' I know not why, but it seems to me that 
 in this exclamation, uttered in the style of the time, 
 Camille refers to Lucile, when he caught sight of 
 Mademoiselle Duplessis, whom he loved, among 
 the zealous workers. 
 
 In No. 36, Camille continues to describe this fete 
 in the same felicitous and brilliant style. 
 
 A great number of citizens had passed the night on 
 the Champ de Mars. Others had been up arid stirring 
 
 H 
 
98 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 since five o'clock. Camille describes the icy wind and 
 the intermittent rain which blew and beat upon half a 
 million of men. Nevertheless, in the teeth of the wind 
 and under the lash of the rain, the Auvergnats danced 
 their bourrde, and the Provencaux their farandoles. 
 Immense rings of dancers were formed. ' Look at 
 those Frenchmen dancing while the rain is falling in 
 torrents,' said the foreigners. After the taking of the 
 civic oath, came beating of drums, firing of guns, 
 waving of swords, shouts of triumph, hats tossed in 
 the air, the unfurling of eighty-three white banners, 
 and of the oriflammes and flags of sixty districts. All 
 this is marvellously described by Desmoulins. One 
 unanimous cry issued from the lips of six hundred 
 thousand persons : — ' France is free ! We swear it ! ' 
 Fathers held up the hands of their children. An old 
 man from the faubourg Saint Honore, who had been bed- 
 ridden for two years, had himself carried to the altar of 
 the country. A banquet for twenty-two thousand 
 people was served in the gardens of the Chateau de 
 la Muette ; and as there were only five or six thousand 
 guests (all in uniform), the remainder of the dishes 
 were distributed to the poor. The trees were hung 
 with lamps. One orchestra served for ten country 
 dances at once. The site of the Bastille was turned 
 into an artificial wood, in which large trees were lighted 
 up, and adorned with pikes and Phrygian caps, and 
 with the famous inscription, Dancing here ! 
 
 At Notre Dame, on the thirteenth, six hundred 
 musicians had played the ' Prise de la Bastille,' ' Words 
 by King David, music by M. Desaugters.' The corn- 
 market was brilliantly illuminated. The Champs 
 Elysees were lighted up with candles. At ten o'clock 
 on the morning of Wednesday, July 14, the widows, 
 
The Oath of the Champ de Mars. 99 
 
 and orphans of the conquerors of the Bastille 
 listened to a eulogium upon their dead. The festi- 
 val of French liberty was also celebrated in London. 
 At the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, 
 the Whig Club, consisting of six hundred and fifty-two 
 persons, presided over by Lord Stanhope, drank 
 to ' The liberty of the world.' A servant got up 
 on the table with a fragment of stone from the 
 Bastille in his hand and proposed the following toast : 
 ' To the extinction of all jealousy between France and 
 England, and may they seek only to defend peace and 
 liberty ! ' 
 
 Dr. Price demanded the foundation of a League of 
 Peace ; the first idea of the Utopia of to-day which 
 will, perhaps, be the reality of to-morrow. 
 
 In these descriptions, written by Desmoulins, we 
 find the already famous name of Danton ; who had 
 protested, at the special fete of the Cordeliers, at Vaux 
 Hall, against official toasts. He would not drink any 
 .health but that of the Country. 
 
 These few quotations give a very imperfect 
 notion of the inexhaustible store of ideas, facts, and 
 happy turns of style, called ' Les Revolutions de 
 France et de Brabant,' in which the men who 
 made the Revolution defile before us ; from Robes- 
 pierre, 'my dear schoolfellow, and the ornament of 
 the Northern Deputation,' as Camille calls him, to 
 Davoust, 'a young officer, and good patriot.' On 
 one page is the announcement of the ' Organt ' of Saint- 
 Just, on another a letter from Marat, or De Merlin 
 (of Douai), or from Linguet, calling Desmoulins his 
 ' dear brother in arms.' ' Your country prides itself 
 upon you,' writes Saint-Just, — who was also from 
 Picardy, — and then he adds : — ' Glory, peace, and 
 
 Ha 
 
too Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 patriotic passion.' ' I am democratically your friend,' 
 says Stanislas Freron. Lafayette, Rewbell, Manuel 
 (the future promreur of the Commune of Paris), write to 
 him. Mirabeau overwhelms him with compliments, 
 until the day comes when in speaking of him he shall 
 call him ' that poor Camille! ' Well, poor Camille, has 
 your head come right again ! We have sulked with 
 you, but we forgive you.' (Letter from Mirabeau,. 
 May 2, 1790.) 'Adieu, good boy, you deserve to 
 be loved, notwithstanding your fiery flights.' I may 
 observe, by the way, that, almost at the same time 
 (August 16, 1790), Marat addresses Camille very 
 much in the same tone. Cassandre- Marat writes in 
 ' L'Ami du Peuple,' — ' Notwithstanding all your 
 cleverness, my dear Camille, you are a complete novice 
 in politics. Perhaps that amiable gaiety which is the 
 fundamental trait of your character, and which shows 
 itself in your treatment of the gravest subjects, opposes 
 itself to serious reflection ; but you are vacillating in 
 your judgments ; you seem to have neither plan nor 
 aim.' ' L'Ami du Peuple ' and the son of ' the friend 
 of men ' are equally severe. 
 
 ' Good boy ! Poor Camille ! ' Perhaps it was a 
 word of this kind which alienated Camille from Mira- 
 beau, whom, after having praised him as the marvellous 
 man who, for a moment, bore the Revolution and its 
 fortunes on his own shoulders, he afterwards over- 
 whelmed with satire. Praise and censure were alike 
 unmeasured. Camille was not destined long to re- 
 main the friend of Mirabeau, of whom De la Marck 
 said justly : ' He carried with him to the tomb the 
 consolation of having had many friends.' 
 
 'I have often varied,' said Camille, afterwards, 
 ' because there are so few men who are consistent ; but, 
 
Mirabeau' s Death. 101 
 
 as I have said, it is not the weathercock which turns, it 
 is the wind ! ' 
 
 Nevertheless, the weathercock is very severe upon 
 the wind. No. 72 of the ' Revolutions ' is violent and 
 bitter against a man of whom Lafayette said : ' Mira- 
 beau never got himself paid except in the sense of -his 
 opinions,' and Rivarol, more ill-naturedly : ' The Court 
 reckoned little upon a man with whom one always had 
 to reckon ; ' a man of whom Camille had written : — 
 
 ' Death, which knits up again every attachment, brought 
 me back to his house before it entered there, as indeed any 
 peril of his would have brought me back ; and it was not my 
 fault if his servants did not tell him how much I grieved for 
 his illness. But I could do no more than write my name at 
 his door. I had preferred my love for truth to the friendship 
 of Mirabeau. 
 
 'Mirabeau! the patriot, the tribune of the people, the 
 father of the Constitution, the friend of the negroes, he who 
 exercises the only dictatorship to which a free people submits, 
 — that of speech ; and before whom it seems to me that the 
 fasces of eloquence and the twenty-four ax.es of Demosthenes 
 are carried.' 
 
 Afterwards he regrets that he did not witness Mira- 
 beau's death. Herein is the secret of his heart. His 
 admiration of the man exists always, in spite of every- 
 thing, although, for example, he writes that Mirabeau,. 
 in common with Buffon, indulged in the puerility of 
 having himself called ' Monsieur le Comte.' He even 
 adds, ' Mirabeau made ample use of the free leave 
 which the dying have, to sound their own praises : 
 " Hold my head up," said he to his servant, at a critical 
 moment ; " you will never hold another like it." ' Is not 
 this somewhat like the dying utterance of Dan ton ; 
 that Danton who was a kind of bourgeois Mirabeau, 
 equally powerful, but neither dissolute, nor venal ? 
 
102 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Camille, who ought not to have added anything to 
 Marat's sufficiently insulting saying, ' Mirabeau was a 
 patriot one day, and he is dead,' collects all the current 
 rumours about the death. Some protested that Mira- 
 beau had been poisoned : Cabanis asserts that ' he 
 died, suffocated with truffles, and scorched with cote- 
 r6tie.' 
 
 ' He said to me one day,' continues Desmoulins, ' " I hold 
 the proof that the Lameths employed M. La Croix to write 
 ' The Great Treason of Mirabeau,' and I have in my desk the 
 warrant of arrest which I procured against M. La Croix ; but 
 I made no use of it, because I believed that not only liberty, but 
 licence of the press was, at that time, necessary.'' " It would 
 have been better," said Danton, " not to have applied for a 
 warrant for the arrest of M. La Croix." ' 
 
 In giving an account of the funeral procession, 
 Desmoulins cannot refrain from acknowledging that all 
 Paris was deeply affected by the death of Mirabeau. 
 
 ' In the Rue Louis-le-Grand, a man at a window 
 cried out, as we passed, " There go the thirty-three." 
 We might have replied, " Say, rather, the thirty-three 
 thousand!"' In fact, the procession of the Jacobins 
 numbered no less than that. 
 
 ' In his life-time,' he adds, ' I called Mirabeau, the Great 
 Mirabeau, Demosthenes Mirabeau, Mirabeau the Thunderer, 
 Hercules Mirabeau, Saint Mirabeau. Such hyperbole was 
 allowable then. I knew that he loved fame ; more than once 
 he has sent his secretary to me, from a distance of two leagues, 
 to entreat me to efface a page in my paper, for he dreaded 
 its censure. I had only praise to set against the gold by 
 which the despots sought to attract him ! ' 
 
 He afterwards attacks the dead Mirabeau, a fallen 
 victim, with terrible bitterness. 
 
Camilles Censure of Mirabeau. 103 
 
 ' Mirabeau was eloquent,' ' he says, ' but he reigned in 
 the tribune rather by his talent as an actor than by the 
 power of his mind.' 
 
 Camille.who was afterwards to be reproached with 
 his own friendship for Dillon, actually upbraids- Mira- 
 beau with his ubiquity : — ' Breakfasting with the Jaco- 
 bins, dining with 89, and supping with La Marck and the 
 Monarchists. Where he slept it is not for me to tell.' 
 This question of Mirabeau's dinners turns up very 
 often under Camille's pen. Had he forgotten the 
 pleasure with which he dined at Mirabeau's house, and 
 tasted his maraschino ? ' Mirabeau,' he says, in his No. 
 67, ' sups at Velloni's, the Italian restaurant, Place des 
 Victoires, with the former Bishop of Autun.' The 
 very things with which Desmoulins reproaches others 
 form the subject of reproach against himself afterwards. 
 
 ' I am taunted,' he said, at a later date, ' with having dined 
 recently with some of the great props of the royalist aristocracy. 
 The harm is not in dining with these gentlemen, but in hold- 
 ing their opinions. I thought that I was quite equal to a 
 doctor of the Sorbonne to whom it was permitted to read 
 forbidden books, and that I might even dine with authors 
 on the Index.' 
 
 Did Desmoulins at least repent of having de- 
 nounced Mirabeau because he supped with M. de la 
 Marck ? Not so : in No. 73 of the ' Revolutions de 
 France et de Brabant,' he continues his fierce attack. 
 
 Camille relates how, after the decree on peace and 
 war had been passed, he met Mirabeau as he came out 
 of the Assembly, in the cloister of the Feuillants, and 
 said to him, ' You have sold yourself for a hundred 
 thousand crowns.' Mirabeau smiled, took him by the 
 arm, led him to the Rue de l'Echelle, and said amiably, 
 
104 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 ' Come and dine.' This was his only attempt at 
 justifying himself. Then he goes on to compute the 
 fortune of Mirabeau, whose father died insolvent :— 
 
 ' Some months before the opening of the States General,! 
 says Oamille, 'he pawned a neckcloth-buckle at the Mont de 
 Piete, and two years later he bequeathed by his will : — 
 
 To a child who was dear to him . 
 
 24,000 livres 
 
 To his secretary .... 
 
 24,000 „ 
 
 To his physician .... 
 
 24,000 „ 
 
 To each of the Demoiselles du 
 
 
 Saillant .... 
 
 2,800 „ per 
 
 To each of his other nieces . 
 
 600 „ 
 
 To M. de la Marck, his library, for 
 
 
 which he paid . 
 
 200,000 livres 
 
 He also remits the whole of Madame de Jay's debts to 
 him.' 
 
 Camille again dwells on ' the pomp of Lucullus,' the 
 banquets which the great orator gave to his section, at a 
 cost of fifteen thousand livres ; and, roused to irritation, 
 even to violence, oblivious of the Count's dinners and 
 his maraschino, he exclaims : — 
 
 . ' Go then, O corrupt nation, O stupid people, and prostrate 
 yourself before the tomb of this honest man, the Mercury of 
 his age, and the god of orators, liars and thieves ! ' 
 
 Camille afterwards tried to explain his variation of 
 opinion respecting Mirabeau, in a letter to Brissot : — 
 
 ' Mirabeau,' he says, ' made me live with him under the 
 same roof at Versailles. He flattered me by his esteem, he 
 touched me by his friendship, he mastered me by his genius 
 and his great qualities. I loved him to idolatry ; his friends 
 knew how much he dreaded my censure, which was "read by 
 Marseilles, and which will be read by posterity. It is well 
 known that, more than once, he sent his secretary from a dis- 
 
Camille s Satires. 105 
 
 tance of two leagues to entreat me to withdraw a page of what 
 I had written ; to make this sacrifice to friendship, to his 
 great past services, and to the hope of those in the future. 
 Say then, whether I sold myself to Mirabeau ! I did not 
 know that traitors, immensely inferior to him in talent, and 
 but recently listened to from the tribune, were about to lead 
 us to the ruin of our liberty far more treacherously than he ; 
 and that they would force me to implore pardon from his 
 great shade, and daily to mourn the loss to France of her 
 resources in his genius, and the loss to liberty of his love of 
 glory.' 
 
 Notwithstanding all that he had previously said, 
 and all that he had written, even in the presence of 
 the corpse of a man who desired — they are Mirabeau's 
 own words — ' Order, but not the old Order,' we feel 
 that Camille had really loved Mirabeau. Yes ! though 
 he boasted, in the ' Revolutions de France et de Bra- 
 bant,' that he had gazed with dry eyes on the superb 
 brow of the great dead, wrapped in his shroud ! Alas ! 
 the saying of the mighty orator was terribly true ! 
 That saying was destined to be repeated by posterity 
 concerning this man whose talents were so great, but 
 whose weakness was greater, whose sensibility made him 
 deplore his fits of murderous invective quickly, indeed, 
 but- too late ; and for all future time Desmoulins was to 
 be, as he had been for Mirabeau — That poor Camille! 
 
 III. 
 
 The picture of Camille Desmoulins as a journalist 
 would not be complete without a sketch of the pole- 
 mics in which he engaged. The Anon des Moulins, to 
 use the attic language of the Apdtres, was one of- the 
 
io6 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 best-abused, most calumniated, and oftenest threatened 
 of the journalists of the Revolution. Now, he is ac- 
 cused of having disguised himself in female attire and 
 joined the concourse of the Maenads, as Carlyle calls 
 them, who flocked down to Versailles in the train of 
 Maillart ; again, he is overwhelmed with charges of 
 the basest venality and corruption. Money, as history 
 now knows, never soiled the hands of either Desmou- 
 lins or Danton. ' I congratulate myself hourly,' Camille 
 wrote to his father (7th July 1 793), ' on having come out 
 of the Convocation and the Revolution as I went into 
 them, without having increased my patrimony. No 
 one can ever accuse me of having used the Revolu- 
 tion as a speculation.' 
 
 The attacks upon Camille only embittered the tone 
 of his writings. He continued to ridicule his adver- 
 saries, and the wounds inflicted by his caustic humour 
 were very severe. How furious he must have made 
 the men whom he mocked ! — for instance, the Vicomte 
 de Mirabeau, whom he reproaches for a ' Vaugirard 
 kind of gaiety ; ' and whose portrait he draws as follows, 
 from a caricature : — 
 
 ' He is easily recognised by his double epaulettes, with 
 their fringe of sausages, and his sleeves formed of wine- 
 pitchers. His breeches are two little barrels, and his legs are 
 clothed in Champagne bottles turned upside down ; the 
 tumbling, foaming wine as it spills form the feet, which are 
 more like those of a faun than of a man. In short, lest any- 
 one should fail to recognise him, there is an inscription on 
 the barrel on the right, V. D. M. — Vin deMalvoisie, or Vicomte 
 de Mirabeau' 
 
 M irabeau-Tonneau was not the only victim of 
 Camille's ridicule. He mocked at the eight hundred 
 farms of the Abbe Maury, whom he sometimes calls 
 
Camille s Satires. 107 
 
 tabbd Mcmdit ; he satirised Malouet, Cazales, and then, 
 pausing in the attack, he says, with terrible irony : — 
 
 ' But I am very wrong to complain of you, gentlemen, of 
 Monsieur Cazales, of Mirabeau the younger, of Maury and of 
 Malouet. What would become of my journal if you should 
 agree among yourselves to turn honest, or if you should set 
 out with D'Espremesnil to rebuild your turreted castles, with 
 right of venery and dovecot, on the banks of the Scioto ? I 
 shudder to think of it. We should be ruined, my publisher 
 and I ! ' 
 
 It is easy to imagine what an outcry was raised 
 about these utterances of Camille. One day, as we 
 are told by Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, a certain 
 person named Bonne-Carrere threatened, in the tribune 
 at the Jacobins, to inflict five hundred blows with a 
 cane upon Desmoulins. On another occasion the Span- 
 ish Ambassador, Count Fernand Nunez, complained 
 to M. de Montmorin of the audacity of Camille. M. 
 de Montmorin could do nothing in the matter. At 
 length Malouet, tired of such reiterated abuse, declared 
 that he would speak from the tribune, of the ' Revolu- 
 tions de France et de Brabant.' 
 
 But Camille held his ground. ' I will not have it 
 said,' he declared, ' that a Picard has yielded to an Au- 
 vergnat ; — I shall go on with my journal.' 
 
 During the sitting of the 31st July, 1790, Malouet 
 denounced Camille. ' It is not,' he said, ' a private 
 injury which I wish to avenge. After a whole 
 year of silence and contempt, I come here as the 
 avenger of a public crime.' ' Go on, Malouet ! ' writes 
 Camille, ' that's the way to pay your court to the king's 
 wife!' 
 
 ' It was expected,' he adds, ' that Malouet was 
 
io8 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 going to justify his tirade by reading aloud the pas- 
 sages he had denounced. But, not so ; after he had 
 abused Desmoulins, he read Marat' 
 
 On the, motion of Malouet, the Assembly decreed 
 that the procureur du roi to the Chatelet should be 
 instructed to prosecute these incendiary productions as 
 acts of lese-nation. Two days afterwards, 2nd August, 
 an address by Camille, in which he complained that 
 his denouncer had not read the implicated number of 
 the Journal, was read to the Assembly. ' The question 
 is about my complaint,' said Malouet ; ' is Camille 
 Desmoulins innocent ? Then let him justify himself. 
 Is he guilty ? Then I will be his accuser and 
 that of all who shall defend him. Let him justify 
 himself, if he dares ! ' 'I was choking at all these 
 replies,' writes Camille, who was present at the 
 sitting. ' The violence of my feelings was such that if 
 I had been dumb, I believe I should have found a 
 tongue like the son of Croesus at the taking of Sardis.' 
 
 He rose, and replied to the defiance of Malouet. 
 
 ' Yes, I do dare,' he cried. 
 
 Then arose an indescribable uproar. 
 
 ' Arrest him, arrest him ! ' shouted the representa- 
 tives ; and for a moment Camille thought he should be 
 brought to the bar. ' I was quite flattered at the 
 notion of appearing at the bar,' he says, ' and glad I 
 had on my very best shirt for the occasion.' , But he was 
 really glad to escape. He says, ' The bailiffs, who were 
 on the look out for a half-starved author, let me pass.' 
 During this time Robespierre had ascended the tribune 
 and was defending Camille, whose arrest he succeeded 
 in preventing. 
 
 ' My dear Robespierre did not forsake me at that 
 moment' adds Desmoulins, when he relates the circum- 
 
Prosecutions for L ibel, 109 
 
 stances. In the ' Portefeuille de Camille' (published 
 by the elder M. Matton), there is a letter from an indi- 
 vidual, unnamed, who was very near being arrested in 
 place of Desmoulins. But for Robespierre's harangue, 
 there is no doubt that Camille would have had to pay 
 dearly for his explanation. The skill of his friend 
 Maximilian saved him. 
 
 Our space would not suffice to record all the discus- 
 sions and prosecutions into which the licence of his pen 
 plunged Camille. ' There is,' said he, ' an excess of 
 good sense and of wisdom which one ought to avoid.' 
 The truth is that he avoided it too successfully. We 
 should digress too widely were we to relate, in detail, 
 the strife between the author of the ' Revolutions de 
 France et de Brabant ' and the enemies whom he made 
 for himself. Such is, however, the fate of every jour- 
 nalist. It is impossible, as was said by a journalist of 
 that time, to beat a dog and keep it from howling. 
 Mounier had protested, as strongly as Malouet, against 
 what he called the infamous libels of Camille. On 
 another occasion Desmoulins, in speaking of a ' Crillon 
 committee,' called M. de Crillon a ' doubtful citizen.' 
 M. de Crillon immediately demanded one hundred 
 thousand livres damages, or a retraction. ' I retract,' 
 replied Camille, ' but I ask M. de Crillon where is that 
 freedom of the press which M. de Crillon himself 
 caused to be decreed ? ' Desmoulins had said that M. 
 Talon, civil lieutenant at the Chitelet, was ' bought ; ' 
 that he had been offered a post in the Municipality. 
 (See Revolutions, No. 29.) Talon applied to have him 
 arrested, and Desmoulins ' learned afterwards from 
 Mirabeau that La Fayette had prevented this being 
 done. Antoine Talon then indicted him for calumny. 
 He demanded ten livres as damages, to be given to 
 
1 10 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the poor. Camille replies ; ' Wait, Antoine Talon, I 
 shall be with you in a moment ! ' Already we find in 
 the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant ' the fam- 
 ous style, the celebrated menace, the cry : ' Wait, 
 Hebert ! ' of the ' Vieux Cordelier! Desmoulins was 
 condemned by default at the Chatelet. 
 
 After Talon, it is the turn of Bergasse to be ac- 
 cused by Camille of being ' bought.' ' He gets eigh- 
 teen livres a day,' said Desmoulins. Bergasse was 
 furiously angry : ' What an impudent scoundrel J ' said 
 he. Camille, ironical and implacable, shrugged his 
 shoulders, and remarked : ' Bergasse must be let off 
 the lamp-post because he is mad ! ' No doubt it was 
 Mirabeau who excited Camille's animosity against this 
 personage, from jealousy of the favour in which so com- 
 monplace an individual was held at court. Bergasse 
 was much more in his place at Mesmer's baquet than 
 at the head of a political movement. Nor was this the 
 only instance in which Mirabeau supplied Camille with 
 a target for his arrows. 
 
 From the list of the squabbles of Camille with his 
 contemporaries we must not omit the writ which was 
 served upon the author of the ' Revolutions de France 
 et de Brabant,' jointly with Gorsas (see Appendix), and 
 the suit brought against him by M. and Madame de 
 Carondelet, whom he accused of bigamy, on informa- 
 tion which he received from two persons, named re- 
 spectively, Macdonagh and Ruttledge. This was a 
 strange and romantic affair. Macdonagh, an Irishman, 
 claimed Rose Plunkett, who had become Marquise 
 de Carondelet, as his wife. Camille published this 
 person's claim in his journal, and the matter caused a 
 great sensation. The proceedings in this strange 
 business, which resembles fiction rather than fact, are 
 
Squabbles. 1 1 1 
 
 very voluminous. They are all to be found in the 
 'Archives Nationales.' 
 
 Camille had another action brought against him ; 
 this time, it was for having called Sanson ' the execu- 
 tioner ' (bourreau). 
 
 ' I call a cat a cat, and Sanson the executioner? was 
 his laughing comment upon the charge. 
 
 ' Notwithstanding the prodigious gaiety of the singing 
 aristocrats,' he wrote, ' I doubt whether they make the weep- 
 ing aristocrats laugh. I am assured that their journal is a 
 facetious collection of the verses which " the Round Table " 
 of aristocrats used to sing at their suppers at the house of the 
 Paris executioner.' 
 
 Hence the proceedings at the suit of Sanson. 
 The following is the text of the citation of the 
 'executioner of criminal judgments ' : — 
 
 'Year 1790, January 15, in the forenoon, at the requisition 
 of Ch. H. Sanson, executor of criminal judgments, residing 
 in Paris in the Rue Neuve Saint Jean, in the parish of Saint 
 Laurent, Louis-Philippe Thev^nin-Durozay summons Camille 
 Desmoulins, residing at No. 42 in the Rue de Tournon, to 
 appear on Saturday (to-morrow) at ten A.M. with the sieur 
 Garnery, bookseller, at the tribunal of police sitting at the 
 H6tel de Ville, Paris, and to pay 3,000 livres damages, to be 
 expended in bread for the poor of the parish of Saint Laurent, 
 and to make reparation of honour. 
 
 ' 3,000 copies of the sentence shall be posted.' 
 
 Camille replied : 
 
 ' You are an ingrate, Monsieur Sanson. I had believed 
 that your interior consciousness of the baseness of your em- 
 ployment prevented you from raising your eyes or daring 
 to write to a citizen, even to thank him ; for you owe me 
 thanks for having called you in my prospectus the repre- 
 sentative of the executive power, I shall not stoop to measure 
 
112 
 
 Camille Desmoulins -and his Wife. 
 
 myself against Sanson, but I am going to teach the execu- 
 tioner (M. le bourreau) what he ought to think of his office.' 
 
 The gloomy logic of that terrible time was des- 
 tined to bring the head of the satirist, one dreadful day, 
 under the blade of the representative of the executive 
 power. It would even appear that Desmoulins had a 
 sort of foreknowledge that so it must be, when he wrote, 
 early in those years of strife : ' I could die with honour 
 by the hand of Sanson, but to die by the hand of a 
 hired assassin would be to perish of the bite of a taran- 
 tula.' What assassin threatened Camille ? Doubtless, 
 more than one. The gentlemen partisans of the court 
 had, at one time, sworn to rid the monarchy of its most 
 dreaded adversaries, the Barnaves of the Parliament, 
 the Desmoulins of the Press. Charles Lameth's duel 
 with M. de Castries had exasperated Paris. A private 
 association was formed for the purpose of protecting 
 the patriots against assassins, and its skilful swordsmen 
 were called spadassinicides. ' I have taken an oath 
 to defend all the deputies against their enemies,' wrote 
 a certain M. Boyer to Prudhomme ; and he did actually 
 beat off a bully, named Sainte-Luce, who had placed 
 himself at the head of fifty spadassinicides. He made 
 his address known ; it was in the Passage du Bois 
 de Boulogne, Faubourg St. Denis. In truth, the 
 patriots had need of being defended. A national 
 guard said aloud, after the incident of Malouet's charge 
 against Desmoulins from the tribune : 'If I meet 
 Desmoulins I will cut his head open with my sword ! ' 
 ' That man,' wrote Camille, ' evidently does not like a 
 joke.' 
 
 This swaggerer was worthy to be coupled with 
 Bonne - Carrere, who had just before threatened 
 
Camille s Quarrels. 113 
 
 Desmoulins with ' five hundred blows of a cane or a 
 stick.' The cudgel was, it appears, an argument jn 
 the eighteenth century. Voltaire himself knew some- 
 thing about that. 
 
 One day at the Palais-Royal, Camille tells us, he 
 and Danton narrowly escaped being killed by some six- 
 feet high supporters of Washington pot au feu (La 
 Fayette). Carra had just before been struck by 
 Parisot, the aide-de-camp. 
 
 After these royalists came the actors to pick a quarrel 
 with Camille. He had ridiculed rather broadly one 
 Naudet, a captain of grenadiers in the National Guard, 
 and a fat actor called Dessessarts, a sapper in the same 
 battalion with Naudet. 
 
 The formidable bulk of Dessessarts was proverbial, 
 and Camille made fun of it. Denis Dechanet, who 
 called himself Dessessarts, was born at Langres, in 
 1738, and died at Bareges, in October 1793. He it 
 was who had procured the suspension of the ' Annee 
 Litteraire ' (Freron's) for a year, and tried to get the 
 critic imprisoned in For-1'Eveque, because Freron had 
 said': 'If the role of the Marquis de Ranneville 
 has not succeeded, it is not the fault of the author, 
 but of the/at ventriloquist who has so cruelly misrepre- 
 sented it. This M. Dessessarts is really worth seeing 
 when he makes up his mind to act badly, or to give 
 vent to his hatred against men of letters ; then he 
 leaves nothing to be desired ! ' Dessessarts was a 
 regular begging-actor ; and had been constantly in the 
 habit of receiving ' gratifications' from the Due de Vil- 
 lequer under the old order of things. The actors, of 
 course, regretted the cessation of these ' gratifications.' 
 Hence their attachment to the old regime. Michelet 
 has remarked, in his ' History of the French Revolu- 
 
 1 
 
H4 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 tion ' (vol. 3, and elsewhere), that ' the hairdressers 
 were essentially counter-revolutionary ; ' — and he ex- 
 plains why : — because those who live by luxury care 
 little for liberty. I find in the ' Rapport ' of Camus, 
 Bancal, Quinette, Lamarque (nivose, year iv. page 56), 
 — ' There were people of all sorts : priests, monks, 
 emigrants, women of the town, and hairdressers.' 
 
 Without implying any slight to their profession by 
 the remark, we may also say of the actors,— and in 
 particular of Dessessarts, — that they missed the per- 
 quisites of the old regime. 
 
 No. 42 of the ' Revolutions of France and of Bra- 
 bant ' contained the following announcement : — 
 
 Important notice to pregnant women. — A letter has reached 
 us, signed Parochel, accoucheur, which informs us that a woman 
 has given birth to an elephant, in consequence of the shock 
 which she experienced from the apparition of the sieur Desses- 
 sarts at the moment when he emerges from under the table 
 in the fourth act of ' Tartuffe.' The actors of the Comedie 
 Francaise are requested to warn the public of the days on 
 which the sieur Dessessarts is to act, by posters printed in the 
 largest type. 
 
 Parochel immediately protested, declaring the letter 
 to be false. . Dessessarts grew angry, and Desmoulins 
 refused his challenge. 1 ' I should have to pass my 
 
 1 M. Desmoulins, author of ' The Revolutions of France and 
 Brabant,' was dining a few days ago at the restaurant kept by the Suissei,', 
 of the Luxembourg. Messieurs Naudet and Dessessarts, of the Come'dieJl 
 Frangaise, were also dining in the same room. They began to abuse 
 Desmoulins violently, and Dessessarts came towards him, with clenched 
 fists, and offered him a challenge. ' It will be,' said M. Desmoulins, ' by?; 
 continuing to harass the black party and the ministerialists that I shall' 
 avenge myself. I might pass my life at the Bois de Boulogne, if I had ; 
 to give satisfaction to every one who takes offence at my plain speaking.j 
 Let them accuse me of cowardice if they like.'— Anecdotes curieuses et 
 plaisantes relatives d la Revolution de France ; Paris, 1791. 
 
Camille' s Quarrels. 115 
 
 whole life in the Bois de Boulogne' said he, ' if I were 
 obliged to give satisfaction to everybody who takes 
 offence at my plain speaking. Have patience ! . . . . 
 I fear the time is not far off when we shall have 
 opportunities of dying more usefully and gloriously.' 
 Loustallot says : ' M. Desmoulins merits all honour 
 and praise in this affair, and the two cut-throats a 
 proportionate measure of contempt. ... If the preju- 
 dice in favour of duelling survives the feudal system, 
 true liberty will never exist. The best citizen, the 
 most honest man will always be the slave of the first 
 vagabond, the first hired ruffian who may be let loose 
 upon him.' Talma afterwards interfered to induce 
 Desmoulins to forgive Dessessarts. 
 
 On another occasion, when Camille was coming 
 out of Vandefleury's reading-rooms in the Palais Royal 
 with, as he said, ' my vent mecum (a stout cane, and 
 pistols, our veto '), a shopman followed him, holding in 
 his hand No. 74 of ' Les Revolutions,' came up with 
 him, struck him in the face with the newspaper, and 
 announced that he would like to cut his throat. ' I 
 might have blown your brains out,' said Camille coolly, 
 showing the man the pistols which he always carried, 
 and then contented himself with administering a 
 caning to his assailant. A crowd gathered round 
 and threatened him, while only one national guard 
 from Isere, and a journalist out of the reading-rooms 
 came to his aid. The Marquis de Saint-Huruge, for 
 whom he had pleaded so warmly, sat there quietly 
 reading a newspaper and took no notice. ' For two 
 years past,' says Camille, < I have been walking through 
 a forest.' And, in No. 34 : — 
 
 ' I begin to doubt whether I ought to sharpen so many 
 daggers to be used against myself, in order to enlighten un- 
 
 1 2 
 
1 1 6 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 grateful ft!d<!r<!s, who proposed, at the Palais Royal in my own 
 hearing, that I should be hanged. I begin to doubt whether 
 a journalist, who has not been placed on guard by the people, 
 but is a self-constituted sentinel, is obliged by his con- 
 science to lead. the wandering and underground life of M.. 
 Marat. It is all very well to jump into the gulf, like Curtius, 
 when one believes that one's death will save one's country. 
 Jesus of Nazareth went to His Cross because He was certain of 
 effecting the redemption of the human race : nevertheless He 
 sweated blood at the approach of M. Sanson. 
 
 These doubts avail nothing. Camille will perse- 
 vere in his career as a volunteer journalist, as he called 
 himself. He will brave abuses and allow calumny 
 to pass unnoticed. Mud does not stain, it only soils 
 the hands which throw it. When Camille was 
 attacked and ridiculed, he always employed a correct 
 and literary style. But the journalists who abused and 
 insulted him, condescended to language of the lowest 
 description, and deserved the contempt with which he 
 wrote of them : — 
 
 As for me, when I see many of my confreres doing the 
 business of journalists in the style in which Pradon did the 
 business of Corneille, labouring hard to turn me into 
 ridicule, and thus undermine the little credit which my 
 sincerity and patriotism have won for me, I congratulate 
 myself on the fact that the funds of the civil list supply the 
 payment for all these bad jokes, to my injury. The money 
 might be employed in a way much more dangerous to 
 liberty. 
 
 In spite of all this well-founded contempt, however, 
 Camille Desmoulins must have reflected bitterly enough 
 upon the risks which he was incurring, and the danger 
 in the atmosphere around him. In a letter to his 
 father we find the following words, which we retain as 
 the cry of the soul of the man who is hereafter to 
 
His Foreboding of Danget . 117 
 
 brave death for the writing of the 'Vieux Cordelier:' 
 ' How many men are there who sell their lives to 
 kings for a few sous ! Shall I do nothing for the love 
 of my country, of truth, and of justice ? I apply to 
 myself Achilles' words : 
 
 ' " Patroclus is dead who was worth far more 
 'than I." ' l 
 
 1 For certain curious documents connected with the quarrel between 
 Desmoulins and Dessessarts, and also for further samples of the per- 
 sonalities in which Camille indulged at this time, see Appendix. 
 
1 1 8 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 i. Camille's romance — Lucile Desmoulins — Portrait of Mademoiselle 
 Duplessis — Portrait of Camille — A young girl's journal — Reveries — 
 Lucile and Madame Roland — The red copy-book — Romances of 
 the eighteenth century — Sylvain Mare"chal — Camille's marriage — 
 Disputes with the curd — The contract. 
 
 2. Happy days — Calumnies of the royalist newspapers— The Abbe' 
 Terray — Peltier and Re"tif de la Bretonne — Bourg-la-Reine. 
 
 3. The club of the Cordeliers — Camille's correspondence with his father 
 — Loustallot — The flight of Louis XVI. — Varennes — The petition of 
 the Champ de Mars — Desmoulins is proscribed — He reappears at the 
 tribune of the Jacobins — An advertisement by Camille — Rupture 
 with Brissot — Danton — Birth of Horace Desmoulins. 
 
 4. The'court and the nation — Roland's ministry — The hesitation of the 
 king — The 20th of June — Unpublished fragment by Camille — A 
 letter to Lucile — Speech at the Jacobins upon the situation of the 
 capital — The 10th of August. 
 
 5. Camille on August 10 — Lucile's journal — Camille as general secretary 
 of the Ministry of Justice — The advice of Camille's father. 
 
 When Desmoulins wrote to his father that his mind 
 was troubled, a real cause for his hesitation and dis- 
 tress existed. He was suffering from an unhappy 
 attachment which made him wretched and dissatisfied 
 with life. His path had been crossed by a woman to 
 whom he had by degrees surrendered his whole heart. 
 He loved her with deep affection and tenderness. 
 Lucile Duplessis (she frequently wrote her name 
 Ltuille) became (with Liberty) the supreme passion of 
 Camille's existence, and — so powerful is sentiment in 
 the j udgments of history — it is to her seductive image 
 that he owes a great part of the sympathy which is 
 
Camille's Romance. 119 
 
 still felt for him. Is it that posterity loves those who 
 in their lifetime have made themselves beloved ? 
 
 In the memory of men the romance of the life 
 of Camille Desmoulins fills a larger place than its 
 history. 
 
 That romance was a long and troubled one. 
 Many obstacles beset the course of that true love. 
 Camille had seen Lucile grow from girlhood — she was 
 eighteen — into womanhood, and had come to love her 
 with an irresistible passion. How had this love 
 sprung up ? He had long regarded her as a child, and 
 one day he perceived that she was a woman, and that 
 he loved her. The Leipsic ' Biography,' whose in- 
 accuracies I have frequently detected, pretends that 
 Camille was in strict alliance with the Duke of Orleans, 
 that he went frequently to Mousseaux (Monceaux), 
 and that he wished to marry Pamela, the pupil of 
 Madame de Genlis. 1 I do not believe a word of this. 
 It is true that Camille was attracted for a short time 
 by his cousin Mademoiselle Flora Godart, who after- 
 
 1 Camille did, in fact, go to the Duke's fUes at Monceaux, and no 
 doubt gave loose to all his enthusiasm in the beautiful park, where 
 since then Lamartine's genius makes Raphael wander. Robespierre 
 was invited to these fites, but he replied, ' No, I stay at home. Tisane 
 of Champagne is the poison of liberty.' With respect to Camille's 
 affection for the Duke of Orleans, we find in No. 49 of the ' Revolutions 
 de France et Brabant ' an apostrophe to this effect : ' Dear Philippe ! 
 lofty and republican soul ! ' (p. 441). See also the defence of the conduct 
 of the Duke of Orleans on October 5 and 6, of which Camille said, 
 ' These are the happiest days of France! ' On July 14,' he adds, ' the 
 people took only the Bastille ; but on October 5 they took the king and 
 his wife.' The son of the Duke of Orleans, the Duke de Chartres 
 (afterwards a soldier at Valmy, and king of the French under the name of 
 Louis Philippe I.), having visited the patients of the Hotel Dieu, during 
 an epidemic, Camille Desmoulins spoke of the self-devotion of that 
 excellent Jacobin, M. de Chartres. Certain biographers have not hesi- 
 tated to state that on Camille's marriage the Duke of Orleans presented 
 the young couple with the furniture of their apartment. It is hardly 
 necessary to remark that the assertion is entirely unfounded. 
 
1 20 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 wards married M. Tarrieux de Tailland. He did 
 court her, perhaps ; and there is a story that his cousin 
 watched for his passing in the tumbril on his way to 
 the scaffold, that she might interchange a last look with 
 him. But it is certain, and beyond all question, that 
 Lucile was the only love of Camille. 
 
 They met at the Luxembourg, in the shady garden- 
 alleys of the palace of Marie de Medicis, which, in the 
 irony of coincidences, was afterwards to be Camille's 
 prison. He was a student, greedy of fame; she, a 
 child quite ignorant of life, when they saw each other 
 first, and made acquaintance under the eye of Lucile's 
 mother, Madame Duplessis. No doubt a certain 
 sympathy sprang up in the mind of Madame Duplessis 
 for the ardent young man who went about confiding 
 his dreams to all comers, and whom the Revolution 
 had made famous, since July 1 789. Madame Duplessis 
 knew Desmoulins ; he had met the mother and her 
 young daughter long before the taking of the Bastille ; 
 but the light of renown which now shone upon him 
 was not likely to injure him with the elder lady. The 
 adventure at the Palais Royal, the distribution of 
 green leaves, typical of hope, had a romantic air about 
 it eminently calculated to charm the fancy of a woman. 
 As for Lucile, she was probably captivated rather by 
 the sudden fame which he had acquired than by the 
 indisputably great charm of Camille Desmoulins 
 himself. The girl was of a fanciful and romantic 
 temperament, full of the vague suffering which, although 
 unreal, is deep seated and tormenting. The whole 
 of society at a later epoch was destined to feel the 
 pain which a few exceptional natures were then under- 
 going, distrust of themselves, the melancholy and dis- 
 quietude of youth, and instinctive hatred of a world 
 
Lticiles Portrait. 121 
 
 which attracts by its seductions, but repels by its base- 
 ness. Rousseau, the sickly and unwholesome Rousseau, 
 falsest and most deceitful of minds, had already spread 
 abroad that interior sadness and causeless discontent 
 which a few years later was to be the disease of Rene. 1 
 Rousseau, who probably did not feel the griefs which 
 he made others experience, had already acted strongly 
 upon society. Lucile Duplessis was one of his 
 victims. 
 
 In person, Lucile was of small stature, and very 
 graceful ; her beautiful fair hair fell around a smiling, 
 childish face, one which Greuze might have painted. 
 She did not exhibit, in appearance or manner, any of 
 the vague disquiet which reveals itself in the pages of 
 her journal. The sketch made at a later date by 
 the person who afterwards became Marshal Brune 
 does not give us any true idea of the irresistible grace 
 of this woman, who was indeed an heroic child. I have 
 only preserved this remembrance because' it is, in a 
 double sense, as relating to the artist and the subject, 
 a historical document. But Lucile was far otherwise 
 charming and attractive. The venerable Moreau de 
 Jonnes (of the Institute), who was present at the 
 most terrible scenes of the Revolution, on June 30 
 and on August 10, whose testimony I have already 
 invoked, and who honoured me with his friendship, 
 once described to me a sitting of the Cordeliers at 
 which Camille and Lucile Desmoulins were present. 
 He witnessed their entry ; they came in smiling, 
 radiant with youth and happiness. He said of Lucile : 
 ' She was an adorable little blonde! 
 
 Had she loved the young man ever since he had 
 begun to adore her ? Not so ; but he had come at the 
 
 1 The hero of Chateaubriand's most famous romance. ' 
 
122 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 hour I have described, the hour in which the young 
 girl felt the strong need of loving, which was, I imagine, 
 intensified by the political and social atmosphere of 
 the time. 
 
 If we are to believe the evidence of his enemies, 
 Camille was not handsome. A writer who is ready to 
 defame him either morally or physically says : — 
 
 He had a bilious complexion, like Robespierre's, a hard 
 and sinister eye, more like that of the osprey than that of the 
 eagle. I saw him often, and he never seemed to me better 
 looking than at first. I know there were some who tried to 
 make him out a handsome fellow, but either they were 
 flatterers, or they had never seen him. 1 
 
 A few lines found in a book belonging to M. de 
 Saint-Beuve's library, and attributed to the father of 
 the illustrious critic, state that ' Desmoulins had a 
 disagreeable exterior! ' I am not a handsome fellow, 
 it must be allowed,' wrote Camille himself to Arthur 
 Dillon. 2 
 
 To the evidence of these two men we have to oppose 
 that of a woman. ' He was ugly,' says the author 
 of a very curious pamphlet on the Sainte-Amaranthe 
 family, speaking of Camille ; ' but with that intellectual 
 ugliness which pleases! In fact the mouth is sarcastic, 
 the lips are stretched like a bow bent to let the arrow 
 fly, the smile is sneering, not pensive like the smile of 
 
 1 ' Souvenirs de la Terreur,' vol. i. p. Si. ' He was atrociously ugly,' 
 says the calumnious Leipsic ' Biography ; ' ' his complexion was very dark, 
 and there was something sinister in his look.' 
 
 2 A remarkable writer, M. Ed. Scherer, made this mistake in his 
 article on ' La Bibliotheque de Sainte-Beuve,' and I followed his example 
 in my compilation of ' GEuvres de Camille Desmoulins ' (Charpentier's 
 edition, vol. i. p. 48). These lines are taken from the ' Histoire de la 
 Conjuration de Maximilien Robespierre,' by Montjoie (Paris, 1801 : 
 vol. ii. p. 21). Georges Duval and Montjoie are worthy of each other. 
 Arcades ambo. 
 
Camille s Portrait. 123 
 
 Erasmus, but satirical like that of Sterne, a Voltairian 
 smile. In the. face there is something demonlike, 
 an infernal wit, which is the beaute" du diable of a man. 
 The forehead is beautiful, broad and well moulded, 
 the black burning eyes sparkle. Such is Camille in 
 most of the well known portraits, especially in that 
 which was done by Boze at the Conciergerie, and in 
 the miniature in my possession, which has been en- 
 graved for the frontispiece of the present volume. 1 
 
 Camille was witty and very capable of pleasing ; 
 the sort of man to be loved by Lucile. She was of 
 a romantic nature. She loved solitude. In the busy 
 world of Paris, this young girl, sixteen or eighteen 
 years old, eagerly sought, not the crowd, but the bitter- 
 sweet of her own thoughts and dreams. She had no 
 other confidant than the little copybook of rough 
 
 1 I have seen a still more curious portrait? of Camille Desmoulins as a 
 young lawyer, on the eve of the event of the Palais Royal, and of the 14th 
 of July ; the Camille of the early days of his meetings with Lucile. 
 The countenance is bright, intelligent, but not satirical, that of the 
 young man of twenty, not the pamphleteer of thirty. This miniature, 
 which is unique, and was shown to me by M. Louis Ulbach, belonged to 
 the famous collection of M. Walferdin, the fortunate possessor of many 
 unpublished writings by Diderot, and the editor of some others. M. Wal- 
 ferdin gave this miniature to M. Emanuel Arago, when he learned that 
 Camille was a cousin of the deputy's maternal grandmother. 
 
 In this picture Camille Desmoulins is still a youth ; around his almost 
 childish face hangs his powdered hair. In after days Camille wore his 
 long black hair falling almost to his shoulders. Two manuscript inscrip- 
 tions, still quite legible, are to be found behind the original miniature, 
 now the property of M. Arago. The first is simply the name : 
 
 ' Camille Desmoulins.' 
 
 The second is rather an odd one. It runs thus : — 
 
 ' Sold.by the mother of a mistress of Camille Desmoulins, Madame 
 Montbarne, residing in the Rue Sainte-Anne, 75.' 
 
 The words — the mother of a mistress — are ample proof, when we are 
 acquainted with the married life of Camille and Lucile, that the date of 
 the portrait is prior to their marriage. I have not reproduced this 
 portrait in the present work, thinking that an engraving by Rajon, from a 
 miniature in my own possession, would be more satisfactory. 
 
1 24 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 paper — now yellow with time — in which she wrote 
 down her thoughts, in the night, in her own little room, 
 when she was alone, out of sight of her father and 
 mother, and of her sister A dele, whom Robespierre 
 wanted to marry. I fancy I can see her, afraid of 
 being surprised, writing in her bed, the book on her 
 knees, with a flickering light by her side ; listening in 
 the dread of interruption, and expressing the profound 
 pleasure which one derives from self-study, from self- 
 abandonment, while she confides her sighs to the paper 
 before her, as she might breathe them on the wind ; 
 scribbling with a rapid pen those pages to which, more 
 than eighty years afterwards, history will turn, and 
 therein probe the secrets of her girlish heart. 
 
 I have said she loved solitude. Like Rousseau, 
 she has a horror of men. At seventeen ! She cares 
 for the Luxembourg only when it is deserted during the 
 week, or in the evening when the night is falling : 
 
 ' Ladies will come there every Sunday,' she writes, ' and I 
 shall not be able to come and muse in the groves. They will 
 be no longer solitary ; I will fly from that noisy mirth often 
 so opposed to the situation in which the heart finds itself. 
 I feel that I am born to live far from men. Alas ! the 
 more I examine them, the more I seek to understand them, 
 the more I see that one ought to flee from them. There is 
 no cordiality, no sincerity among them. I live like an 
 animal, I no longer exist. ... I have nothing but material 
 life. Last evening I feared that I should faint. I am in my 
 bed. A light and an extinguisher are on my bed. If I hear 
 a noise I will put out the light' 
 
 There is pain in this, smarting pain. Certain 
 natures are as much hurt and frightened by apprehen- 
 sion of what life may mean as others are by the ex- 
 perience of life itself. Lucile hates men. Why ? No 
 doubt because she does not love one particular man. 
 
Lucile s Seif-communings. 125 
 
 ' I do not love,' she says, with a sort of terror. ' When 
 shall I love ? They say that everybody must love. Shall I 
 love when I am twenty-four ? .... I am marble. Ah, what 
 a strange thing is life ! ' 
 
 r am marble / The poor child frets because she 
 does not love at a time when she knows nothing more 
 of life than that she is adored by her father, by her 
 loving sister, by the mother who spoils her, as we are 
 now ready to say. She finds her consolation in nature, 
 in trees, in ' the majestic lime tree which Lucile visits 
 in the evening when, seeking repose, she waits for the 
 coming night under its cool shade.' Imaginary griefs, 
 sufferings which I venture to call literary, and which 
 have been endured by all those who have read a great 
 deal before they have seen much ; but real and deep 
 suffering to which Lucile gives words, sometimes in 
 misanthropical maledictions, sometimes in prayers. 
 
 The most ardent, the strangest, the least ordinary 
 of prayers is the following meditation, which Lucile 
 wrote, as she says herself, on June 6, 1 789, at seven 
 o'clock in the evening, in her bed, by the light of a 
 candle. She calls this page her Prayer to God. The 
 faith of a woman who has read Pascal is mingled 
 in it with the doubts of a mind which has studied 
 Fontenelle : — 
 
 Prayer to God. 
 
 Being of beings, indefinable Being ! Thou whom all the 
 earth adore. Thou my sole consolation. Mighty God, 
 receive the offering of a heart which loves none but Thee ; 
 enlighten my soul, teach me to know Thee. Alas, what 
 mortal has that happiness ? Teach me to know error so that I 
 may not fall into the frightful abyss which surrounds it. O 
 my God ! Why dost Thou abandon Thy creatures ? Look 
 upon them with a favouring eye. Alas ! what can I do, I, a 
 
126 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 weak mortal ? Dost Thou hear my voice in the immensity 
 which Thou fillest ? Can it penetrate even to Thee ? Pardon 
 this doubt ; it is the only one which has come out of my 
 heart. Celestial Being, enlighten my spirit ! 
 
 I hate the world. Is this wrong ? Why dost Thou 
 suffer it to be so wicked ? Canst Thou leave imperfect Thy 
 fairest work ? O my God ! when shall I fly to Thy bosom ? 
 When shall I lift up my humble eyelids, and behold Thee ? 
 When may I, while contemplating Thy glory, fall at Thy 
 feet, water them with my tears, and ask of Thee that pardon 
 which Thou shalt have granted already ? I am filled with 
 Thee ; I think of Thee without ceasing. Art Thou a spirit ? 
 Art Thou a flame ? Ah, let that flame appear and consume 
 me ! Come to me, and nevermore leave me. Thou seest 
 my mind goes astray. . . . How do I know what I am ? My 
 God, I know not what spring makes me act. Is it a portion 
 of Thee ? Oh, no, then I should be perfect. Every day I 
 ask what Thou art. Everybody tells me, and nobody knows. 
 What is the sun ? It is fire. Alas ! I know that, but what 
 is fire ? Nobody knows anything about it. I adore Thee 
 without understanding Thee ; I pray to Thee without know- 
 ing Thee ; Thou art in my heart ; I feel and cannot divine 
 Thee. Thou art the secret of nature, and that secret is one 
 which cannot be discovered. 
 
 To Thee I can speak. Thou art above that which man 
 calls offence. Open the eyes of the universe. My God ! we 
 are all blind. Make us to see the pure light which surrounds 
 Thee. Work another miracle. Make Thyself known. But . 
 no ; in vain I implore Thee. I am not worthy of Thy benefits. 
 Must we then crawl for ever ? 
 
 Where shall we find that happiness which we are all 
 seeking ? Man grows dazzled, and when he forgets himself 
 he thinks he is happy. No, there is no happiness upon the 
 earth ; it is only a chimera. When the world shall no longer 
 exist. . . . But can it be annihilated ? They say that there 
 will be nothing any more ! Nothing ! what a picture ! What ! 
 Nothing ! I lose myself in the thought. The sun to lose its 
 brightness, to shine no more ! What will become of it ? How 
 will it set about becoming nothing ? 
 
Lucile's Religion, 127 
 
 My God, Thy power is very great ; it is to Thee that I 
 must leave everything. I must then just love Thee, serve 
 Thee, and keep silence. 1 
 
 I have alluded to Fontenelle, but in truth the ring 
 of the eighteenth century is not in these accents. 
 They are the cries of a soul which thirsts for faith 
 and love, the divine ecstasy of the solitary's prayers, or 
 rather, they are the aspirations which are inspired by 
 the catechetical teaching of the Church ; a step further, 
 and such a soul, fearful of the world, and shrinking 
 into itself like a sensitive plant, on the very threshold 
 of life, would seek the shelter of the cloister. The 
 ' nothing ' uttered by this young girl of the eighteenth 
 century might easily melt away in one of those ecstatic • 
 passions, like Saint Theresa's, in which the love of the 
 divine springs forth like a torrent under the terror of 
 the love of the human. 
 
 In Lucile's case, however, this phase of mingled 
 doubt and religiosity had only a brief duration. She was 
 a woman, and a woman of her time. She was about 
 to love. These ecstatic reflections were speedily to 
 give place to humbler thoughts, with a nearer object. 
 All the pages of Lucile's journal do not boast the 
 eloquence of this Prayer to God, which reminds us of a 
 fragment of ' Young's Night Thoughts,' a book which 
 Camille took with him into his prison. Lucile was 
 destined to partake of the spirit of her time, of an age 
 which was fascinated by naturalism, 'by a sort of floral 
 sentimentality, of botanical sensibility, if I may use 
 such a phrase. Everybody was thinking just then of 
 Rousseau's periwinkle ; everybody wanted to have a 
 periwinkle of his or her own. A little later and 
 Robespierre will smell a bunch of flowers on his way to 
 
 1 Copied from the original by M. Matton, the elder (of Vervins). 
 
128 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the Committee of General Safety. More than one of 
 the condemned will mount the scaffold holding a rose 
 between their lips. This time of moral tempest did 
 not hinder the blossoming of the lilac. 
 
 The Prayer to God takes us out of the eighteenth 
 century ; but Lucile's Violet, whose sufferings she 
 relates in the following page, brings us back to it, and 
 to its mock eclogues : 
 
 The Violet. 
 
 It was the first day of spring, and I walked out, descending 
 into a valley filled with willows, which, alas ! were not yet 
 green. I turned away my eyes from the sight of those 
 melancholy trees denuded of their leaves, and thought only 
 of seeking amid the fresh-springing grass for the first flower of 
 the fairest season. I walked a long time without finding 
 anything, but at length, as far off as my sight could reach, I 
 perceived a violet, one single violet ! Oh, how beautiful it 
 was ! I flew to the spot, and was about to gather it, when, 
 (what was my surprise !) the humble flower stirred, and 
 seemed to endeavour to extricate itself from beneath my 
 fingers ! Fearing to deceive myself, I stretched out my hand. 
 Then a voice, as sweet as its perfume, made itself heard, 
 ' What dost thou, Lucile,' it said to me ; ' why wouldst thou 
 tear me from the earth ? Alas ! suffer me to live yet awhile ; 
 no one here treads me underfoot ; thou wilt soon find thousands 
 more beautiful than I ; in a bouquet I should be lost, mixed 
 up with others, and I should add nothing to its size ; let me 
 end my days here.' Touched by such affecting language, 
 ' Fear nothing, gentile flower,' I replied, ' I would never be 
 so cruel as to destroy thee ; let me only inhale thy breath.' 
 Then she lifted her odorous head, and her leaves unfolded 
 themselves. Moved to tears, I allowed one to fall into her 
 calix. She said to me : ' Thy tears recruit my strength; I 
 shall live longer than my fellows.' Then said I, ' I will come 
 every day and moisten thy leaves with sweet pure water.' 
 ' Come,' she replied, ' but come always alone.' I promised 
 
Lucile and Manon. 1 29 
 
 her this, and every day I went to tend her, and to inhale her 
 delicious perfume. Alas ! I shall never see my friend again ! 
 My charming violet — one evening — in vain I sustained her 
 bending stem, in vain slightly sprinkled her with water drops 
 to revive her ; her last hour had come. I shall visit that 
 valley no more, but I shall ever think of my sweet violet. 1 
 
 The editor of ' Madame Roland's Letters,' M. 
 Dauban, who quotes certain portions of Lucile's journal 
 (among' others a pastoral story called ' La Voliere,' 
 — the Aviary), makes the following comment upon 
 them : — ' Lucile Desmoulins is not a woman of the 
 Revolution as the great Madame Roland is.' Neverthe- 
 less, in his collection of the ' Letters of Madame Roland,' 
 he has published a production which may fairly be com- 
 pared to these Reliquice of Lucile, a page written by 
 the pen of the then Mademoiselle Phlipon, and ex- 
 tracted from ' Mes Loisirs : ' ' I repaired to the foot of 
 the hill, th'e place was wild and solitary,' &c. (See 
 Appendix to the ' Lettres de Mademoiselle Phlipon,' 
 page 481.) There is little difference between the 
 letters of Mademoiselle Phlipon and those of Made- 
 moiselle Duplessis. Their extravagance is similar ; and 
 in both we find the same truth-seeking, through all the 
 suggestions of doubt, pursued with the same vivacity 
 and the same passion. There was one point in 
 common between those two women ; a sort of philo- 
 sophical enthusiasm, which found utterance by Lucile 
 in a prayer to God, and by Manon in a dithyramb in 
 honour of Diderot as ' the new Prometheus.' 
 
 Other writings of Lucile's — extracts from her jour- 
 nals and scribbling-books, both as a girl and a wife — 
 enable us to see more deeply into her mind. Baron 
 de Girardot, formerly Secretary-General to the Pre- 
 
 1 Hitherto unpublished. Communicated by M. de Lescure. 
 K 
 
1 30 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 fecture of Nantes, has preserved and shown to a few 
 persons a scrap-book which belonged to Lucile, and 
 which contains extracts from poems, songs, sonnets, 
 and thoughts. This is a precious relic, full of deep 
 personal interest. 
 
 It is only a small copybook, with a red cardboard 
 cover ; and it consists of twenty-two leaves of thick, 
 rough, yellow paper, only thirteen being written over in 
 Lucile's hand. It contains verses composed in honour 
 of Mademoiselle Duplessis, or copied by her from the 
 different collections in vogue at the time. Baron de 
 Girardot, to whom the little volume belonged, wrote 
 the following words on the first page : — 
 
 'Written by the hand of Lucile Duplessis, wife of 
 Camille Desmoulins. This book was given to me 
 in Paris, by Lucile's sister, in 1834. 
 
 ' B. de Girardot.' 
 
 The book is at present the property of M. de Lescure, 
 who kindly permitted me to see it. I have held it in 
 my hands, turned over and perused the pages which 
 enable me to divine, or to read, the thoughts of Lucile, 
 On the eve and on the morrow of her marriage. When 
 she began to note down the verses which struck or 
 pleased her, she was evidently already attracted by 
 Camille. This love was crossed, for her father had 
 seen the growing passion of Camille for his daughter 
 with dislike. M. Duplessis, the son of a humble village 
 blacksmith, was a man of a practical turn of mind, who 
 had risen, thanks to patient and constant industry and 
 effort, to the position of first clerk in the office of the 
 General Control of Finance ; and he loved money 
 with all the intensity which comes of knowing what 
 it costs to gain. He could pass for being wealthy, 
 though he was not so ; and being much disinclined 
 
M. Duplessts. 131 
 
 to adventure of any kind, he would rather have 
 given his daughter to a man who was not a news- 
 paper writer. Camille's "future, notwithstanding his 
 recognised talent and his growing renown, seemed 
 very uncertain in the prudent eyes of M. Duplessis. 
 He was a Liberal, as was afterwards said, but not a 
 Revolutionist ; and he was alarmed by the militant 
 attitude and provocative style of the ' Revolutions de 
 France et de Brabant.' Though Camille Desmoulins 
 had made a conquest of the mother, he merely 
 frightened the father. As for Lucile, she loved him, 
 and in that all is said. The marble, to which she 
 had recently likened herself, had come to life. She 
 who, as the faithful and passionately-loving wife of 
 Camille, shall afterwards write down this line in her 
 scrap-book, a line which corresponds with the single 
 thought of her life, 
 
 ' Write upon my tomb : — She loved,' 
 
 was fascinated by the impetuous young man, who 
 was always eloquent, even in private conversation, 
 and whose great black eyes darted flames. M. Du- 
 plessis, like a practical man of business, would not 
 listen to sentimental arguments at first, when Camille 
 spoke to him about his projects and timidly hinted 
 at his hopes, but met him with a decided re- 
 fusal. The lover went away ; Madame Duplessis 
 mourned ; Lucile despaired. We find utterances 
 of profound sadness, true grief of the heart, in the 
 collection of verses which Mademoiselle Duplessis 
 copied into her little red book ; tender, sorrowful, 
 loving verses, all of them, which sing the sorrows 
 of lovers severed by the parental will. Lucile learns 
 them by heart ; she copies and re-copies them, 
 
 K 2 
 
1 3 2 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Sylvain Marechal, who called himself ' Sylvain the 
 Shepherd,' had set the sufferings of persecuted. lovers 
 to rhyme which depicted the torments of Lucile ; and 
 she transcribed them, with mournful pleasure, in her 
 red book,' where they figure under the title which 
 Marechal gave them, as ' Romance historique.' 
 
 We have the story of Sylvandre, ' born in indi- 
 gence ' and tending the flocks of a ' proud labourer/ 
 who refuses him the hand of his daughter, Nice. The 
 unhappy Sylvandre allows himself to perish of hunger 
 in his ' obscure hut.' Discovered by the barking of 
 his 'faithful dog,' his corpse strikes the wretched Nice 
 with despair. She weeps ; she laments ; and then, 
 summoning all her courage, she dies beside her 
 Sylvandre. 
 
 All the childishly elegiac poetry of the time is to 
 be traced in these extracts, read and re-read by Lucile, 
 with innocent, sincere, deep sentiment and pain. 
 
 Again, we have the ' Contrat de mariage par 
 devant Nature,' in which the influence of Rousseau is 
 plainly discernible. The young Hylas loves the 
 young Helene, but their families are divided by a 
 mutual hate, and the young couple are separated as 
 hopelessly as Romeo and Juliet. Shall they, too, die ? 
 No ; they fly ' with a light foot ' to a wild region, 
 ' where hearts are free to pledge themselves,' and far 
 different from Nice and Sylvandre, previously sung by 
 'Sylvain the Shepherd' — 
 
 ' La eans pretres et sans notaire, 
 Sur un autel de gazon frais, 
 Au milieu d'un bois solitaire, 
 lis s'unissent a peu de frais.' 
 
 Sylvain Marechal, the friend of Lucile, who after- 
 wards published a curious scheme for a law to be 
 entitled, ' A Prohibition to teach women to read/ — of 
 
' Sylvain the Shepherd.' 133 
 
 which one hundred copies only were published at Lille 
 in 1841, — adds a conclusion and a counsel to this tale : 
 
 ' Leurs travaux et leur Industrie 
 Embellissent ces lieux deserts, 
 lis oublierent leur patrie 
 Et furent pour eux l'uhivers. 
 Vous qu'on persecute a la ville, 
 Jeunes cceurs, accourez pres d'eux. 
 Leur toit de cha,ume sert d'asile 
 A tous les amans malheureux.' 
 
 This production is signed ' Sylvain the Shepherd,' 
 and dated September 1787. Camille was then twenty- 
 seven years old, and Lucile seventeen. The young 
 people were already deeply in love ; and they per- 
 sisted in their clandestine attachment, although they 
 met only under favour of the motherly weakness of 
 Madame Duplessis, until 1790, when at length M. 
 Duplessis yielded to the advice of his wife and the 
 tears of his daughter. Three years of repressed, but 
 ever-growing affection, of concerted meetings under the 
 great trees of the Luxembourg, of stolen glances, of 
 hastily exchanged thoughts ; three years of love, chaste, 
 profound, and faithful ! The mother, touched and 
 won over; as we have seen, to the cause of the young 
 pair, watched over this reciprocal love of the two hearts 
 in whose truth she believed. Nevertheless, that Lucile 
 made a mystery of it is proved by the following note 
 which she wrote, but did not send i:o Camille, and which 
 shows us the girl's whole soul, in all its passionate 
 purity : — 
 
 ' Oh ! thou who art in the depths of my heart, thou 
 whom I dare not love, or rather, whom I dare not say 
 that I love ; thou believest me insensible ! Oh, cruel 
 one, dost thou judge me after thine own heart ? and 
 could that heart attach itself to a being without feeling ? 
 
134 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Ah well, yes — it is better that I suffer, it is better that 
 you should forget me. O God ! Judge by that of my 
 courage — which of us two has the most to suffer ! I 
 dare not confess to myself what I feel for thee ; I strive 
 only to hide it from my own knowledge. Thou suf- 
 ferest, sayest thou ? Oh, I suffer more ; thine image is 
 incessantly present to my mind ; it never quits me. I 
 look for thy faults, I find them, and I love them. Tell 
 me then why does all this strife exist ? Why do I love 
 to make a mystery of it even to my mother ? I wish 
 that she should know it, that she should divine it, but 
 I would not tell it to her myself.' (See the facsimile 
 of this letter.) 
 
 How charming is this confession ! How tender, and 
 passionate ! Can anything be more exquisite than that 
 sentence ? — ' I look for thy faults, I find them, and I 
 love them.' All the devotion of a woman who loves 
 and kneels to the beloved one is in those simple words 
 of touching, innate poetry. Did Camille ever read 
 this letter, in which Lucile poured out all her ardent 
 soul ? It is at least certain that while he reproached 
 Lucile with insensibility, he knew that he was loved ; 
 for the nervous, eager young man, so readily dis- 
 couraged, who passed so rapidly from extreme en- 
 thusiasm to utter dejection, never lost courage in this 
 respect, but remained unshaken in the strength of his 
 constancy, unchanged in the fervour of his passion, 
 during the years whidfh elapsed ere M. Duplessis could 
 be induced to listen to his suit. 
 
 What a joyful, what an intoxicating hour it was for 
 Camille, when in December, 1790, M. Duplessis con- 
 sented to receive him as his son-in-law. He announces 
 this unhoped-for happiness to his parents in a letter 
 full of youthful exultation. 
 
Camilles Letter to his Father. 135 
 
 'To-day, this nth December, I have at length reached 
 the summit of my wishes. I have been kept waiting for 
 happiness for a very long time, but it has come at last, and I 
 am as happy as one can be on this earth. That charming 
 Lucile, of whom I have told you so much, with whom I have 
 been in love for eight years, has at last been given to me by 
 her parents, and does not refuse me herself. Just now her 
 mother came, weeping for joy, to tell me this good news. 
 Inequality of fortune — for M. Duplessis has 20,000 francs a 
 year — has hitherto hindered my happiness ; the father being 
 tempted by the brilliant offers which he received. He has 
 rejected a suitor who pleaded his cause backed by 100,000 
 francs ; Lucile had no trouble about refusing him, as she 
 had already said "no" to 25,000 francs a year. You will 
 know her at once by this trait of character alone. Only 
 a moment after her mother had given her to me, she led me 
 to Lticile's chamber, and I threw myself at her feet. Surprised 
 to hear her laugh, I raised my eyes to hers ; they were in no 
 better condition than my own. She was all tears ; she was cry- 
 ing abundantly at that very moment, and yet she was also 
 laughing. Never have I seen so enchanting a spectacle, and I 
 could not have imagined that nature and sensibility could 
 combine those two contrasts to such an extent. Her father 
 told me he would only defer our marriage in order to give me 
 the hundred thousand francs which he had promised to his 
 daughter, and that I might go with him to the notary's as 
 soon as I pleased. I answered : " You are a capitalist, you 
 have been handling money all your life ; I would rather have 
 nothing to do with the contract. So much money would only 
 embarrass me. You love your daughter too well for me to 
 make any stipulation for her. You ask nothing from me ; 
 pray frame the contract as you please." He gives me, in 
 addition, one half of his plate, which amounts to ten thou- 
 sand francs.' 
 
 Camille, just as if he had foreseen that a day would 
 come when, in order to push him more promptly to the 
 scaffold, his enemies would accuse him of having 
 married a rich woman, enjoins his parents afterwards 
 
1 36 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 ' not to talk much about all this,' and entreats them ' to 
 send their consent by return of post' Then, with a 
 somewhat misplaced affectation he adds : — 
 
 ' I am now in a position to be able to help you, and that 
 forms a great part of my joy : my mistress, my wife, your 
 daughter, and all the family embrace you.' 
 
 Camille was quite wild with joy. He awaited the 
 paternal consent with feverish impatience. Three 
 times he wrote and demanded it; on the 1 8th and 
 20th December, he implored his father not to oppose 
 a formal veto to this marriage. 
 
 ' My dearest Father, — How has it happened that on 
 receiving my last letter, countersigned by the Keeper of the 
 Seals, you did not send Charles, the notary, to convey to me 
 your consent and that of my good mother, drawn up in 
 proper legal form ? Your slowness has retarded my marriage 
 for a week. Pray remember that I am counting the minutes, 
 and do not prolong your suspensory veto. This marriage 
 will make my fortune and yours, and secure my happiness ; 
 therefore hasten to send me your consent, and do not grieve 
 me any longer. 
 
 ' C. Desmoulins. 
 
 ' Your son so advantageously married, and yourself ap- 
 pointed commissaire du roi— it seems to me that you have 
 much reason to rejoice.' ' 
 
 But Camille in his excitement had forgotten to 
 furnish his father with the Christian and surnames of 
 his future wife and her parents. M. Desmoulins 
 writes in his turn to his son : — 
 
 ' Guise : December 15, 1790, 9 p.m. 
 ' I have this moment received your letter, but too late to 
 have the consent of your mother and myself put into correct 
 form before the post closes for to-day, even if yo.u had not 
 
 1 C ommunicated to me by M. de Lescure, and hitherto unpublished. 
 The facsimile of this autograph is given. 
 
OL CitiJe 
 
 Y 
 
Before the Marriage. 137 
 
 forgotten to give me the names of your betrothed and of her 
 father and mother. But while I am waiting for this indis- 
 pensable information, which you can send me by return of 
 post, believe fully that we all share your happiness, your 
 satisfaction, your delight. Assure the charming family to 
 which you seem to have clung for all your happiness for eight 
 years past, that if you win her who has been the object of 
 all your wishes, Mademoiselle Lucile, your welfare will always 
 constitute ours. I have only a moment to catch this post, 
 and to repeat that I am your best friend. 
 
 (Signed) ' Desmoulins. 
 
 'All the family embrace you and present their homage to 
 that of M. Duplessis. 
 
 ' Continue to use your good offices on my behalf with the 
 Keeper of the Seals.' 
 
 (This letter has been hitherto unpublished.) 
 
 This delay was not the only tribulation which befel 
 Camille respecting his marriage. The event was fixed 
 for the 29th of December, and a dispensation must be 
 had, to enable the young couple to be married in 
 Advent. Camille went to the Grand- Vicar of the 
 Archbishop of Paris, M. de Floriac, who reproached 
 him with the burning of a chateau and the loss of an 
 income of 20,000 livres, and refused the dispensation. 
 Vainly did some of the deputies interfere and entreat. 
 At length, after sundry ineffectual efforts, a dispensation 
 was obtained by the venerable Abbe Berardier, the 
 principal of the Lou is-le-G rand College. Berardier loved 
 his old pupil, he never forgot the once dreamy school- 
 boy, and every year Camille went to congratulate him 
 on his birthday. Berardier was anxious to marry 
 the young couple, and M. de Pancemont, the cure of 
 St. Sulpice, consented to ' assist ' only on the occasion. 
 The preliminary interview between M. de Pancemont 
 and Camille, when he arrived at St. Sulpice accom- 
 
138 Cafnille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 panied by a notary, is worth relating. It is no less 
 than a moral duel between the Voltairian and the 
 priest. The cure preserves an attitude which is polite 
 but not supplicatory, and the free-thinker holds out his 
 neck for the yoke, whose weight the priest— a priest 
 never abdicates — takes no pains to lighten. The first 
 question put by M. de Pancemont is the following : 
 
 ' Are you a Catholic ? ' — 
 
 ' Why do you ask me ? ' 
 
 ' Because if you be not, I cannot confer upon you a 
 Sacrament of the Catholic religion.' 
 
 ' Well then, yes, I am a Catholic' 
 
 ' I cannot believe a man who has said in one of his 
 Numbers that the religion of Mahomet is quite as much 
 proven to his mind as the religion of Jesus Christ.' 
 
 ' You read my Numbers then ? ' 
 
 ' Sometimes.' 
 
 ' And you will not marry me, Monsieur le Curd.' 
 
 ' No, Sir, I cannot do so, unless you make a public pro- 
 fession of faith in the Catholic religion.' 
 
 ' Then I must have recourse to the Ecclesiastical Com- 
 mittee,' replied Camille. 
 
 The conversation, taken down by the notary, was then 
 reported to the Committee. 
 
 Afterwards Camille returned to the cure with a written 
 ' opinion ' of Mirabeau's, in which the latter maintained : 
 ' That the only evidence of belief is the external profession of 
 faith, and that marriage cannot be refused to the person who 
 demands it, since he has stated that he is a Catholic' 
 
 ' Since when has Mirabeau been a father of the Church ? ' 
 was the cure's quiet comment upon this. 
 
 Camille could not restrain his laughter at this question. 
 
 ' Ha ! ha ! Mirabeau a father of the Church ! I will tell 
 him that ; he will be amused ! ' 
 
 ' But,' continued the cure of St. Sulpice, ' the opinion 
 itself condemns you, if you are to be judged by your external 
 profession of faith, because that profession is in print. Before 
 I marry you, I must exact a retractation.' 
 
The Marriage. 1 39 
 
 'I do not intend to write any more Numbers before my 
 marriage.' 
 
 ' You must make the retractation afterwards.' 
 
 ' I promise you that I will do so/ said Camille. (He 
 never fulfilled that promise.) 
 
 ' I also exact from you,' added M. de Pancemont, ' that 
 you fulfil all the duties prescribed by the Church to those 
 about to marry, and that you make your confession.' 
 
 ' To yourself, M. le Cure ? ' l 
 
 And Camille Desmoulins did so. His love for 
 Lucile was strong enough to induce the pamphleteer 
 to bend his proud head. But how quickly he raised it, 
 and how angrily ! To the priest, inflexible in his 
 ministry, was opposed an enemy eager and fierce in 
 fight. The marriage was celebrated at Saint Sulpice, 
 on the 29th of December. Among the witnesses 
 Petion and Robespierre figure. Mirabeau was not 
 there, though he had promised to be present. The 
 Abbe Berardier addressed a touching exhortation to the 
 bride and bridegroom, and Camille's eyes filled with 
 tears. ' Cry, if you want to cry ! ' said Robespierre to 
 him. In later days, Saint- Just, and even Robespierre 
 himself, reproached Camille for those ready tears. 
 
 The following is the form in which the marriage of 
 Camille and Lucile is registered : — 
 
 1 These details are taken from ' L/examen critique des dictionnaires 
 historiques,' by M. Barbier, who copied them from a pamphlet entitled, 
 ' Histoire des e've'nements arrives sur la paroisse Saint Sulpice pendant 
 la Revolution : ' Paris; Crapart's printing-office, 1792; pp. 23, 24, 25. 
 Afterwards, when, a •profios of the civic oath imposed upon the priests, M. 
 de Pancefort said that ' hell had filled the breast of the nation/ Camille 
 wrote : ' Oh, monsieur le curd, you who are a clever man ! ' and in his 
 " Revolutions/ No. 60, he added, ' I am sorry the cure" of Saint 
 Sulpice, who had won my affections, should have caused so great a 
 scandal. It is quite true that he said to me (I quote his words) : 
 " Formerly it was the king who had the power, now it is the nation. 
 St. Paul teaches us that we ought to obey the powers that be ; therefore 
 I shall obey."' 
 
140 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 On the 29th of December, 1790, was celebrated the mar- 
 riage of Lucile Simplice Camille Benoit Desmoulins, barrister, 
 aged thirty years, son of Jean Benoist Nicolas Desmoulins, 
 lieutenant-general to the bailiwick of Guise, and of Marie 
 Magdeleine Godard, consenting parties, with Anne Lucile 
 Philippe Laridon Duplessis, aged twenty years, daughter of 
 Claude Etienne Laridon Duplessis, pensionary of the King, 
 and of Anne Francoise Marie Boisdeveix, present and con- 
 senting, both parties being of this parish, the husband having 
 resided for six years in the Rue du Theatre Francais, the wife 
 having resided for six years with her parents here present. 
 
 Jerome Potion, Deputy to the National Assembly, Rue 
 Neuve des Mathurins ; Charles Alexis Brulard, Deputy to the 
 National Assembly, Rue Neuve des Mathurins ; Maximilien 
 Marie Isidore Robespierre, Deputy to the National Assembly, 
 Rue Saintonge, parish of Saint Louis-en-1'Ile (sic). 
 (Signed) CAMILLE DESMOULINS, 
 
 Laridon Duplessis (the wife), 
 
 Laridon Duplessis, 
 
 Boisdeveix, 
 
 Petion, 
 
 Brulard, 
 
 Robespierre, * 
 
 Mercier, 
 
 J. N. BRISSOT (Deputy to the National Assembly), 
 GUEUDEVILLE (Vicar at St. Sulpice.) 
 
 This extract is made from the Register of the 
 parish of Saint Sulpice. The Abbe Berardier and the 
 Cure Pancemont did not sign. 
 
 When we read this document, in which the names 
 of friends who within three short years are to become 
 deadly enemies are found side by side, we cannot 
 escape from bitter reflections and mournful associations. 
 Here is the signature of Brissot, who denounced Camille, 
 and the signature of Robespierre, who suffered his 
 friend to mount the scaffold. . Cruel times were those, 
 when the kiss of to-day became a bite to-morrow. 
 
After the Marriage. 141 
 
 Bloody were the fatalities of those mortal struggles. 
 Friend slays friend. Here, in 1790, Brissot clasps Ca- 
 mille's hand, and wishes him joy ; and in 1793, Camille 
 will invent a deadly neologism against him, the verb 
 brissoter, which shall signify to steal. Robespierre 
 shall draft for Saint-Just a deadly ' note ' in which Camille 
 shall be portrayed as a dupe and an accomplice by turns. 
 But who foresees such an ending to the bright story 
 of the bridal day ? What trusting smiles bedeck 
 the faces of all present, when Camille, who is thirty 
 years old, leads the fair Lucile, who is hardly twenty, 
 to the altar! In his right hand he holds the left 
 hand of his bride-; as they approach the draped 
 shrine, the well-knOwn and beloved voice of the 
 abbe Berardier evokes the memories of his childhood 
 while it defines the duties of his manhood. Trans- 
 ported with happiness, his heart swelling with hope, 
 Camille weeps happy tears, too soon to be followed by 
 tears of blood. 
 
 II. 
 
 Those were blessed hours for the young couple, and 
 days full of the profound joy, the bliss, at once sober 
 and intoxicating, of great happiness. They installed 
 themselves in the same house with Danton, in the 
 Cour du Commerce. Friendly letters, full of compli- * 
 mehts and kind wishes, poured in upon them. Luce 
 de Lancival, afterwards the author of ' Mucius 
 Scaeyola,' 'Archibal' and ' Fernandez,' tragedies full of 
 icy patriotism, which, however, Napoleon called ' capital 
 head-quarters' plays,' wrote to Desmoulins as follows : — 
 
 ' Faithful to the country, faithful to love, faithful to friend- 
 ship, you deserve to be the happiest of men. You now have 
 
I4 2 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 in addition to your pen another infallible means of winning 
 partisans for the Revolution ; if you are acquainted with any 
 bad citizens, present your wife to them ; not one of them but 
 will imitate your patriotism on seeing, it so well rewarded.' 
 
 Subscribers to the ' Revolutions de France et de 
 Brabant' sent verses to Camille, and might have said, 
 like Lancival : — 
 
 'A cent rivaux, ardents a la lui disputer, 
 Camille enleve enfin cette femme accomplie 
 Que je venais lui souhaiter ! ' 
 
 The ' Berger Sylvain ' made his appearance again, 
 and re-strung his little rhymes in honour of the newly- 
 wedded pair. But at the same time hatred sharpened 
 afresh its weapons of calumny ; falsehood spat out its 
 coarsest insults ; the royalist pamphleteers and news- 
 paper men invented the infamous scandal, injurious 
 alike to an honest man and an honest woman, that 
 Camille's wife was the bastard daughter of the Abbe 
 Terray. ' He even wished to marry her at the altar 
 of the country, on the Champ de Mars,' writes one of 
 these libellers, ' but the rain interfered and forced him 
 to marry her in the Church.' ' Utter nonsense,' writes 
 Desmoulins to his father (January 3, 1 79 r). ' Madame 
 Duplessis never saw the Abbe Terray ; her husband 
 was not appointed to the head-clerkship of the General 
 Control until after his death, and it was under M. de 
 Clugny, not the Abbe Terray, that he was at the 
 Treasury.' Camille was strongly disposed to sue the 
 ' Journal de la Cour et de la Ville ' for damages for 
 the publication of these rascally falsehoods, but his 
 father and the Duplessis family dissuaded him, advising 
 him to treat such calumnies with contempt. 'What 
 signifies the venom and the spite of the tale-bearers of 
 the day, and their ephemeral calumny ? ' writes M. 
 
After the Marriage. 143 
 
 Desmoulins from his quiet provincial home. Might 
 not Camille, on this occasion at least, have reflected 
 on the deep and painful wounds which may be inflicted 
 by the press ? 
 
 He, at least, if he thrust in the dart, sharpened, but 
 did not poison it ! But what odious falsehood was 
 there in the pamphlets aimed against him ! Peltier, 
 in the ' Actes des Apotres,' meanly lent himself to the 
 reproduction of them in his ' Paris pendant l'annee 
 1795 ; ' and even his pages are moderate by the side 
 of those which accuse Camille of 'having lived on alms 
 until his marriage with a bastard, and that bastard the 
 daughter of that Abbe" Terray who boasted of picking 
 people's pockets so cleverly.' 1 
 
 ' Camille Desmoulins,' says Peltier, ' had married a bastard 
 of the Abbe Terray's. This marriage brought him an income 
 of 6,000 livres. The following anecdote is known to very 
 few people, but it is worth being recorded for posterity, as an 
 example of the harmony which exists between the principles 
 and the conduct of certain innovators. 
 
 ' Camille Desmoulins wished to be married, not according 
 to the forms prescribed by the new regime, but according to 
 the Roman rite ; that is to say, not by municipal officers, but 
 by a Catholic priest. What is still more surprising is that 
 he would not have a Constitutional priest ; he wished for, and 
 sought for, a non-juring priest, and found one. It was Berar- 
 dier,the former principal of the College of Louis-le-Grand, and 
 a member of the Constituent Assembly, who gave the nuptial 
 benediction to Camille Desmoulins and his wife. Berardier 
 died of phthisis, in April, 1794 ; there is, therefore, no reason 
 why the public should not be informed that it was he who 
 celebrated this marriage. 
 
 ' Such orthodoxy on the part of Camille Desmoulins is 
 certainly very extraordinary, but our surprise is raised to its 
 greatest height when we find that he was aided and abetted 
 
 * ' See Appendix for note on the Abbe" Terray. 
 
1 44 Camille Desmoulins. and his Wife. 
 
 in this act of religion by Robespierre and Saint-Just, who 
 were perfectly well aware that BeVardier had not taken either 
 the Constitutional oath or that of equality. 
 
 ' This anecdote is quite authentic. I may add that during 
 the whole course of Robespierre's fury against the priests, 
 jurors and non-jurors, BeYardier was never molested, and that 
 he died peacefully in his bed. Why was that respected in 
 him which was execrated in others ? This is one of the 
 unaccountable contradictions which prove that Robespierre 
 and his party governed, not by principles, but by caprice, the 
 most fatal of all methods of government for the people.' 
 
 Retif de la Bretonne, one of the eccentric chroni- 
 clers of that time, gives some calumnious details of the 
 domestic life of Camille Duplessis and his wife ; and 
 draws a portrait of Lucile in the last volume of 
 ' L'annee des Dames nationales, ou le Calendrier des 
 Citoyennes ' (vol xii. Deer, page 3821). 
 
 ' The young Duplessis, wife of Camille Desmoulins. — We 
 conclude this hors d'eeuvre by the mbst-to-be-pitied woman of 
 all those, whose lives were taken. The young Duplessis was 
 not born in wedlock ; but the citizen Duplessis, having 
 married her mother, adopted her. Camille Desmoulins was 
 intimate in their house, as were Mercier, De Langle, and 
 several others. Camille fell in love with the little Duplessis 
 while she was still a child. Unfortunately, the citizen Du- 
 plessis had fallen into a state of apathy which almost amounted 
 to imbecility, and Camille had only to win over the mother, 
 who was still pretty, and almost without education. For 
 seven years he persecuted this mother, until at length he 
 obtained from her one of the handsomest girls in Paris, with 
 a good fortune. We have seen the young Duplessis at the 
 Italiens, and were dazzled by her beauty. Camille, who was 
 wild almost to madness, and excessively headstrong, gained 
 with the help of Mercier the hand of the unfortunate young 
 girl, whom he was to lead to the scaffold before she was 
 twenty-three ; for it is certain that, had she had any other 
 husband, the young Duplessis would never have dreamed of. 
 
Royalist Falsehoods. 145 
 
 receiving and giving money to procure the assassination 
 of members of the revolutionary tribunal. It is said that a 
 most worthy man became attached to the handsome young 
 Duplessis, but that he would not have a madman like Camille 
 for a rival. Among his acquaintance was an old man of ninety, 
 with a mortal disease which made his death within a month 
 or two certain. He proposed this old man as a son-in-law to 
 Duplessis, whom he gave to understand that, although he 
 could not marry.his adopted daughter, there would be no diffi- 
 culty about his wedding the widow of an eminently respectable 
 person. Duplessis appreciated the force of this argument, and 
 proposed the marriage to his wife. But the latter felt some 
 misgiving about the transaction, and consulted one of her 
 friends, who was, unfortunately, still more friendly to Camille. 
 The news drove Camille frantic ; he contrived to speak to his 
 mistress, and to persuade her that a scheme was on foot for 
 delivering her up to the most odious and disgusting of old men. 
 He gave her a false version of the devices which were to be 
 practised, but one which approached the truth. The young 
 Duplessis believed herself to be sufficiently forearmed by the 
 forewarning of her lover, and when her mother, persuaded of 
 the sincerity of the worthy man who had made the proposal, 
 wished to present him to her daughter, with the preamble which 
 had been agreed upon, the girl threw herself at her feet in a 
 transport of despair, and declared that she would prefer death 
 to the fulfilment of such deceitful and perfidious plans ; also, 
 that her consent would be the death-warrant of her beloved 
 Camille. Her mother, who loved her dearly, was so weak as 
 to yield, and in a moment of enthusiasm, persuaded by the 
 ardent Desmoulins, she consented to her daughter's marriage 
 with him. The marriage was celebrated. . . . 
 
 ' Camille was not slow to weary of his handsome wife. He 
 flung himself into great affairs and into low intrigues. He 
 . ceased to be loved. 
 
 ' O daughters ! beware whom you wed ! O mothers ! watch 
 over your daughters, and learn on their behalf those things 
 which they cannot learn for themselves ! ' 
 
 It is not true that Camille speedily wearied of her 
 
 L 
 
146 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 whom he loved. We shall find him, later, talking about 
 his wife to Mesdames Sainte-Amaranthe, in the tone 
 of a man for whom temptation does not exist. As for 
 Lucile, she has purchased dearly enough the right to 
 bequeath her love as an example to the world. Let 
 us leave the calumniators in the muddy ditch into 
 which they ought to have been carted, and endeavour 
 to gain a correct notion of the mind and the character 
 of the young wife of Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 Here again the red copybook will serve us 
 for a guide. We have traced Lucile in its pages 
 through the disquietudes of an ignorant young girl, 
 and the sorrows of a loving one, separated from the 
 object of her affections. We now find her as a wife, 
 his beloved, devoted, and charming companion. In 
 love with Camille, enthusiastic about all his ideas, 
 carried away by his passionate politics, she shared his 
 feverish existence, his hopes and his dreams, and 
 afterwards she shared his perils. They loved one 
 another, not only in their homely fireside happiness, 
 in the sweet intimacy of two beings united by pro- 
 found sympathy, but in that external life, in that rest- 
 less agitated existence which pleased Lucile, and which 
 Desmoulins had created for himself. We shall see 
 her, on August 10, shuddering at the idea of the danger 
 to which he may be exposed. More than once we shall 
 find him laying his burning head on Lucile's knees to still 
 the throbbing of his temples, after a terrible meeting 01 
 the Convention or the Jacobins. We shall see Lucile 
 intoxicated by this perilous life, and full of pride in it, 
 urging Camille onwards. The secret of her thoughts 
 is written in the little book preserved by her sister. 
 I shall not give you the whole of the collection of the 
 verses in which, under a thin mythological disguise— 
 
Lucile s ' Red Book! 147 
 
 the fashion of the period — all the sufferings, all the ten- 
 derness of the young soul are depicted. Several of 
 these pieces have no other interest than that of a 
 retrospective curiosity; and the ' Chanson du Saule,' 
 or the ' Chanson de la Rose,' ' after a sketch by M. 
 Fragonard,' says Lucile, would add little that is 
 characteristic to this feminine physiognomy, which was 
 full of charm and winningness that turned, when the 
 time came, to resolute energy. 
 
 There are, however, some other poems* ' romances ' 
 as they were then called, like the following, in which 
 it seems to me we may trace the love story of Camille 
 and Lucile, poeticised and dramatised no doubt, but 
 still real, and reflecting the truth. 
 
 The following extract from Lucile's ' Red Book' is 
 simply called, 
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 Sur la pente de la colline 
 Qui borne d'ici l'horizon, 
 Distinguez-vous cette chaumine, 
 Qu'accompagne un petit donjon ? 
 La, dans la paix et le silence, 
 La, deux amans, enfin epoux, 
 De leur tendre perseverance 
 Savourent les fruits les plus doux. 
 
 L'histoire en est des plus touchantes. 
 Vous qui gemissez sous la loi 
 Des durs parents, jeunes amantes, 
 Approchez-vous, 6coutez-moi. 
 Courageuse autant que fidele, 
 Cecile aussi que son amant 
 Peuvent vous servir de modeles 
 Pour un semblable evenement. 
 
 De la nature et de sa mere 
 Cecile eleve seulement 
 
148 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Poss^dait une ame trop here 
 Pour prendre d' autre enseignement. 
 Mais un jeune homme bon et sage 
 Sut lui plaire sans beaucoup d'art. 
 Heureux Alain ! ce fut l'ouvrage 
 D'un seul moment, d'un seul regard. 
 
 Un autre que lui de C^cile 
 Poursuivait ardemment le cceur, 
 Dans l'art d'6crire maitre habile, 
 Profond politique, orateur, 
 II savait tout — hors l'art de plaire : 
 Novice encore en fait d'amour, 
 Colmat n'avait pu que du pere 
 Obtenir un tendre retour. 
 
 Mais Colmat, 1'ame satisfaite 
 Du consentement paternel, 
 Croit sa feUicite" parfaite, 
 Et dej'a. pense etre a l'autel. 
 Dej'a, dans sa vaste demeure 
 Le lit nuptial, a grand frais, 
 S'61eve ; il n'attend plus que l'heure 
 De se voir heureux pour jamais. 
 
 Le pere enfin dit a C^cile : 
 ' Je ne vous donne qu'un moment, 
 Tout subterfuge est inutile, 
 Optez ! Colmat ou le couvent ! ' 
 ' — Une union mal assortie 
 Plus qu'un cloftre me ferait mal, 
 Et mieux vaut sortir de la vie 
 Que d'y trainer un joug fatal ! ' 
 
 Cdcile au couvent est men^e, 
 On l'y regoit a bras ouverts : 
 Un peu d'or hate la journee 
 Qui doit en priver l'univers. 
 Alain sait tout. Cfkile en larmes 
 S'est concerted ayec Alain, 
 
Luciles ' Red Book' 1 49 
 
 Et l'amour prepare les armes 
 Pour combattre un pere inhumain. 
 
 Le temple s'ouvre et la victime 
 S'avance, mais dun pas tardif ; 
 Alain la suit des yeux, l'anime, 
 Et n'attend qu'un regard furtif. 
 ' Ma fille,' dit alors le pretre, 
 ' Que venez-vous chercher ici ? • 
 Venez-vous a Dieu vous soumettre ? 
 Que demandez-vous ? ' — ' Un mari ! ' 
 
 A ce mot, malgre^ la presence 
 Et de Colmat et des parents, 
 Ardent et fier, Alain s'elance ; 
 Cecile est dans ses bras tremblants. 
 Puis sans sortir de cet asile 
 L'un l'autre se donnant la main, 
 Dieu recoit le yceu de Cecile, 
 Dieu re§oit le serment dAlain. 
 
 Toutes les nonnes douairieres 
 Prirent la fuite de depit ; 
 Le pretre changea de prieres, 
 Le pere enfin y consentit. 
 Les deux epoux, des le soir meme 
 De ce beau jour tant orageux, 
 Gouterent le bonheur supreme 
 Dans leur foyer, simple comme eux. 
 
 By whom is this story, which combines the jesting 
 impertinence of the incredulous eighteenth century 
 with such simple sentimentality, written ? Is it by 
 Sylvain Marechal, like ' Le Tresor,' or ' Le Contrat de 
 Manage devant la Nature ' — those queer ' historical 
 romances ' ? Is it by Camille Desmoulins himself ? We 
 do not know. We know only that, if Camille Desmoulins 
 had not to carry off his bride from the cold constraint 
 of a cloister, he did carry her off to Bourg-la-Reine 
 
1 50 Camilie Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 for awhile, where Madame Duplessis placed a house 
 which she owned at the disposal of the bridal pair. 
 
 Was it over the threshold of this country house, 
 or on the door of their apartment in the Cour du 
 Commerce, that Marechal or Freron — at all events, a 
 friend of Camilie — wrote up these lines, which Lucile 
 copied into her ' Red Book ' ? 
 
 ' Qui que tu sois, quand tu serois l'Amour, 
 Garde-toi de troubler la paix de cet asile ; 
 Respecte ce riant sejour 
 De l'innocence et de Lucile.' 
 
 It matters little : in all her thoughts we find the 
 young wife's absorbing love. She takes delight in 
 surrounding herself with everything that speaks to her 
 most eloquently of this love ; she abandons herself 
 completely to Camilie, the man whom she has pre- 
 ferred, chosen, the only man whom she will ever love. 
 Lucile will be a busy zealous mother, a resolute valiant 
 woman. This young girl, who looks like a painting 
 by Greuze, will develope the energies of the wife of 
 Poetus by and bye ; meanwhile she is the adored 
 mistress of her lover ; and Camilie, who idolized her 
 before their marriage, now prostrates himself before 
 her. When he writes to his father he appends to his 
 signature these words : ' The happiest of men, and who 
 desires nothing more in the world! 
 
 III. 
 
 Camilie deceived himself. He still desired fame, 
 he still hankered after that deceptive popularity to 
 which he had already sacrificed too much. 
 
 He had belonged, from its foundation, to the club 
 of the Cordeliers, who were afterwards to look upon 
 
The Cordeliers. 151 
 
 him as a lukewarm member, and to contribute to his 
 destruction. The Cordeliers' club was held in the 
 Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, opposite the Rue Haute- 
 feuille, in the monks' refectory. These monks were, as 
 everybody knows, democratic mystics who had taken 
 the vow of poverty, communists in the religious garb. 
 
 Etienne Marcel had appeared there in the four- 
 teenth century, and Danton made himself visible in 
 the eighteenth. In the spot where the Musee 
 Dupuytren now displays its horrors, the meetings 
 of the club took place. Those walls have listened 
 to the harangues of Marat, whose printing-press was 
 hidden for a short time in the subterranean church of 
 the convent. The Cordeliers' club was the offspring of 
 the district, of which Camille said : ' If the Seven Wise 
 Men of Greece themselves were members of it, I defy 
 its logic to be more sound.' x 
 
 The meetings were at first held in the convent ; in 
 1792 they were transferred to the church of Saint- 
 Andre des Arts — which no longer exists — but soon 
 afterwards they were resumed at the place of their 
 origin. In the interval they were held in the great 
 hall of the Museum, in the Rue de la Dauphine, 
 then Rue de Thionville. The club was genuinely 
 popular ; any one who chose might enter, and the 
 
 1 One of the deliberations of the district in which we find the name of 
 D' Anton, in the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' is as follows : — 
 ' The district of the Cordeliers, indignant at the species of derision in 
 which the Executive Power has thought fit to indulge by lodging the Legis- 
 lative Power first in a hall of Menus-plaisirs, and afterwards in a riding- 
 school, demands that the temple of Liberty shall be constructed on the 
 site of the Bastille. It is a fine idea to build the Capitol there, as the 
 Greeks formerly built the temple of Delphos on the place which had 
 served the Python for his den.' 
 
 Commissioners for the drafting of the address : Pare", president, 
 D'Anton, ex-president, Fabre d'Eglantine, vice-president, Camille 
 Desmoulins and Dufourny de Villiers. 
 
152 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 surging multitude sometimes excited the speaker in 
 the tribune almost to the point of madness. The 
 Jacobins have been likened to a grave, prudent, 
 casuistical seminary ; the Cordeliers might have been 
 compared to a regiment always under arms. Street 
 revolution growled in that lair, while Parliamentary 
 revolution debated at the Jacobins. Danton, Des- 
 moulins, Marat, Freron, Hebert, Chaumette, Legendre, 
 Robert— he who hereafter drew up the petition of 
 the Champ de Mars, demanding the deposition of 
 Louis XVI. — Momoro, Anacharsis Clootz, Vincent, 
 Guzman, the sans-culotte Spanish Grandee — all these 
 belonged to the Cordeliers. A strange, turbulent, and 
 hostile assemblage, destined to send one another to 
 death. The Republic was born in this hothouse. The 
 device, ' Liberty, Fraternity, Equality,' was invented 
 by the Cordeliers (June 1791). August 10 found 
 its most energetic actors among them. Unhappily, 
 when the Revolution had sent the most illustrious of 
 the Cordeliers, "including Danton and Desmoulins, 
 as deputies to the Convention in the name of Paris, 
 the influence of the club was given to the Hebertist 
 element, to the party of the Commune, to extreme 
 sansculottism. While the former members, the 
 ' Vieux,' or old Cordeliers, became ' indulgents,' and 
 demanded clemency, those of the class to which Collot- 
 d'Herbois, Ronsin, Momoro, and Hebert belonged, 
 became ultra-revolutionists, and re-edited, both literally 
 and figuratively, U Ami du peuple up to the moment 
 when the Committee of Public Safety subjected them 
 to that terrible ' purifying scrutiny ' which established 
 the discipline of death among the Cordeliers. 
 
 But the hour of these terrible conflicts is yet 
 distant. Camille is fighting now only with the weapons 
 
Sound Advice. 153 
 
 of speech and pen. 1 His father is very apprehensive 
 of the consequences of the militant turn which matters 
 are taking, and of Camille's growing fame. He writes 
 to his son ('Rev. de Fr. et de Brab.,' No 7, p. 321) : — 
 
 ' In the midst of the ruins which surround me, and which 
 the National Assembly seem to have heaped together out of 
 my existence (my office has become precarious, my syndi- 
 cate, escapes me before the legal term, the thread of my 
 former life is cut, and all my associates are in a like case), 
 I am consoled, and the ills of my position are much assuaged, 
 by the hope that my son, with more modern and bolder 
 principles, will be one of the first workmen to construct the 
 ark which shall save himself and his brethren from the ship- 
 wreck of their common father.' 
 
 ' They talk to me of your success,' adds this wise 
 and honest man, ' and I am not insensible to it ; but I 
 am more strongly affected by the dangers which you 
 incur.' Camille replies to this in the confident tone of 
 a victor certain of himself : — 
 
 ' So then, you no longer mock at my dreams, my republic, 
 and my former predictions ; at all that you have seen, what 
 may be called seen, yes, seen with your own eyes. You have 
 passed your life in writing, in striving against minor oppres- 
 sions. That was attacking the branches ; we, thank heaven ! 
 have just cut down the tree. Have no fear lest you should be 
 
 1 In a pamphlet entitled 'A Description of the Civic Oath and 
 Festival celebrated at the Bois de Boulogne, by the Society of the Jeu de 
 Paume de Versailles, on June 20, 1789-1790,' I find the following mention 
 of Camille : — 
 
 'A table of three hundred covers prepared by patriotic nymphs, 
 covered with the simple fruits of nature, appealed agreeably to the senses. 
 
 'Danton proposed the first toast, then Menon, Santonax, Charles 
 Lameth, Barnave, Laborde. 
 
 ' M. de Robespierre proposed the health of the courageous writers 
 who had risked so many dangers, and who still prove their valour by 
 devoting themselves to the defence of the country. During this motion 
 a member pointed to Camille Desmoulins, who was vehemently 
 applauded.' (An eight-page pamphlet, in 8vp ; Garnery, 17 Rue 
 Serpente.) 
 
154 Camille Desmoulins and his- Wife. 
 
 crushed in its fall. That tree can fall only on the useless 
 and the idle, not upon those who have deserved well of their 
 country.' 
 
 Camille's father was then working at his ' Encyclo- 
 paedia of Jurisprudence,' in eight octavo volumes, which 
 had been commenced thirty years earlier. 
 
 ' I am consoled on your account ' (adds Camille), ' because 
 there will always remain to you the recollection of a life 
 passed in fighting against every kind of oppression under 
 which our province laboured.' 
 
 Then he says, after alluding to the ' useless ' toil 
 of his father, ' already I have avenged you ! ' Avenged 
 him upon whom ? Upon the ci-devant Due de Guise, 
 who had been so severe when fines had to be paid to 
 him. What a singular difference between the tempera- 
 ments and the dreams of the father and the son ! The 
 father did not wish for revenge ; he simply aspired 
 to greater prosperity. 
 
 Camille, then, continued to strive and fight, not- 
 withstanding his love for Lucile, his joy in being 
 beloved, his happiness in his home and in family life. 
 Perhaps he remembered the lines, signed ' L. M.,' which 
 he had inserted in No. 6 of the ' Revolutions : ' — 
 
 ' Tu dors, Camille, et Paris est esclave ! 
 D'autres tyrans usurpent le pouvoir, 
 Que s'arrogeoient et Breteuil et le Noir ! ' ' 
 
 Camille was fighting both in his journal and in the 
 
 1 In this piece we find the often-quoted lines : — 
 
 ' Quoi done, Camille, ami de Robespierre, 
 De Chartres mime honore" comme unfrere ! ' 
 The ' Nouvelle Biographie generate ' of Firmin Didot affirms that 
 on the occasion of Camille's marriage, 'The Duke of Orleans had 
 the apartment which the young couple were to occupy in the Rue de 
 l'Oddon magnificently furnished at his expense.' This allegation is 
 completely erroneous, and the biographer cannot have found anywhere 
 a single proof of the fact which he states. 
 
Loustallot. 155 
 
 tribune. His polemics were, however, modified, and 
 it was no longer against Malouet, but against Lafayette, 
 that he aimed his heaviest blows. From 1 790 Camille 
 had attacked ' the white horse ' and its rider, whom he 
 called ' Blondinet ; ' but in September 1790, after the 
 death of Loustallot, his attacks became more direct. 
 ' This hypocrite,' Camille calls the General, 'who has 
 'the law always on his lips,' or ' this Tartuffe with two 
 epaulettes.' 
 
 A striking contrast to Camille Desmoulins was 
 presented by Loustallot, a militant journalist also, but 
 full of attractive sensibility, ardently, truly republican 
 of soul, young, brave and compassionate, 'pure from 
 blood even in tkoughi,' says the author of ' Poems of 
 the Revolution ' when alluding to him. The two were 
 pursuing the same ends, but with widely different 
 arms : Camille Desmoulins with a finely-wrought 
 weapon which he used sometimes poniard-fashion ; 
 Loustallot with a plain sword, but of true temper and 
 loyally wielded. The editor of the ' Revolutions de 
 Paris,' founded by the bookseller, Prud'homme, was a 
 publicist, aiming at clearness rather than at elegance, 
 at conviction rather than brilliancy. He had not the 
 Aristophanic force of Camille, but he had more serious- 
 ness of mind. It is true that he addressed a different 
 public. Camille spoke to the educated classes, Lous- 
 tallot to the people. The two men were staunch friends, 
 and when, on the news of the massacre of the Swiss 
 at Nancy reaching Paris, Loustallot died of grief, in 
 September 1790, in his twenty-eighth year, Camille 
 Desmoulins delivered his funeral oration. 1 ' Loustallot 
 
 1 The author of Pieces de la vie du fameux Loustallot, auteur des 
 "Revolutions de Paris," sous le nom de Prud'homme,' calls Elysee Lou- 
 stallot the ' brother demagogue ' of Camille, and adds that he had more 
 
156 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 did not sign his articles,' said Camille ; ' he knew that 
 by showing oneself but little one does much.' In 
 another place he calls Loustallot 'the writer who 
 has best served the Revolution.' 
 
 talent than Desmoulins. In allusion to the funeral panegyric of Lous- 
 tallot by Camille, he says : — 
 
 ' When the speaker had gone round the eternal circle in which he 
 moves, he began again ; and wearied us all with the white horse of M. 
 de Lafayette, the big stomach of Dessessarts, and the wife of the king, 
 whom he will not call the queen. He runs after points, after so-called 
 wit, and goes deeply into nothing, which is more convenient and less 
 difficult. We are, however, far from supposing that M. Desmoulins 
 cannot sometimes wield the formidable weapon of pleasantry and ridicule 
 with skill and success. There are certain numbers of his journal in 
 which plenty of wit and gaiety may be found, but these qualities do not 
 suffice for a complete success. A journalist must be just, impartial, 
 and not carried away by the turmoil of party strife.' The pamphleteer 
 states that Loustallot killed himself by drinking ardent liquor. This is a 
 complete calumny. 
 
 The following is a passage from Camille's oration at the Jacobins' club, 
 relative to the dignity and character proper to a journalist : — 
 
 ' Loustallot,' said Camille, ' always despised the enemies who were 
 eager to defame him ; he could not understand the baseness of a crowd 
 of journalists who, instead of calling all men to liberty and equality, 
 and the man of talent to his task of maintaining them, do not hesitate to 
 serve the aristocrats whom they despise, for the sake of a little money ; 
 and defame those writers whom they cannot but esteem, in order 
 to please their masters. Such men as these debase literature and 
 talent to the level of domestic servitude, and are, as far as they can be, 
 like the Greek slaves and beaux esprits who abounded in Rome during 
 the later days of the Republic, when artists, savants, and poets were, 
 in the eyes of the stupid rich, only servants like cooks or lackeys. 
 Loustallot knew that his life and his works formed a severe censure upon 
 writers of this despicable kind.' 
 
 ' Unfortunate friend of the Constitution,' said Legendre at the grave of 
 Loustallot, ' go into the other world, since such is thy destiny. Grief 
 for the massacre of so many of our brethren at Nancy has caused thy 
 death. Go and tell them that at the mere name of Bailly patriotism 
 shudders ; tell them that nothing remains unpunished by a free people ; 
 tell them that sooner or later they shall be avenged.' 
 
 ' Did anything more sublime come out of the mouth of Demosthenes 
 himself ? ' asks Camille Desmoulins. But he puts it in another way in 
 No. 44 : 'I have read nothing finer in Demosthenes and Cicero than the 
 few words spoken by this master-butcher.' 
 
The King's Flight. 157 
 
 Camille achieved an oratorical success by his 
 speech on the occasion of the funeral of Loustallot, of 
 whom his own fellow-countryman and friend, Saint- 
 Jean d' Angely said, when he heard of his death, ' Ah ! 
 then, he has sucked his own pen /' 'I have received,' 
 said Camille, ' applause, whose vehemence is applicable 
 only to the dead ; I have inherited from him the 
 public goodwill.' 
 
 He added, in a terrible accent of menace : ' Yes, 
 it is thou, Lafayette, who hast killed him.' The 
 strife, destined to last long, had commenced. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins was still editing the ' Revo- 
 lutions de France et de Brabant' when, on June 21, 
 1 791, Louis XVI. attempted to fly and was arrested at 
 Varennes by Drouot, the postmaster, who was after- 
 wards the deputy to the Convention from Vend6me. 
 
 'On Tuesday, the 21st June,' says Camille, 'it became 
 known that the king and all his family had fled. It was at 
 eleven o'clock at night that the general dfoampativos of the 
 male and female Capets took place, and it was not until nine 
 o'clock in the morning that the news was known. Treason ! 
 Perjury ! Barnave and Lafayette are abusing our confidence.' 
 — ' Revolutions,' No. 82. 
 
 His subsequent speculations on the way in which 
 the attempt was made have a certain historical 
 interest : — 
 
 ' I was coming away from the Jacobins with Danton and 
 some other patriots at eleven o'clock, and all the way we met 
 with only one patrol. Paris seemed to be so completely 
 deserted that I made the remark. One of us who had a 
 letter in his pocket in which he was apprised that the king 
 was to go away that night, went to have a look at the 
 chateau, and saw M. de Lafayette entering the gates at 
 eleven o'clock.' 
 
158 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 The fury of Camille speedily reached such a height 
 that he demanded the death of him whom he called the 
 ' king-animal,' in a style entirely unworthy of him : — 
 
 ' As,' he says, ' the king-animal is an aliquot portion 
 of the human species, and as men have had the simplicity 
 to make him an integral portion of the body politic, it 
 is essential that he should be subjected to the laws of 
 society, which have declared that any man who shall be taken 
 with arms in his hand against the nation shall be punished 
 with death ; and also to the laws of the human species, to the 
 natural right which permits me to kill the enemy who attacks 
 me. Now the king has aimed at the nation. It is true that 
 he has missed fire, but it is the nation's turn now.' — P. 158. 
 
 In order to explain this fury we must endeavour 
 to realise the effect which the flight of the king had 
 produced. The terrified people, threatened by the 
 Powers, believed that they had been given over to the 
 foreigner ; the tocsin was rung, the National Guard 
 was summoned, all the citizens armed themselves. In 
 the clubs such motions as the following were made : — 
 
 ' M. le president, if the traitors (Bailly and the Ministers) 
 present themselves, I claim to speak. I consent that two scaf- 
 folds should be erected ; and I consent to perish on one of them, 
 if I do not prove to these men that their heads ought to fall at 
 the feet of the nation against which they have never ceased 
 to conspire.' 
 
 At the Cordeliers, Danton accused Lafayette of 
 having had sixty citizens arrested, and exclaimed :— 
 
 ' You had sworn that the king should not go away, you 
 had gone bail for him. Either of two things is true : you are 
 a traitor who have sold your country, or you are stupid to 
 have answered for a person for whom you cannot answer. In 
 the more favourable case of the two you have proved your- 
 self incapable of commanding us. I leave the tribune : I have 
 
Camille attacks the King. 159 
 
 said enough to show that, though I despise traitors, I do not 
 fear assassins ! ' l 
 
 It was not only with the pen that Camille fought 
 against the king. He tells us himself that, on July 16, 
 1 79 1, the popular societies having drafted a petition to 
 
 1 Here are a few extracts from the 'Revolutions de France et de 
 Brabant ' relative to the flight of the king : — 
 
 ' On what trifles do great events turn ! At Sainte-Mdne'hould, the 
 name of the place reminds our crowned Sancho Panza of the famous 
 pigs' feet. It shall not be said that he changed horses at Sainte- 
 MeneTiould without having eaten pettitoes on the classic spot. He does 
 not remember the proverb, Plures occidit gula quam gladius. The 
 delay about getting the pettitoes ready, and the too correct portrait of him- 
 self on an assignat, were fatal to him. The postmaster recognised him.' 
 
 In No. 83 Camille goes too far — indeed to actual insult — but he gives 
 some curious details : — 
 
 'When Louis XVI. re-entered his apartment in the Tuileries, he 
 threw himself into an armchair, saying, " It's devilish hot ! " and then, 
 
 " That was a • journey. However, I had it in my head for a long 
 
 time." Afterwards, looking towards the National Guards, who were 
 present, he said, " I have done a foolish thing, I acknowledge. But must 
 not I have my follies like other people ? Come along ! Bring me a 
 chicken!" One of his valets came. "Ah, there you are," said he, 
 "and here I am." They brought the chicken, and Louis XVI. ate 
 and drank with an appetite which would have done honour to the king of 
 Cockayne.' 
 
 Afterwards he says, in reference to the queen and her demeanour on 
 her arrival : — 
 
 ' She got out of the carriage' in the attitude of a suppliant, and 
 with a humiliated countenance ; but she walked up the staircase with her 
 nose in the air, and quite unabashed.' The truth is that Marie Antoinette 
 re-entered the Tuileries with dignity. "Mirabeau was right when he said, 
 ' There was only one man about the king — his wife.' Some days later 
 she wrote : ' I can say nothing to you about the state of my mind. We 
 exist, that is all.' 
 
 In No. 84 Camille complains that the Assembly has treated the king, 
 now an ' accused person/ too well. ' They ought not to have awaited his 
 convenience, to have permitted a criminal to take a bath when the com- 
 missioners were coming, and waited in the ante-room until his bell rang 
 for the National Assembly to be admitted, like bath attendants. Did 
 any one ever see judges writing their names in the lodge-keeper's book 
 at a prison, by way of humbly asking the accused to favour them 
 with an audience, and to name the hour ? Such subservience never was 
 heard of before.'— P. 241. 
 
160 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the National Assembly demanding the deposition of 
 Louis XVI., he was sent to the Municipality, as head 
 of the deputation, to inform them of this project. Paris 
 was in a ferment that day. In the centre of the Place 
 Vend6me (soon to become the Place des Piques), an 
 orator who cried ' No more kings ! ' was loudly ap- 
 plauded ; and the popular excitement spreading, it was 
 soon not only the deposition of the king for which the 
 people clamoured, but the trial of Louis XVI. and 
 the arrest of Lafayette and Bailly. On the following 
 day, July 17, the anniversary of the f£te of the Fede- 
 ration was to be celebrated at the Champ de Mars. 
 On that day the red flag of martial law was displayed by 
 order of Lafayette, who led Bailly into using severe 
 measures. There was some bloodshed. The violent 
 harangues of the popular orators having provoked 
 some stone-throwing at the National Guard on the 
 part of the over-excited population (Fournier, an 
 American and a madman, presented his pistol at the 
 breast of Lafayette), the drums were beaten, and the 
 National Guard fired on the people. The crowd who 
 had come thither to sign the petition upon the altar of 
 the country were shot down, and scattered, and they 
 fled wildly in every direction. A man named Provart 
 killed himself in despair. 1 Certain biographers have 
 asserted that Camille Desmoulins figured on that day 
 among the persons who incited the people to make 
 the disturbance ; others affirm, on the contrary, that, 
 instead of going to the Champ de Mars, Camille dined 
 
 1 Decree of the Commune of Paris : ' That the petition of the 
 Champ de Mars of July 17, 1 791, shall be placed under a glass case, and 
 that the bust of Provart, who killed himself on that day, declaring that 
 liberty was lost, shall be placed in the hall of the Communal House by 
 the side of that of Marat, assassinated July 13.'—' Repertoire,' vol. i. 
 p. 154. 
 
Rock Marcandier. 161 
 
 in the country with Danton, Legendre, and Freron. 
 It is quite certain that en the same evening 
 warrants were issued for the arrest of Danton and 
 Camille. The newspaper-sellers were prohibited from 
 crying their journals in the streets, and the red flag 
 floated for a fortnight over the portal of the H6tel de 
 Ville. 
 
 The wrath of the National Guard against the 
 petitioners was hot. Prud'homme relates in his ' Re- 
 volutions de Paris ' (not in the ' Tribune des Patriotes,' 
 as M. Ed. Fleury states), that he had a narrow escape 
 of being assassinated, in place of Desmoulins, on the 
 Pont Neuf. Freron, who was trampled under foot, 
 also on the Pont Neuf, was saved by the National 
 Guards of his own section. Danton took refuge at 
 the house of his father-in-law, at Fontenay-sous-Bois ; 
 while Camille made his appearance on that very same 
 evening at the Jacobins, where he thundered against 
 Lafayette and Bailly, whom he called ' two arch-Tar- 
 tuifes of civism.' He then promptly sought a place of 
 safety, and concealed himself, not in a cellar like 
 Marat, but in the house of some friend or relative. 
 During this time the armed force charged with the 
 duty of arresting Camille found nobody at the office 
 of the ' Revolutions ' except Roch Marcandier, a fellow- 
 townsman of Camille, who was acting as his secre- 
 tary. This man, who was a hack journalist, afterwards 
 published a number of infamous calumnies concerning 
 Desmoulins, in his ' Histoire des hommes de proie.' 
 On this occasion Marcandier, who was a hot-headed 
 Guisard, made a futile resistance, fired a pistol upon 
 the soldiers, and at length, beaten and exhausted, with 
 his clothes torn into shreds, was dragged out of the 
 house by them. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins published one more number of 
 the ' Revolutions,' signed it with his title of ' Elector of 
 the department of Paris,' dedicated it to Lafayette, 
 ' the phcenix of alguazil-mayors,' and dated it from an 
 imaginary land of liberty, where, he said, he was in 
 exile, like Camillus, his patron. He charged Prud'- 
 homme to supply five numbers of the ' Revolutions de 
 Paris ' to all the subscribers to the ' Revolutions de 
 France et de Brabant,' in order to complete the three 
 months due to them. Then, with the farewell words 
 in which the born journalist speaks — ' It costs me much 
 to lay down my pen' — he retired for a while into 
 oblivion and silence. The day was, however, to come 
 when, fired with fresh ardour, he would again seize his 
 pen and recommence the neyer-ending strife. 
 
 He loved that profession of journalism which is so 
 vile in certain hands, but so noble in those of an honest 
 man ; that profession of which he said : — 
 
 At the present day journalists exercise ministerial func- 
 tions. They denounce, they decree, they rule in unfore- 
 seen matters, they absolve or condemn. Every day they 
 ascend the orator's tribune, and among them are stentorian 
 voices which make themselves heard in the eighty-three 
 departments. Places to hear these orators cost only two sous ; 
 journals rain down every morning like the manna from 
 heaven ; and fifty broadsheets enlighten the world each day, 
 punctually as the sun.—' Rev.,' No. 17, p. 183. 
 
 For the present Camille was unheard from the 
 ' orator's tribune,' and his sun, or rather his lantern, 
 had ceased to give out light. 
 
Temporary Eclipse. 163 
 
 IV. 
 
 Was Camille happy during those hours of respite, 
 waiting, and reflection ? He was at the height of his 
 love-fever. Lucile was about to become a mother, 
 and it may easily be imagined that one so eager for 
 new sensations, emotions, and affections as Camille, 
 would be full of joy at the idea of paternity. All the 
 former trials of his life seem to have been forgotten, 
 and I do not doubt that in his temporary retreat he 
 found a shadow of that blissful ' Otaheite ' which he 
 dreamed of afterwards in his dungeon, when he allowed 
 the secret of his temperament, and his soul, to escape 
 in the words ' I was born to make verses.' 
 
 Such a man was not, however, likely to rest con- 
 tented for any length of time with obscurity, and 
 the quiet happiness which, though it was troubled by 
 fear, he enjoyed. After September 9, 1791, Camille 
 applied to the National Assembly to know whether he 
 still preserved his functions and his title of Elector. 
 The Assembly passed to the order of the day. A month 
 later he presented himself at the Jacobin club, with a 
 speech in his hand. The intention to prosecute him 
 had been abandoned, and Camille re-appeared, not as 
 an orator, but to read a paper containing his opinion 
 upon the political sihiation of the nation, at the open- 
 ing of the second session of the National Assembly. 
 Camille considered that he was bound to reply by this 
 lecture to his recent nomination as Secretary to the 
 Society of Friends of the Constitution. ' I have re- 
 garded this choice as an invitation to break silence,' 
 said he. Indeed, his pen must have been burning his 
 fingers for three months past. 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 In this much-applauded production we still find the 
 Desmoulins of old, aggressive and addicted to personali- 
 ties. Bailly, Lafayette, Dandre, Chapelier, the Assem- 
 bly itself, all are violently attacked, and Desmoulins 
 exclaims : — 
 
 'We did not demand only that royalty should be ex- 
 tinguished, but that a tyranny worse than royalty should 
 not be established in its place; for, I ask, when was any 
 royal individual so inviolable that he would have ventured to 
 treat his subjects as the citizens were treated at Nancy and 
 on the Champ de Mars, without exposing himself to the 
 tragic fate of a Nero or a Caligula ? ' 
 
 This triumph of an evening, this violent reply to 
 the warrant of arrest issued against him, was not suf- 
 ficient for Camille. Once more he regretted his for- 
 saken journal, his ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' 
 — its title had been dishonestly used by another person 
 who continued the publication. ' My journal was a 
 power,' he said to his father; and added, alluding to 
 his having suffered it to drop, ' that was a great folly of 
 which I was guilty.' In the order of things intellectual 
 there exists a special passion, which may be called the 
 passion of journalism. Every man who has once tasted 
 the pleasure of reading off his thoughts printed while 
 they are hot, who has experienced the delight of speak- 
 ing out of his closet to thousands of people, is eternally 
 condemned to this ungrateful, crushing, feverish, ex- 
 hausting task. Camille dreamed only of re-establishing a 
 journal. He had a strong friendship for Freron, his for- 
 mer colleague, induced by the business relations already 
 described between them. This Freron was he whom 
 Lucile laughingly called ' The Rabbit,' and who in 
 later days belonged to the reactionary party ; he who 
 had insisted that Marie Antoinette should be dragged 
 
A New Journal. 165 
 
 through the streets of Paris, like Fredegonde, at the 
 tail of a stallion (June 1 79 1 ) ; he, the Saviour of the 
 South, the Man of Toulon, whom Hebert ridiculed as 
 a dandy (Muscadin), and who afterwards turned Mar- 
 tainville into a collaborator, and made soldiers of ' the 
 gilded youth! In those later days he called Camille 
 ' that clever, simple fellow.'— (See ' Memoire historique 
 sur la reaction royaliste et les massacres du Midi ; ' 
 par Freron, ex-depute. An IV. p. 38.) 
 
 In April 1792, Camille and Freron, 'the people's 
 orator ' and President of the Cordeliers, issued a pro- 
 spectus of a new journal, destined to succeed the ' Re- 
 volutions de France et de Brabant,' and called ' La 
 Tribune des Patriotes.' This time Camille selected 
 one Pierre-Jacques Duplain, who also lived in the 
 Cour du Commerce, to print the journal. Notwith- 
 standing the attractive promises of the prospectus, the 
 ' Tribune des Patriotes ' did not succeed. Only four 
 numbers were published. ' The making of books,' 
 Camille had said, ' is a business which one learns and 
 forgets like any other. Ask Mercier. But it is idleness 
 and want of practice which have pared my nails, and 
 I hope, my dear friends and brethren, that with a little 
 exercise they will soon be as long as your own.' The 
 nails, which did not scratch so deeply as they had 
 formerly done, had not much time to grow ; by the end 
 of May 1 79 1 the journal had ceased to exist. None 
 the less, however, it had had its influence upon the 
 crowd, and Desmoulins had recovered his position and 
 his authority. 
 
 He had also been brought into prominent notice by 
 a violent pamphlet against Brissot, his former friend, 
 who had been one of the witnesses to his marriage 
 contract. Brissot, who was a kind of Quaker, and 
 
1 66 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 whose patriotism Camille had once said he ' envied,' 
 had already alienated the affection of the author of ' La 
 France libre,' when the editor of the ' Patriote Francais' 
 wrote of Desmoulins as a 'young man' (Revolutions 
 de Brabant,' May 1791). 1 Camille never forgave any- 
 body who pretended to lecture or control him. This, 
 even Marat, the redoubtable Marat himself, learned to 
 his cost, when Desmoulins, though he did not wish to 
 break absolutely with so terrible an adversary, said 
 to him : ' After all, Marat, the Republic must be 
 defended, not only with men, but with dogs ! ' 
 
 ' Spite,' said Herault de Sechelles in his ' Pensees' 
 — ' spite is a note of vain characters. This sentiment 
 is the anger of vanity ; it belongs to women and 
 to feminine men ; it breeds small and great atrocities.' 
 Unhappily, Camille. was subject to this weakness. 
 
 Since the cessation of his ' Revolutions,' Camille, 
 who had also sustained considerable pecuniary losses 
 , in consequence of the depreciation of the value of 
 bonds on the Hotel de Ville, had resumed his profes- 
 sion. ' I return, after the Revolution, to the Bar,' he 
 
 1 ' Camille Desmoulins to' Jean-Pierre Brissot, greeting. Hitherto I 
 have not been attacked, except by honourable abuse. I am much 
 indebted to you, Brissot, for having attacked me formally, and sum- 
 moned me before the tribunal of opinion by three longj grave, sententious, 
 and libellous letters. Polemics are my element ; and accusation is 
 the test of the citizen, and the touchstone of Patriotism. I could not per- 
 fectly esteem the man of whom no evil is said. When you said to me, 
 Young man, take and read, all your readers must have perceived that you 
 had a very great idea of yourself, and you are quite right to admire your- 
 self so much. I think it is better to love oneself like Narcissus than to 
 have no passion for anything, and I prefer Sterne to Horace, who 
 preaches the happiness of the nil admirari, and who says, somewhere, if 
 I don't mistake, " As for me, I have all my life been in love with one 
 princess or another, and I hope I shall be so until my death." '— Fleur/s 
 Ed., vol. i. p. 235. 
 
A Quarrel with Brissot. 167 
 
 wrote to his father ; and in his defence of the Society 
 of the Friends of the Constitution, at Marseilles, 
 against Dandre, the advocate pursues the personal 
 polemics of the publicist. In January 1792, he pre- 
 sented himself before the Correctional Police Court on 
 behalf of a woman named Beffroi, and a certain Di- 
 thurbide, a merchant, who were arrested, the one for 
 keeping a gambling-house in the Passage Radziville, the 
 other for being her accomplice. They were both con- 
 demned to six months' imprisonment, the woman at the 
 Salpetriere, the man at Bicetre, notwithstanding their 
 appeals, offers of verification, &c. Desmoulins protested 
 against this arbitrary act in a half-jesting tone, defending 
 play, and pretending that. ' in the forests of Gaul and 
 Germany our fathers (this is incontestable historic truth) 
 played at trente-et-un and even at biribi for their indi- 
 vidual liberty.' He afterwards loudly protested, in 
 reference to the incarceration of his clients, against a 
 measure which confounded ' vices with crimes,' and ' the 
 gamester with the thief.' 
 
 This protest, published in a broadsheet, and pla- 
 carded, gave rise to the hatred which sprang up between 
 Camille and Brissot. The slightly puritanical austerity 
 of Brissot forbade him to allow the broadsheet of his 
 former friend to pass without a protest on his part. The 
 ' Patriote Francais ' attacked the opinion of Desmoulins 
 as contrary to morals. ' This man,' cried Brissot, in 
 allusion to Camille, ' calls himself a patriot that he may 
 insult patriotism.' He accused him of having ' soiled 
 the walls with his scandalous apology for games of 
 chance.' Camille was keenly hurt and offended. 
 That feminine spite of which Herault speaks took 
 possession of him, and he replied to Brissot's attack in 
 a stinging pamphlet. ' Jean-Pierre Brissot Unmasked ' 
 
1 68 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 struck Brissot de Warville in the face, like a sharp 
 stone from a sling. Camille had never been more 
 violent or more virulent. He called Brissot a rogue, 
 and quoted the Prophets against him : ' Foetus sum in 
 proverbium! He invented the verb brissoter, against 
 Brissot (copying Aristophanes in his quarrel with 
 Sophocles) ; he made a street boy say, ' On m'a 
 brissote ma toupie.' He compared the man whom he 
 ironically called the honest Brissot with the wretched 
 Morande, who had signed the acknowledgment of his 
 own dishonour with his own hand. He reproached 
 Brissot — it reads oddly from Camille — with having 
 dared to declare himself a republican * when the word 
 Republic frightened nine-tenths of the nation,' when 
 Robespierre, Carra, Loustallot, and Danton, had 'for- 
 bidden themselves to pronounce that word.' 
 
 Unhappily, this bitter pamphlet, full of hate, was 
 destined, before a year had elapsed, to have a terrible 
 and sinister result. After having written 'Jean-Pierre 
 Brissot Unmasked,' Desmoulins in 1793 published his 
 ' Fragment of the Secret History of the Revolution,' in 
 which the ' Brissotins,' the Girondists, were attacked and 
 given up to the judgment which awaited them. These 
 two pamphlets are among the writings which one earn- 
 estly desires to blot out of the works of such a man. 
 These are among the pages which Desmoulins re- 
 gretted so bitterly, when from his prison he turned a 
 mental glance back to his ' too numerous writings.' 
 
 When Camille was writing his ' Brissot Unmasked ' 
 he was surrounded by pleas for gentleness, kindness, 
 and indulgence. But angry self-love pardons nothing ; 
 it is implacable. Camille was happy ; he might have 
 already adopted the mild tone of his later days. 
 
Danton. 169 
 
 His adored Lucile was about to give him a son. 
 The sunshine of love and joy dwelt upon the little 
 household. Camille and his wife lived at No. 1 in the 
 Cour du Commerce, Saint-Andre des Arts, which had 
 been built on the former site of a tennis-court, and 
 they had for neighbours on the upper story, M. and 
 Madame Danton. How often have Camille and 
 Danton left the house together, arm in arm, to go to 
 the Cordeliers' club, close by. In a letter written by 
 Camille to his father, April 3, 1792, he says, speaking 
 of Danton : ' A man who esteems me too much to 
 extend to myself the hatred which he bears to my 
 opinions.' Danton, strong, manly, threatening, but 
 kindly, must indeed have more than once reprimanded 
 the sarcastic Camille. 
 
 The neighbours visited each other frequently, 
 although Camille was, at this period, under the influence - 
 of Robespierre rather than of Danton. Stanislas Fre- 
 ron, Frdron-Lapin, came often to the Cour du Com- 
 merce, and Brune, the future Marshal of France, who 
 was then a member of the Cordeliers' club. Brune was 
 an educated man, and in 1788 had published a book 
 called 'Voyage pittoresque et sentimental dans plu 
 sieurs Provinces Occidentales de France.' It was a 
 medley of prose and verse, in which Sterne was mixed 
 up with Chapelle and Bachaumont. He was working 
 at this time at other literary tasks, and he quoted 
 Horace just as Camille quoted Cicero. The friendly 
 circle which was so soon to be broken up by death had 
 other members. Madame Duplessis came to Lucile's 
 house occasionally, accompanied by her second daughter 
 Adele, whom Robespierre had a passing fancy to marry. 
 What laughter, what joys, what projects, what dreams 
 
1 70 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 must that little dwelling have heard and seen ! There 
 were many such quiet corners where the idyllic took 
 refuge from the angry crowd and the roar of cannon. 
 It has required the trials through which France has 
 recently passed to make us understand this aspect of 
 that terrible old time, to make us comprehend these 
 profound antitheses : kisses amid the discharge of 
 artillery ; smiles lighting up faces blanched with pain ; 
 lovers who go on loving throughout every kind of 
 disaster, like the swallows who make their nest in the 
 angles of walls which have been riddled with bomb- 
 shells. 
 
 These fierce beings loved each other. They 
 smiled in the midst of their cares and their terrors. 
 Camille tended his pregnant wife, and was impatient 
 for the birth of his son. He wrapped himself .up in 
 the possession of his happiness. At this time his 
 father asked him if he could not purchase the small 
 patrimony at Guise, the house in which Camille and 
 his brothers and sisters were born. M. Desmoulins 
 was in needy circumstances, and he thought of selling 
 the house, which- was already mortgaged. Camille 
 replied : — 
 
 ' How can you suppose that at a moment when everything 
 is half as dear again as it used to be, I could buy a pro- 
 perty worth 30,000 francs out of an income of 4,000 ? Your 
 house, the house in which I was born, is dear to me : no one 
 can understand better than I the- pleasure with which Ulysses 
 beheld the smoke from Ithaca afar off ; but with 4,000 francs, 
 which at present represent only 2,000 livres, how could I give 
 30,000 for a house ? ' 
 
 He pleads ' household expenses.' He has to think 
 of the cost of the ' layette.' A little while and there 
 will be a child to provide for. 
 
L ittle Horace. 171 
 
 Horace- Camille Desmoulins, — he who will remain 
 for ever, in the eyes of history, ' the little Horace,' 
 Camille's son, whom Robespierre danced so often on 
 his knees — was born July 6, 1792. On the 8th, 
 Camille presented him at the Municipality, followed by 
 Laurent Lecointre (of Versailles) and Antoine Merlin 
 (of Thionville), deputies to the National Assembly. 
 Horace Desmoulins figures in the first act of the 
 ' civil estate ' of the Municipality of Paris, as the first 
 child who was presented before the Altar of the 
 country. In .' La Presse,' of November 24, 1847, we 
 find : ' On July 8, 1792, year IV. of Liberty, Camille 
 demanded the formal statement of the civil estate of 
 his son, being desirous of sparing himself any future 
 reproach on his part for having bound him to religious 
 opinions which could not then have been his own.' 
 Shortly afterwards, Camille wrote to his father con- 
 cerning the child : 'He was immediately put out to 
 nurse at l'lle Adam (Seine-et-Oise), with the little 
 Danton.' No doubt Lucile was too delicate to nurse 
 him. She, worshipper of Rousseau as she had been, 
 would surely have acted on the instructions of the 
 author of ' rtmile ; ' but it is probable that Camille, who 
 was a disciple of Voltaire rather than of Jean- Jacques, 
 dissuaded his wife from suckling her child. 
 
 Camille had need of all the domestic happiness 
 which he enjoyed at this time to divert his mind from 
 the pecuniary anxieties under which he, as well as his 
 parents at Guise, was labouring. He was, in fact, on 
 the eve of losing a considerable portion of the dowry 
 of Lucile, which was placed, as it was called then, ' on 
 the King.' He was, besides, somewhat hampered by 
 the failure of his ' Tribune des Patriotes.' At the very 
 moment when he would fain have wielded a more 
 
i "J 2 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 cutting weapon, a sharper pen, the caricaturists fell upon 
 him, and his enemies did not lay down arms even before 
 his domestic hearth. A royalist comic composition 
 exhibited, in July 1792, what it called ' The Thaw.' 
 This was the general cracking and break up of the 
 new democratic world, while the terrified revolutionaries 
 took to their heels and fled. Among the latter was a 
 figure, hastily escaping, hampered with the weight 
 of its lantern ; this, Janot Desmoulins, was Camille, 
 ' wearing,' says -M. Fleury, ' the cap of the Phrygian 
 slaves.' No wonder the pamphleteer, reduced to 
 silence, and without sufficient moral courage to oppose 
 the spectacle of a quiet life in a happy home to such 
 attacks, was furious! With such a temperament as 
 Camille's, he could not keep quiet during the crisis 
 which France was then passing through, and in the 
 face of the attacks which were made upon himself. The 
 strife between the Monarchy and the Revolution had 
 entered upon an implacable phase. The king, who 
 had hesitated for some time, who had refused to yield 
 to just demands lest he might be, as he said, con- 
 strained to endure heavy exactions, was finally follow- 
 ing the deplorable counsels of those who urged him to 
 reaction. T he Revolution was served by hatred and the 
 fear of liberty. ' It must be said plainly,' wrote M. de 
 la Marche, a year before, to M. de Mercy-Argenteau, 
 ' the king is incapable of reigning! On March 1 1, 1792, 
 Pellenc wrote to La Marck, ' They say that the king 
 conducts himself in private like a man who is preparing 
 for death.' The Court, in consternation at his resig- 
 nation, which might lead to martyrdom, but could not 
 lead to success, imagined that the popular movement 
 (iould be suppressed by the Swiss Guard and the 
 
The Kings Incapacity to reign. 173 
 
 ' knights of the dagger,' and this, although June 20 had 
 proved that the danger was great and the people were 
 strong. When Paris was threatened with the closing 
 of its clubs and the arrest of its orators, Paris rose. 
 ' Persist, Sire ! ' wrote Lafayette from the camp at 
 Maubeuge to Louis XVI. When Roland, who had 
 been made Minister of the Interior some time 
 previously, presented himself in a round hat and tied 
 shoes, like Franklin's, the Master of the Ceremonies was 
 scandalised, and, approaching Dumouriez, said, in 
 an offended tone, ' Monsieur has no buckles in his 
 shoes ! ' ' Ah, monsieur,' replied Dumouriez, with 
 ironical calm, ' all is then lost ! ' Such was the state of 
 things at Court, while the faubourgs were hardly to be 
 restrained by Santerre — who followed, rather than 
 directed, the popular movements — when the nation was 
 irritated by Bertrand de Motteville's open favouring 
 of 'the emigration,' and its knowledge that the king 
 submitted to, but did not accept, Roland. Everywhere 
 the Queen's saying, ' All this tapage will soon come 
 to an end,' was repeated and commented on. To 
 talk thus of tapage was to let it loose. Besides, the 
 Court did more than talk ; it acted. The king 
 dismissed three members of his ministry, the three 
 Girondists, ' factious, insolent persons,' he called 
 them to Dumouriez. ' My patience is worn out,' said 
 Louis. 
 
 The Girondists did not make any delay about 
 their answer. ' Terror,' said Vergniaud, pointing to 
 the Tuileries, ' has come out of that palace often 
 enough ; now let it re-enter it, in the name of the law.' 
 Legendre, making himself the interpreter of Danton's 
 great voice, exclaimed, in Santerre's hearing, 'It is to 
 
1 74 ■ Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the Tuileries that we must go and demand the recall 
 of the patriot ministers ! ' They went to the Tuileries. 
 Those who repaired thither were called ' petitioners,' 
 but they numbered 20,000 men. This armed crowd, 
 headed by the colossal Marquis de Saint- Huruge, in 
 the costume of a porter from the Halles, defiled through 
 the Assembly, then speedily made their way into the 
 Tuileries, where they invaded the apartments and 
 spread themselves over them like the waves of a 
 tumultuous, sea. Wild, dishevelled women surrounded 
 the Queen. Marie Antoinette, pale and unmoved, met 
 their invectives with disdain. The king said, in his 
 phlegmatic way, ' I am not afraid ; I have received the 
 Sacraments.' ' 
 
 Some one had placed a red woollen cap on the 
 head of the little Dauphin, as he stood closely pressed 
 against his mother. Petion, the Mayor of Paris, took 
 it off, saying, ' This child is being stifled.' The king, 
 who was suffering equally from the heat, put on the 
 Phrygian cap. His faithful troops dared not move, 
 lest the king should be hurt, and disorder turned into 
 massacre. Isnard, Vergniaud, Merlin de Thionville, 
 and finally, Petion, at length set the king free. At 
 eight in the evening the palace was vacated, and 
 Louis XVI. indignantly flung down at his feet the red 
 cap which he had worn until then. 
 
 The following passage from Camille's ' Reflexions 
 sur le 20 Juin, 1792 ' (Baron de Girardot's Collection), 
 which has been hitherto unpublished, gives us the 
 exact tone of the revolutionary party at this time : — 
 
 'It is certain that all parties wished for an insurrection; 
 but also that those among the Jacobins who have, hitherto, 
 been least deceived in their political judgments upon men 
 and events, were apprehensive of the results of that insur- 
 
Camille 's Reflections on June 20. 175 
 
 rection. We saw clearly that violence would only be profitable 
 at Coblentz, or to Lafayette, or other ambitious persons, 
 and would not serve the cause of liberty in the least. After 
 I had applauded the petitioners in the Council-General 
 of the Commune, when they came, five days in advance, to 
 give notice to the Municipality that they proposed to celebrate 
 the commemoration of the oath of the Jeu de Paume on 
 June 20 ; after I had represented the procession of pikes 
 which defiled before the National Assembly as a mere blessing 
 of the flags, as a patriotic review, and very useful, in so far as 
 it would have an imposing effect on the counter-revolutionists 
 and the factions, and would restrain them by fear of the great 
 number of the friends of the Constitution ; after all this 
 I made every possible effort at the Jacobins' to secure that 
 this raising of the shields should not be anything more 
 serious than a comminatory insurrection. Although I rarely 
 demand my turn at the Jacobins', I spoke at three con- 
 secutive meetings on the following text : " Nothing is more 
 likely to ruin the affairs of the Jacobins than a partial 
 insurrection. The National Assembly, by its decree which 
 ordered the publication of the address of the Marseillais 
 in the eighty-three departments, had in reality decreed a 
 general insurrection for July 14, and convened the Nation 
 for that day on the Champ de Mars ; that we must wait 
 for that great armed National Assembly like our ancestors 
 in their Champ de Mars or their Champ de Mai ; that 
 the Jacobins ought to profess more strongly than ever their 
 attachment to the Constitution, because on the coarse mind 
 of the multitude only words impress themselves ; and since 
 the word 'Constitution' has become, in the eighteenth century, 
 as magical a rallying cry as the word ' Pope ' was in the 
 twelfth, they who shall defend the Constitution will naturally 
 be the victors, and they who shall attack it the vanquished. 
 The Constitution is like a great ditch on whose banks the 
 two parties are ranged opposite to one another ; the con- 
 federate royalists are more anxious to cross it than we are ; 
 but the first to do so will fall in and choke it up with dead 
 men, thus forming a bridge for the other. It is easy to 
 perceive that the noble, official, and wealthy classes — the 
 
1 76 Gamille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Coblentzists and the Feuillants, wanted to keep the two 
 Chambers for themselves ; to instal themselves, so to speak, 
 in the salon, and relegate us, the people, to the antechamber ; 
 but if the Jacobins have only sufficient good sense and self- 
 restraint to go on protesting incessantly that they did riot 
 desire the Republic, but the Constitution, the whole Consti- 
 tution, nothing but the Constitution, the two plenipotentiaries 
 for Coblentz and the Feuillants, the cousins Lafayette and 
 Bouille, will be very shortly puzzled how to make the nation 
 ratify their secret treaty." 
 
 ' This is the substance of what I said at the Jacobins, where 
 I especially recommended that the insurrection should be 
 calm, and that we should display a profound attachment to 
 the Constitution. I pointed out that royalty was decaying 
 day by day, that the life of Louis XVI. was precious to the 
 Jacobins ; that if he died we ought to have him stuffed, as 
 Mirabeau had said ; and that the very best thing which could 
 happen would be that he should dismiss the Jacobin ministers 
 and send for others from Coblentz.' 
 
 Thus, it is evident that, in resisting the current 
 which had become national, Louis XVI. was playing 
 the game of his enemies. He might have saved 
 everything by swimming with the tide. But when, on 
 June 21, Petion, in order to calm down the Parisian 
 effervescence, posted placards declaring that the law 
 forbade armed assemblies, and reproved every kind of 
 violence, and added, ' Remember that those peoples 
 are most free who are most obedient to the law,' the 
 king answered, no doubt boldly, but without tact, and 
 with utter ignorance of the situation, that nothing 
 should be obtained from him by violence, and ordered 
 an enquiry into the misdemeanours of the 20th. One 
 more idle stroke of resistance, and it was too late. 
 The 20th of June might have been for the king the 
 flash of lightning which reveals the depth of a yawning 
 abyss ; but Louis XVI. saw nothing, he would see 
 
The Foreign Spectre. 177 
 
 nothing, and so the flash was simply that which pre- 
 cedes the thunder. 
 
 In this work, the history of a single individual, it 
 would be impossible to give the space which is due 
 to them to even the most important events of the 
 period. I do not pretend to relate the drama itself, 
 but only the parts which certain actors pkyed in it. 
 Camille Desmoulins, Danton, Chabot, and Santerre 
 have been accused of having prepared the invasion 
 of the Tuileries and the insurrection of August 10, to 
 which the events of June 20 were only the prelude. 
 I repeat that the Court only, by a final laying down of 
 arms, could have prevented that catastrophe. But it 
 was not a formal kiss of peace which was requisite ; 
 it was a genuine embrace, without reserve or double- 
 meaning ; a general reconciliation in the face of the 
 enemy whose guns were threatening French soil. 
 
 Louis XVL forgot that the spectre of the foreigner 
 was only too real and present to the inflamed imagina- 
 tion of the nation. He was trying to defend, one 
 after another, the prerogatives which were gone for 
 ever. Thus, on July 14, at the Fete of the Federa- 
 tion, he refused to set fire to the ' tree of feudality,' 
 because, he said, feudality no longer existed. Jean 
 Debry seized the torch and fired the tree. The King's 
 public refusal, his resistance in the face of the multi- 
 tude, certainly displayed courage and determination, but 
 it must be admitted that it was not calculated to con- 
 ciliate the alienated feelings of the people. 
 
 At this time Camille had flung himself completely 
 into the stirring and feverish life of Paris. Lucile 
 was with Madame Duplessis at Bourg-la-Reine : he 
 writes to her as follows : — 
 
 N 
 
178 Camille Desmotdins and his Wife. 
 
 ' My good Lucile, don't cry, I beg, because you do not see 
 your Monsieur " Hon " ' (this was a nickname by which Lucile 
 occasionally called Camille, who stammered a little, and used 
 to begin his sentences with hon, hon). ' He is up to his neck 
 in the Revolution. How delighted you would have been to 
 see me to-day in the municipal cavalcade. This was the first 
 time I played a part in public ; I was as proud as Don Quixote. 
 Nevertheless, my good Rouleau, my Cachan hen, was sitting 
 up behind me ' (Rouleau was a pet. name for Lucile, and 
 ' Cachan hen ' refers to a hen and her chickens which she 
 and Camille had seen at Cachan). ' Don't love me so much, 
 my dearest, if it gives you so much pain ! I dined at Robes- 
 pierre's to-day, and talked ever so much about Rouleau, 
 Rouleau, my poor Rouleau. Now I am finishing my speech, 
 for I am told off to read it to the Municipality on Tuesday. 
 The rentiers of the General Council are desperately frightened 
 by a few words which I spoke yesterday in the tribune, 
 and which were much applauded. This day I have conse- 
 crated to proclaiming the country in danger, mounted on my 
 horse in the midst of three thousand National Guards and 
 twenty pieces of cannon. To-morrow, I — (blank). I do not 
 venture to talk to you about your baby, lest I should bring 
 the tears into your eyes. It is eleven o'clock. I write so 
 that you may have my letter to-morrow ; I am going to rest, 
 but you will not lay your arm round my neck. I shall make 
 haste with my speech, that I may fly to your arms. Adieu, 
 my good angel, my Lolotte, mother of the little lizard. Kiss 
 . Daronne ' (Madame Duplessis) ' and Horace for me.' (Copied 
 from the original.) 
 
 Camille was not plotting in the dark, as has been 
 said of him, any more than Danton and his friends. 
 The hour had come when conspiracy ceased to exist ; 
 it was now open war. In the discourse which Camille 
 had mentioned to Lucile, he was about to endeavour to 
 tranquillise Paris respecting the consequences of such 
 a crisis, to cheer up the class of small traders, of petty 
 shopkeepers, of whom he said — and one cannot read 
 
Camilles Speech. i yg 
 
 his words without an aching heart — ' they are more 
 afraid of revolutionists than of Hulans ! ' The discourse 
 is very eloquent, and when Desmoulins dreams of the 
 ' agape ' which shall unite ' us, disdainful bourgeois ' 
 and the people in fraternal bonds, the reader is carried 
 away by the vision which was then, and still is, only a 
 dream. 
 
 ' If they dare to attack us,' he says, like a true Athenian of 
 Paris, ' it is because we do not drink together ! Well then, let 
 us do to make liberty secure what Crassus did to make despot- 
 ism secure. We cannot entertain the French people as Csesar 
 did,, who entertained the Roman people at twenty-two thou- 
 sand tables ; or as Crassus did, who made a feast for the Roman 
 people and afterwards gave to each citizen as much corn as 
 he could use in three months. It seems that there is neither 
 patriotism nor virtue except in poverty, or at least in mode- 
 rate fortune. But let us spread tables before our doors, if, 
 indeed, it be true that we believe in equality ; let us entertain 
 our equals for one day as the Romans entertained their slaves 
 for a whole week ; let us celebrate our deliverance from 
 despotism and from the aristocracy, as the Jews celebrated 
 their deliverance from Pharaoh ; let us eat together before 
 our doors the national roast mutton, even as they ate their 
 paschal lamb. Come, respectable artizan, let thy hands, 
 hardened by toil, meet mine, which have only held a penj 
 without contempt ; come, let us drink together, let us embrace, 
 and our enemies shall be overthrown ! ' 
 
 The conclusion of this harangue is more threaten- 
 ing, and smells of powder, August 10 is not far off. 
 
 'If the National Assembly,' concludes Desmoulins, 'does 
 not believe that it can save the Constitution, let it declare 
 in the words of the Constitution, and, as was done among the 
 Romans '(these eternal classical recollections!), 'that it re- 
 mits the charge to each of the citizens individually, and to 
 them all collectively, by the decree ut quisque reipublicce 
 consulat. So soon as the tocsin is sounded let all the nation 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 assemble ; let each man, as in Rome, be invested with the right 
 to punish known conspirators with death ; and one single day 
 of anarchy will do more for the security of liberty and the 
 salvation of the country than four years of a National 
 Assembly.' 
 
 Let me pause here for a moment to protest against 
 this theory, whose only aim is to raise coups-d 'dtat to 
 the rank of government, and let me say that I hold such 
 a doctrine to be fatal to the liberty, to the morality, and 
 even to the life of nations. 
 
 We need not dwell upon this concluding phrase, 
 and on the perpetual recurrence of the memories of old 
 Rome which we find throughout Camille's writings, 
 and which deprive him, and the greater number of 
 his contemporaries, who were captivated, like him- 
 self, by antique tragedy, of the power of compre- 
 hending modern liberty which rests upon law. One 
 thing is certain ; the much desired day was one of 
 anarchy rather than of battle. From Wednesday, 
 July ii, the country — dear invaded France, happier, 
 however, than in 1814, 1815, and 1870, because she 
 repulsed her invaders, — was declared to be in danger. 
 ' Citizens, the Country is in danger !' were the terms of 
 the decree of the Assembly. The army, which had 
 not yet become the amalgam invented by Bouchotte 
 — an amalgam which created the true French army — 
 was already fighting bravely. 
 
 A column of the dmigrds — voltigeurs of Conde's 
 troops — finding themselves face to face with the former 
 regiments of the king, which were now the regiments 
 of the nation, shouted to the latter, ' Desert ! Desert ! 
 brave men of the Dauphin's regiment ! ' But they 
 were answered by a furious charge of the regiment with 
 
The ' Marseillaise! 18 1 
 
 During this time all Paris was reading the insolent 
 manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick (it is preserved 
 in the Archives and signed Brunsvig), in the streets, 
 and at the clubs. People showed each other the 
 threatening caricatures which the royalists concocted, 
 feats of fancy representing the foreign powers ' making 
 rabid deputies, and Jacoquins (Jacobins) dance the 
 ballet of master Nicolas' turkeys.' The sections 
 became troubled and threatening. Camille Desmoulins 
 spoke loudly of the justice which was coming. Thirty 
 thousand citizens of the section of Gravilliers — a boil- 
 ing revolutionary caldron — and all those of the section 
 of Mauconseil, proclaimed the deposition of Louis XVI. 
 They were seconded by forty-six sections who declared 
 that ' Louis the False' was no longer King of France. 
 The unfortunate king saw that things were growing 
 threatening indeed. 
 
 The duel was in fact imminent. The king col- 
 lected around him all those who were still faithful to 
 him, the last combatants of the expiring monarchy, his 
 grenadiers of the Filles Saint-Thomas, and his Swiss 
 Guard. He sent blue cards to his gentlemen, which 
 meant ' Come ! ' He reckoned over and over again 
 the number of devoted servants of whom he could 
 dispose. Poor Louis ! His last battle was lost in ad- 
 vance. The force of circumstances was against him. 
 
 One evening, in the twilight, when the storm was 
 growling outside, and Louis and the Queen were sit- 
 ting silent and thoughtful in the heavy, sulphurous 
 atmosphere, a grand, terrifying, superb, unknown song 
 burst upon their ears ; a song which even the paro- 
 dies of 1870 have failed to render ridiculous. The 
 King was astounded, the Queen started and trembled. 
 That which they heard then, they had never heard 
 
1 82 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 before. It was something indescribable and irresis- 
 tible, a tremendous threat, the cry of a nation at bay, 
 the trumpet blast of a people getting under arms, the 
 rallying cry of liberty and deliverance, the triumphant 
 neigh of the courser too long held in check, as he shakes 
 off the hold of his master, the grand national refrain, 
 the glorious song of free France ; it was the ' Marseil- 
 laise.' 
 
 The ' Marseillaise ' is the song of the revolution in 
 arms, as the ' Chant du depart ' is its hymn of pomp 
 and glory, and the 'Ca ira' is its threatening growl ; the 
 ' Marseillaise ' is made for the frontier, the ' Chant du 
 depart ' for the Champ de Mars, and the ' Ca ira ' for 
 the streets. 
 
 What must the Queen have felt when those fierce 
 accents struck upon her ear ? No more, for her, was 
 the sound of the clavecin to come through the pine- 
 woods of Schoenbrunn ; no more was she to listen to 
 the sweet Swiss air of ' Pauvre Jacques ' at Trianon, to 
 Rousseau's romance, ' Le Devin du village,' or the 
 royalist hymns of G re try. Instead of these came the 
 military march music sung by the federates of Mar- 
 seilles as they entered Paris, and thundered under the 
 windows of the Tuileries, making the panes in the case- 
 ments rattle : — 
 
 Allons, enfants de la patrie, 
 Le jour de gloire est arrive" ! 
 
 The fierce, dauntless, terrible Marseillais— those 
 men of Marseilles whom the ' spadassins ' of Count 
 d'Aiglemont had sworn to put, one by one, to the 
 sword — chanted their national song with clear metallic 
 voices, full of pitiless resolution. 
 
The Tenth of August. 183 
 
 Antoinette felt that they were lost. And yet, incredi- 
 ble as it seems, it was the king and his adherents who 
 commenced the attack. The body-guards insulted the 
 deputies ; they threatened the deputies of the people. 
 Those gentlemen, who, with the Count d'Hervilly at 
 their head, were afterwards to fight and die so bravely, 
 exposed royalty to its ultimate defeat by their sheer 
 light-heartedness. 
 
 The rejection of the decree of accusation against 
 Lafayette, who was accused of having designed to 
 carry off the National Assembly, caused the general 
 outbreak. On August 9, 1792, at midnight, the 
 tocsin was rung. This was the signal. Paris rose en 
 masse and marched on the Tuileries. The faubourgs 
 were illuminated. Anxious and excited crowds 
 gathered around the municipalities. The presidents 
 of the sections, pale, resolute men, announced to the 
 people that the hour had come when they must con- 
 quer or die. 
 
 The Parisian municipality entered the H6tel de 
 Ville, and assumed the direction of the battle. The 
 serene and peaceful night was bright with stars. The 
 profiles of the crowd showed sharply in the luminous 
 shade of the streets. At the palace, the guards were 
 drinking, and waiting. The victorious insurrectionists 
 came upon heaps of bottles which these guards had 
 emptied to the cry of ' Down with the Nation ! ' and 
 ' Long live the King ! ' Louis, who knew now that 
 his counsellors had been his ruin, was already thinking 
 of seeking a refuge in the National Assembly. Too 
 late, he comprehended that only the law could protect 
 him. At eight o'clock he left his palace and took 
 shelter in the reporters' box at the Assembly. 
 
 The people had already attacked the Carrousel, and 
 
184 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife.- 
 
 having been repulsed by the Swiss guards, they had 
 returned in good order, dragging cannons with them. 
 They did not falter under the cross-fire from the 
 palace ; but they carried the Tuileries room by room, 
 corridor after corridor. The staircases, the galleries, 
 the chapel, all witnessed terrible fighting. The con- 
 querors, now masters of the palace, flung the corpses of 
 the Swiss guards out of the windows, and such as had 
 contrived to escape from the building were massacred ,. 
 under the chestnut trees. They mustered round the 
 small basin, and beat a retreat in good order. But 
 the poor, brave fellows were killed, and they died 
 intrepidly. 
 
 It is told that during this terrible struggle, a young 
 man, wearing a threadbare coat, slight of figure and 
 yellow of face, with contracted features and brilliant 
 eyes, gazed at the Tuileries, which, it was said, that 
 night, no one should enter ever more ; and then at the 
 people, drunk with joy, who should never henceforth 
 have a master. 
 
 That man was Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 ' Is this,' he said to himself, ' the thawing of the 
 nation ? ' (The words are his own.) 
 
 Then, turning his eyes on the Assembly, yonder, 
 where Louis XVI. was quietly eating a roast chicken, 
 while Vergniaud was talking about summoning a 
 National Convention. 
 
 ' Fool,' he muttered, ' hadn't you guns to sweep 
 away the populace ? ' 1 
 
 The man who was to profit by the revolution and 
 to succeed the Convention, then on the eve of its birth 
 
 1 He had said on the previous evening to Pozzo di Borgo, that with 
 two Swiss battalions and one hundred cavalry, he would undertake to give 
 
Lucile s Note-Book. 1 8 5 
 
 at the Tuileries, was already lurking like a beast- 
 tamer, behind the people, on August 10. 
 
 V. 
 
 What part had Camille and his friends been playing 
 throughout that day ? On this point we have the 
 testimony of a unique document. It is an extract 
 from the pocket-book of Lucile Desmoulins, dated 
 December 12, in which she relates with poignant 
 eloquence, in sentences which palpitate with terror, 
 anguish, hope and love, all that she underwent during 
 those dark hours. On Thursday, August 9, Lucile, 
 who had returned from the country on the preceding 
 day, wrote the following lines in her pocket-book ; 
 lines which contrast strongly in the truth of their 
 emotion with the vague reveries of her girlish years : 
 
 ' What will become of us ? I can endure no more. 
 Camille, O my poor Camille ! what will become of you ? I 
 have no strength to breathe. This night, this fatal night ! 
 My God ! if it be true that Thou hast any existence, save the 
 men that are worthy of Thee. We want to be free. O 
 God ! the cost of it ! ' 
 
 "Who can read without emotion the pages in which 
 the young wife, still a prey to torments of apprehension, 
 recalling the sufferings of the day before, lives them 
 twice over in her vivid memory ? 
 
 ' I had come back from the country on August 8,' writes 
 Lucile. ' The public mind was already in a ferment. An 
 attempt had been made to assassinate Robespierre. On the 
 9th I had some of the Marseillais to dinner, and we amused 
 Ourselves pretty well. After dinner we all went to Danton's. 
 The mother was crying ; she looked very sad ; the child had a 
 bewildered look ; Danton was resolute. As to me, I laughed 
 -like a madcap. They were afraid the affair would not take 
 
1 86 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 place. " How can anyoift laugh like that ? " Madame Danton 
 said over and over again. " Alas ! " I replied, " it is a sign 
 that I shall shed many tears this evening." ' 
 
 We can picture the young wife and mother ner- 
 vously disguising her uneasiness under this affected 
 gaiety, this convulsive laughter. By and bye, she 
 goes down into the street, which is filled with people 
 crying ' Long live the Nation ! ' and she is frightened. 
 She hears the terrible tocsin, that uplifted voice of an 
 alarmed city. Going back to Danton, she finds him 
 agitated : 
 
 ' Very soon,' she continues, ' I saw that they were all 
 arming themselves. Camille, my dear Camille, came in with 
 a gun.' (This time poor Lucile hid her face in her hands and 
 wept.) ' However, as I did not want to show so much weak- 
 ness, or to tell Camille out loud that I did not wish him 
 to mix himself up with all this, I watched for a moment when 
 I might speak to him without being overheard, and tell him 
 all my fears. He reassured me by saying that he would not 
 leave Danton. I have known since,' adds Lucile, with a 
 certain conjugal pride and ill-disguised fear, ' / have known 
 since that he exposed himself to danger' 
 
 Freron, who was determined to fight, asked nothing 
 better than to die. '.I am weary of life,' he said. It 
 happened strangely that, of all the group of men assem- 
 bled there ready for the strife, he was to be the sole 
 survivor. Twenty months later they were dead, and 
 he was safe. 
 
 Danton, after he had snatched some brief rest, set 
 off late in the night for the H6tel de Ville. ' The 
 tocsin of the Cordeliers rang,' says Lucile ; ' it rang for 
 a long time. Alone, bathed in tears, on my knees by 
 the window, my face hidden in my handkerchief, I 
 listened to the sound of that fatal bell.' Madame 
 Danton, also, was enduring similar pangs of distress 
 
The Insurrection. 187 
 
 and terror. From time to time during the night mes- 
 sengers brought news to the two poor women. Some- 
 times the news was consoling, sometimes it was alarming, 
 but it was generally vague. Thus they learned, to their 
 great terror, that it was in contemplation at the ' Com- 
 munal House ' to march on the Tuileries. At one 
 o'clock Camille came in, and slept for a few minutes, 
 with his head on Lucile's shoulder. When day broke, 
 Madame Danton, who was restless, came down to 
 Lucile's rooms. Then Camille went to bed ; Lucile 
 had a bed made up hastily in the salon for Madame 
 Danton, and the 'three tried to snatch a moment's 
 repose, the tocsin still ringing in their ears. But 
 Camille soon rose and went out again, and the two 
 women, left alone, endeavoured to eat their breakfast, 
 to read, to forget. All of a sudden Lucile cried out, 
 ' They are firing guns ! ' Madame Danton listened, 
 caught the sound, turned pale, sank down, and fainted. 
 ' I undressed her myself,' says Lucile ; ' I was ready to 
 fall down, but the necessity for helping her gave me 
 strength. She came to herself.' 
 
 What life-likeness there is in this narrative of 
 Lucile's ! The real truth is there indeed ! Now a 
 neighbour goes by, shouting that all this is the fault of 
 Camille. Again, the baker shuts his door in Lucile's 
 face when the two women wish to pass through his 
 shop so as to get out of the Cour du Commerce. What 
 terrors, what anguish they endured ! At length 
 Camille comes back. The people are victorious. 
 Camille had seen the head of Suleau, the journalist, fall. 
 ' Suleau's head was cut off,' writes Lucile, 'and carried 
 about the streets. Camille told him, " You are going 
 to fight for the king to-morrow, then you will be 
 hanged ! " " And his words have proved only too true.' 
 
1 88 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife.,. 
 
 On the nth, Camille and Lucile took the precaution of 
 sleeping at the house of a friend named Robert, in the 
 Rue de Tournon. ' The next day,' writes Lucile, 'when 
 I went home, I learned that Danton was in the 
 Ministry.' 2 
 
 Camille, who had harangued and led the men of 
 the faubourg on the ioth, became, as Danton said, 
 Secretary-General to the Minister of Justice, by the 
 grace of the cannon. 
 
 ' If I had been conquered,' said Danton, proudly, 
 at the National Assembly, ' I should have been 
 criminal.' He. triumphed. The section of the Quinze- 
 Vingts declared that, like Gorsas, Prud'homme, and 
 Carra, Desmoulins had deserved well of the country. 
 Camille took up his position seriously from the com- 
 mencement, and his first words were these: 'It remains 
 for us to make France happy and flourishing as well 
 as free. This is the task to which I am about to de- 
 vote my energies.' And, in fact, he did occupy him- 
 self, together with Danton, in addressing a circular 
 to the magistracy of France, to protest against abuses, 
 and to organise justice. He thought of himself, and 
 of the satisfaction of his vanity, only after he had con- 
 cerned himself about the welfare of the nation. Never- 
 theless, he did not forget that the Guisards had 
 formerly ridiculed his hopes, and in writing to his 
 father he remarked that they would be filled with 
 bitterness and envy at the news of what they would 
 
 1 Lucile's letter is quoted by M. Beaumont- Vassy in his ' Memoires 
 Secrets du dix-neuvieme Sie"cle.' It also contains the following striking 
 details: ' All will be finished in a week. They are smashing the mirrors 
 in the chateau, and have just brought us some sponges and brushes be- 
 longing to the Queen. They tread the plate under their feet, but do not 
 take any of it, Oh, what a ferment ! ' 
 
Camille in Office, 1 89 
 
 call his ' fortune.' And then he gives expression to 
 the following reflection, inspired by that ' fortune : ' 
 
 ' It has but rendered me more than ever melancholy 
 and anxious, and made me feel more keenly all the 
 ills of my fellow-citizens, and the miseries of human 
 life.' 
 
 At last his heart beats. We feel that pity is born . 
 in the breast of the man who has entered, as he says, 
 'the palace of the Lamoignons and the Maupeons 
 through the breach in the palace of the Tuileries.' 
 A year later, on the recurrent 10th of August, tired of 
 this ephemeral power, grieved and heart-sick at the 
 spectacle of the public wounds, his dreams, his desires, 
 his hopes turned towards that little town of Guise. 
 He mocks it in 1792 : he will long for it in 1793. And 
 then we shall hear him cry, ' Why can I not be as ob- 
 scure as I am well known ? O ubi campi, Giusidque ! 
 Where is the refuge, the cayern which might hide me 
 from every eye with my wife, my child, and my books ? ' 
 He will long, as his father foretold, once more to behold 
 those blessed and peaceful banks of the Oise, and 
 the waters of the fountain of St. Martin la Bussertiere, 
 and the beautiful alleys of the forest of Fay, ' which 
 are the work of our cousin Deviefville.' Shall he ever 
 see them more? On September 15, 1792, he is ap- 
 pointed by the Executive Council to inspect Laon, 
 Soissons and Guise, and to decide whether the de- 
 nunciations against the judges in each of these cities 
 merit consideration by the Minister of Justice ; and, 
 acting under the advice of his father, he will display 
 the qualities which are proper to that administration. 
 His father, whose affection is jealous, like that 
 of lovers, as he says, speaks to him in noble and 
 simple words. The novel position of his son, far from 
 
190 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 dazzling, alarms him. ' I should prefer to see you in 
 peaceful possession of my places," he says, ' and first 
 among the citizens of our natal town.' But, as accom- 
 plished facts must be accepted, M. Desmoulins sends 
 his son wise counsel. ' Add to your acknowledged 
 popularity,' he says, ' the spirit of integrity and mode- 
 . ration, which you will find frequent opportunities of 
 developing ; lay aside that of party, by which perhaps 
 you have risen, but which will not maintain you in 
 your high place. The uprightness which I know you 
 to possess, and the moderation which I preach to you, 
 will go far even in the most difficult post' Too diffi- 
 cult, indeed. Oh ! for the fields of Guise, the church- 
 bells of the bygone childish -days, and that mother 
 who shares all the feelings of M. Desmoulins. After 
 a year, how Camille regrets these things ! How he 
 thirsts to be with his parents once more ! 
 
 Yes, within a year doubt and lassitude had entered 
 into his soul, and Camille was about to burn more than 
 one idol which he had hitherto worshipped, or, rather — 
 the bloody gods o'erthrown — he was henceforth tp pay 
 true and fervent reverence only to those eternal deities, 
 whose names are right, truth, humanity, pity, and 
 justice. 
 
The National Convention. 191 
 
 .CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. Election to the National Convention — Camille, a deputy — His 
 hopes — The Convention — Montagnards and Girondins — The Dan- 
 tonists — Danton. 
 
 2. He"rault de Se"chelles — His life, his character, and his works. 
 
 3. Pierre Philippeaux, General Westermann,- and Fabre d'Eglantine, 
 
 I. 
 
 The National Convention was the immediate result of 
 August 10. To those who had long demanded it, this 
 sovereign Convention represented an assembly concen- 
 trating all power, and exercising supreme dictatorship. 
 The idea of it inspired Camus to say in open assembly, 
 on June 1, 1790, 'We certainly have the power 
 of changing our religion.' On Sunday, August 26, 
 the primary assemblies met to nominate a number of 
 electors equal to those who voted at the last elections ; 
 on the following Sunday, September 2, these electors 
 proceeded to the election of the deputies of the National 
 Convention. ' The distinction between Frenchmen as 
 active and non-active citizens, sanctioned by the Consti- 
 tution of 1 791, was suppressed, and the only conditions 
 requisite for admission to the electoral assemblies were 
 that the candidate should be a Frenchman, not under 
 one-and-twenty, able to prove a year's domicile, and ' 
 living upon -his income or on the proceeds of his 
 labour, Domestic servants only were excepted. In 
 the same manner the various conditions of eligibility 
 
192 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 required by the Constitution of 179 1, either for electors 
 or for representatives, were declared inapplicable in 
 the case of a National Convention ; and every citizen, 
 aged twenty-five, fulfilling the above conditions, could 
 be chosen as an elector or elected as a deputy.' 1 
 
 Camille was, quite naturally, pointed out to the 
 choice of the electors. He was popular and beloved. 
 One only thing could injure him — the very brilliance 
 of his talents. It was to be feared that so sparkling a 
 satirist would make a slightly frivolous legislator. It 
 was necessary to ballot twice before Camille Desmou- 
 lins was proclaimed a deputy for Paris. His opponent 
 was Kersaint. On Saturday, September 8, 1792, at 
 the second vote, out of 677 voters — the absolute 
 majority being 339 votes — Camille obtained 465 votes 
 more than Kersaint. He was elected. He took 
 his seat in that National Convention which numbered 
 amongst its members (I do not give the condition in 
 life of all the 749 members of the Assembly) 45 
 former constituents, 147 former legislators, 59 admin- 
 istrators of departments, 81 lawyers, 34 mayors, 28 
 presidents of districts, 14 bishops, 9 vicars-general, 7 
 parish priests, 26 justices of the peace, 5 professors, 21 
 doctors, 10 notaries, 5 merchants, 15 farmers, 2 apothe- 
 caries, 1 painter, 15 literary men, &c. 
 
 On Monday, September 20, under the presidency 
 of Philippe Riihl, deputy of the Bas-Rhin, who was a 
 dropsical octogenarian (he afterwards killed himself in 
 Prairial year III. to escape the proscription) the 
 National Convention met for the first time. What a 
 
 1 It is interesting to recall these conditions at a time when the 
 question of the indivisibility of universal suffrage is the primordial 
 question. See in Didot's 'Complement de l'Encyclope'die moderne/ 
 an excellent article by Edouard Carleron upon Conventions nationales. 
 
The Task of the Convention. 193 
 
 first time ! What a wonderful sight was this gathering, 
 in the palace of the Tuileries, now a national edifice, 
 of all that was most ardent, most generous, most 
 terrible, and most patriotic in France ; so many ideas, 
 so many hopes, so many Utopian schemes, so much 
 devotion to the country ! The cannon of the invader 
 was thundering in insulted France ; rioters were 
 swarming in the streets. Champagne was in Prussian 
 hands ; Longwy and Verdun had fallen ; and the stones 
 of the Abbaye were still red with the blood of the 
 massacres of the 2nd of September. Nevertheless, 
 Danton, Condorcet, Vergniaud, Saint- Just, Robespierre, 
 Romme, Soubrany, Cambon, Robert Lindet, Rabaut, 
 Lakanal, Carnot, Louvet, Guadet, Philippeaux, and 
 many others accepted the difficult task of saving the 
 shattered country ; of securing liberty for France, liberty 
 which is the happiness of nations, and independence 
 which is their pride. 
 
 What ardent hopes were theirs, what mighty yearn- 
 ings, what high courage rising to the formidable height 
 of the circumstances ! Camille Desmoulins has depicted 
 in his ' Fragment de l'Histoire secrete de la Revolution' 
 what I may .call the psychological condition of the 
 nation at this decisive moment. 
 
 'Those who have just been named deputies to the Con- 
 vention,' he wrote, ' are indeed to be envied. Was there ever 
 a more magnificent mission, a more splendid opportunity of 
 glory ? The heir of sixty-five despots, the Jupiter of kings, 
 Louis XVI., the prisoner of the nation, and brought before 
 the avenging sword of Justice ! The ruins of palaces and 
 castles, the fragments of the monarchy, for materials where- 
 with to build the Constitution ; ninety thousand Prussians 
 or Austrians arrested by seventeen thousand Frenchmen ; 
 the entire nation risen to its feet to exterminate them ; 
 Heaven the ally of our arms, and dysentery the, auxiliary of 
 
 O 
 
1 94 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 our gunners ; the king of Prussia, reduced to forty thousand 
 effective men, pursued and surrounded by a victorious army 
 of a hundred and ten thousand ; Belgium, Savoy, England, 
 Ireland, a great part of Germany, espousing the cause of 
 liberty, and publicly wishing us success ! Such was the state 
 of things at the opening of the Convention.' 
 
 What tasks to accomplish ! What a career of 
 glory ! To create the Republic ; to revive the laws, 
 the arts, commerce, industry ; above all, ' to make the 
 people ! ' To make the people ! A grand saying of 
 Camille's, which is, in itself, a programme, and which 
 has yet to be carried out. Camille wished that Paris 
 should be made ' less a department than a central 
 town, common to all the citizens of those departments 
 which are mingled in her, and of which her population 
 is composed. 1 . . . This Paris,' he continues, ' which 
 only subsisted by means of the monarchy, and which 
 ■ has made the Republic, must be supported, by being 
 placed between the mouths of the Rhine and the 
 mouths of the Rhdne, and by having maritime com- 
 merce brought to her gates through a canal and a port.' 
 And besides these : — 'To avenge liberty and democracy 
 upon their calumniators by the prosperity of France ; 
 by her laws, her arts, her commerce, her industry freed 
 from its trammels and making a start which will 
 astonish England — in one word, by the spectacle of 
 public happiness. To restore the people — who, until 
 our days, had been accounted as nothing : the people, 
 whom Plato himself, in his imaginary Republic, had 
 consigned to servitude ; to their primitive rights, and 
 to recall them to equality ; such was the sublime 
 
 1 Had he not already said, with respect to Paris, in his ' Revolutions 
 de France et de Brabant,' No. 56, * Paris ought to be looked upon less as 
 an individual town than as the common country of all French people. 
 Paris is to France what the Communal House is- to a town ? ' 
 
The Cause of its Failure. 195 
 
 vocation of the deputies of the Convention. What 
 soul, however cold, would not catch fire ; however 
 narrow, expand at the contemplation of so lofty a 
 destiny ? ' 
 
 Who then prevented the attainment of this result ? 
 Why, in spite of its prodigies, did the Convention end 
 in that military despotism, the Empire ? And again, 
 why, in spite of its tragic divisions, has it renovated the 
 world, from end to end ? Our age persists in pro- 
 pounding these formidable questions, which the future 
 alone can solve. Fievee, in a book in which many 
 correct ideas are mixed up with a few errors, has tried 
 to show that the Revolution ended fatally in the dic- 
 tatorship because, in it, opinions clashed with interests. 1 
 The terrible dramas of which the Assembly was at once 
 the theatre and the victim are more correctly explained 
 by the ignorance of the members concerning their 
 adversaries and their best friends. They did worse 
 than forget themselves : they never knew themselves. 
 Suspicious of- each other, and even of themselves, 
 they quarrelled in the dark. A scarecrow affrighted 
 them : the scarecrow of fear and of ignorance — 
 ignorance of everything, and fear of everything — - 
 and yet (explain the marvel who will) this fear urged 
 a handful of men to acts of immortal courage, and 
 cowardice became heroism as rapidly as rashness 
 degenerated into vileness. 
 
 First came a terrible misfortune, an alarming and 
 sinister event, which may be expressed in one word 
 — September. The massacres of the Carmelites, of the 
 Abbaye, and of La Force could not fail to divide for 
 ever men who were made to be united : the Dantonists 
 
 1 ' Des opinions et des intdrets pendant la Revolution,' by J. FieVee. 
 
 (Paris, 1809 : in 8vo.) 
 
 o 2 
 
196 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 and the Girondins. The friends of Brissot and of Ver- 
 gniaud never forgave Danton for that frightful day 
 on which workmen, armed with sabres, scythes, or 
 clubs, strangled or cut down prisoners, priests, women. 
 It has been affirmed that Danton organised the 
 massacres of September ; this however history denies. 
 Royalist writers have stated that Camille Desmoulins 
 was a party to the crime ; the assertion is false. ' But,' 
 it will be objected, ' he was the means of saving 
 the Abbe Berardier, formerly his preceptor at the 
 college of Louis-le-Grand ; he sent him a safe-conduct 
 in his prison.' The fact simply proves that he 
 wished to set his old professor at liberty ; but it does 
 not prove that he was even in the secret of the mas- 
 sacre. Who is Camille's principal accuser in this 
 matter ? Roch Marcandier — his countryman, formerly 
 his secretary ; one under obligations to him, and who, 
 after having worked with him in his most violent pub- 
 lications, turns against him, attacks and calumniates 
 him. Another accuser is Peltier, formerly the editor of 
 the ' Actes des Apdtres,' who, in his ' Histoire de 
 la Revolution du 10 aout,' openly accuses Danton and 
 his two secretaries, Camille Desmoulins and Fabre 
 d' Eglantine. But the testimony of Peltier is more 
 than suspicious : he hates Camille, and even maligns 
 Lucile because she is his wife. The opportunity 
 was too good to be allowed to escape. When a 
 crime is. anonymous, or multiple, like that of Sep- 
 tember, nothing is more easy than to inculpate the 
 innocent. 
 
 Fate willed that the man who could have saved 
 the Revolution, and made it fruitful and lasting, 
 should be regarded by the Girondins as ' the man of 
 September ; ' that Danton should bear the burden of 
 
Danton. 197 
 
 the crime of the multitude. These two groups of 
 devoted men, each equally ready to found the Republic 
 (for, now-a-days, who would venture to accuse the 
 Gironde of Royalism ?) contended with each other, 
 instead of uniting their forces. The Dantonist party 
 would have been the strength of the united body, if 
 union had been possible. The Gironde was its tongue, 
 as we know only too well ; the Dantonists would have 
 been its muscle. 
 
 Let us pause for a moment before this group of 
 men, in whose hands the fortune of the French 
 Revolution once reste*d, who sacrificed their future 
 reputation and their existence to their country, and 
 whose death was a crime. Nearly all young — for the 
 complete renovation of a community could only be 
 effected by vigorous arms — their reward has been 
 the heaping of boundless accusations upon their 
 memory. 
 
 The foremost among them, he who gave his name 
 to the party, was Danton. The Dantonian policy, to 
 speak the language of positivists {we say, Dantonist) 
 emanates from him alone. This man, with the face 
 of a bull-dog, as Roederer said, whose aspect struck 
 terror, and whom Claude Fauchet called ' the Pluto of 
 eloquence,' had nevertheless an attractive expression 
 of goodness and frankness. ' Do I look like a hypo- 
 crite ? ' Danton cried, looking his judges straight in 
 the eyes. His stately and massive form was that 
 of a Hercules ; he had a powerful voice and bold 
 gestures ; and was more careful in his dress than has 
 been ' admitted. He was hot-tempered, easily moved 
 to anger; he needed a well-turned-down collar in which 
 to move his bull-neck ; his hand was frankly held out 
 to his friend, but terrible to his adversary. This man 
 
198 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 was in himself a power, a born Tribune. He was 
 an educated man, whatever may be said (the com- 
 position of his library, which he daily consulted, proves 
 this 1 ); and he loved his home better than out-door 
 life ; but his eloquence electrified from the steps of the 
 tribune and thundered from its height, he was the 
 voice of the country in danger. His cry, ' Dare, and 
 dare yet more ! ' accompanied the roar of the alarm-gun. 
 None better than he was formed to sound ' the charge 
 upon our enemies ! ' 2 Terrible as he was, Danton 
 was still human. In this great revolutionist there was 
 a large heart. He had the heat, the fire and the 
 smoke of Diderot, and the mirth of Kleber. His 
 logic was prompted by his passion, and his passion 
 was that of the multitude. More than all beside, 
 throughout that gigantic series of trials, and in the 
 midst of that awful storm, he suffered from the insult 
 offered by foreigners to France. His dream was — the 
 freedom of his country by the agency of patriotic effort. 
 He has been accused of loving pleasure : he loved, 
 in truth, nothing but his fireside. ' Have I time for 
 conspiracy ? ' he will hereafter, ask those who accuse 
 him. ' I love my wife too well to steal an hour from 
 her.' Twice this man displayed for the woman of his 
 choice a love passionate and well nigh fierce. 8 On 
 
 1 For an account of Danton and his private life, see Dr. Robinet's 
 book, which is full of facts, and also the remarkable work of M. Alfred 
 Bougeart. 
 
 s 'The tocsin that is about to sound,' he exclaimed (September 
 1792), 'is not an alarnvsignal ; it is the charge upon the enemies of our 
 country.' 
 
 8 Danton was born at Arcis-sur-Aube, October 26, 1759. Hisfatherwa9 
 Jacques Danton, procureur to the bailiwick of Arcis. Georges- Jacques 
 Danton married, in June 1787, Antoinette-Gabrielle Charpentier, who 
 died February 10, 1793. In the month of June Danton married Sophie 
 Ge"ly, who, on becoming a widow, married M. Dupin, a councillor of the 
 Cour des Comptes, 
 
Danton. igg 
 
 his return from his mission to Belgium, the ' Journal 
 Fran9ais,' intent upon adminis'tering a kick behind to 
 the Jacobins (I am quoting the Royalist press) greeted 
 him with the cry : ' Here comes the butcher of Sep- 
 tember ! ' His first wife having died during his 
 absence, he had her body exhumed, that he might 
 gaze upon her once more. What a picture ! I know 
 not one more dramatic in this succession of striking 
 episodes. 
 
 The Girondins crushed Danton by the sinister date 
 —September, as the Jacobins afterwards immolated 
 him with the terrible word, virtue ; when he was 
 reproached for his heat, his impetuosity, the ebullitions 
 of his French blood, like the son of Rabelais. When 
 that time came, he shrugged his shoulders and said, 
 ' I prefer being guillotined to guillotining.' How 
 could history forget this saying ? An irresistible 
 sympathy attracts even his enemies to Danton. 
 His large-hearted and manly pity draws all hearts. 
 This man had no power of Tiatred in him. Did 
 he not offer to make peace with the Girondins 
 and to withdraw to Bordeaux as a hostage ? Did 
 he not say of an adversary, ' I often meet X. . . . 
 who blackens my character ; but I remember having 
 seen him struggling with adverse fortune, and I pity 
 him?' 1 
 
 Bold, strong in combat, Danton accepted before- 
 hand the responsibilities and the vicissitudes of the 
 struggle. He wrote to Courtois (de l'Aube) on the 
 subject of the war ;n the north, which had not a 
 
 1 Unpublished ' Notes ' of Courtois (de l'Aube). Courtois may be 
 blamed for his bitter animosity against Robespierre in his ' Rapport 
 sur les papiers saisis/ but no one can deny that his ' Notes ' are lifelike 
 and truthful. 
 
200 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 fortunate beginning : ' Whatever misfortunes may be 
 caused by the present war, they must always be less 
 insupportable than slavery!' And yet he was not 
 without his moments of discouragement in such a 
 vortex, in the midst of divisions, condemnations, and 
 oratorical duels, whose arena was the scaffold. How 
 many times he thought of withdrawing to Arcis-sur- 
 Aube, there to plant cabbages ! ' I would indeed wil- 
 lingly retire from the thick of the fray,' he said ; ' but 
 how, after having played such a part ? ' The time was 
 not far off when he would cry out, ' I am sick of men ; ' 
 but when, notwithstanding, he was to show them 
 how a man should die ; how, at two paces from 
 ' nothingness,' a man may lay claim to a place in the 
 Pantheon. 
 
 ' The arbitrary stamp of the opinion of the moment,' 
 said Courtois (de 1' Aube), in the unpublished ' Notes ' 
 which it has been our .privilege to consult, ' may cling 
 to his memory — dishonour it even, if possible ; but 
 when there are only republicans in France, this truly 
 great man will enjoy the esteem of posterity' The 
 truth is, that Danton was a great Frenchman, who felt 
 the heart -of outraged France beat within him. He 
 met menace with menace. Without personal ambition, 
 he was largely ambitious for his country ; he panted 
 to behold her free. Unlike those common minds 
 who sacrifice everything to popularity, he would 
 willingly have sold his favour with the masses cheap, 
 to lay the foundation of the liberty of his country. He 
 did not think that France was necessarily incarnate in 
 a few individuals ; and, like Luther, whom he resembled 
 in the bent of his mind, and in the temper of his 
 ' Table Talk,' he bowed down before the ' Herr 
 Omnes,' ' Monsieur Tous.' * Cannot we tear Robes- 
 
Daniott, 2o I 
 
 pierre's skin without making patriotism bleed ? ' he 
 asked, with his scornful laugh. 
 
 At the opening of the Revolution, he who has 
 been represented as ' a lawyer without a case,' was, if 
 not rich, at least in easy circumstances. (Hentz, 
 in his unpublished ' Memoirs,' relates that he was 
 in tatters. The inventory of his wardrobe shows 
 us, on the contrary, that it was well stocked and 
 cared for.) He was a citizen of Paris, industrious, 
 working hard in his study, performing, with profit to 
 himself, the duties of solicitor to the King's Council. 1 
 The Revolution carried him away, tore him from 
 
 1 M. Campardon found in the National Archives, among the papers of 
 the Commissaries of the Chatelet, the following^ which relates to a com- 
 plaint of Danton's in 1787, that he could not work in consequence of the 
 noise made by his neighbours : — 
 
 ' This day, Thursday, May 17, 1787, at eight o'clock in the evening, at 
 our house and before us, Jean Odent, etc., M. Georges-Jacques Danton, 
 solicitor to His Majesty's Council, living in the Rue de la Tixeranderie, 
 opposite the street of the Deux-Portes, in the parish of St. Jean, 
 appeared ; the same said to us, and declared, that yesferday in the 
 evening, towards a quarter-past or half-past eight, he engaged a lodging 
 on the first floor, above the entresol, in a house in the Rue Gue"ne"gaud, 
 and gave the earnest-money for it to the Sieur Paschal, proprietor or 
 principal occupier of the said house ; but that, having become aware of 
 the vicinity of a locksmith and a saddler, whose trades necessitated the 
 use of a hammer, and were the cause of much noise, and very hurtful to 
 persons studying, he wished to avail himself of the power granted to all 
 occupiers in like circumstances— that is, to re-demand of the said Sieur 
 Paschal the earnest-money he had deposited yesterday ; by this only 
 making use of the same power as the said Paschal would have to return 
 the said earnest-money to the applicant before the expiration of the 
 twenty-four hours, during which he ought to have made enquiries con- 
 cerning the said applicant ; but that, not having found the said Paschal at 
 his house, whither the said applicant had gone, this day, at seven o'clock in 
 the evening, he had betaken himself to five of our colleagues successively, 
 without finding them, and at last came to us to make the present decla- 
 ration and protestation, that his occupancy of the said lodging is null and 
 Void, reserving to himself, in case of difficulties on the part 6f the said 
 Sieur Paschal, the right to sue if he thought fit.— Signed Odent ; Danton. 
 National Archives. Commissaries to the Chatelet ; file 4075 ; Commis- 
 sary Odent.' An unpublished fragment. 
 
202 Camilte Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 his study, and thrust him into the popular meeting's. 
 He arose in the district of the Cordeliers, like a 
 Mirabeau formed for the clubs, the orator of the 
 populace, and their mouth-piece. His impassioned 
 and genial eloquence, teeming with good-humour and 
 energy tempered by compassion, pleased the mob, and 
 went straight to the hearts of the masses. At the time 
 of the massacres of September — that crime, which 
 once more we call anonymous, that frightful massacre 
 to which fear prompted a handful of scoundrels, and 
 which was allowed to take place — Danton laid claim, 
 through Thuriot, to the Dictatorship for himself. The 
 Girondins have accused him of taking refuge on the 
 2nd of September at the Champ de Mars. He was 
 there, in fact ; he was waiting. There were twelve 
 thousand men there. With these, had he been master, 
 he would have scoured the streets, and his powerful 
 voice would have driven the maddened crowd to the 
 frontier. 1 
 
 The massacre of September was the mortal wound 
 of the Revolution. Those hideous deeds, for which 
 Marat and his friends were, after the crowd, solely re- 
 sponsible, separated the Gironde from the Dantonists, 
 
 1 Another tradition tells us that Danton lived close to the scene of the 
 massacre. Some years ago, in Paris, a maison Dautruc, Rue de Vaugirard, 
 was pulled down at the time of the extension of the Rue de Rennes. 
 Charles IX. had confiscated this house from the Huguenots, and given it 
 to the Sieur Dautruc, one of his favourite huntsmen. Until late years 
 the house remained in the family. The family of Dautruc had Danton 
 for their lawyer at the Council ; the tie was strengthened at the time of 
 the events of 1792, and Danton was in this house on September 2, it 
 seems, when the massacre at the prison of the Carmelites took place. 
 From the cellars of this house wine was served cut to the Septembriseurs* 
 Finally, it is asserted that in this house the robbery of the garde-meuble 
 was planned with Lebrun and Tondu. This is a tradition not to be 
 passed over unnoticed, but I do not attach much importance to it. 
 What is certain is, that the crime of September stains the memory of 
 Danton, but that he was innocent of it. 
 
A Fatal Breach. 203 
 
 and destroyed this league of men which would, I 
 repeat, had it remained unbroken, have laid the founda- 
 tion of liberty. In vain does Danton speak (March 10, 
 1 793) of those ' days of blood which every good citizen 
 has bewailed,' and try to demonstrate that ' no human 
 power was in a position to check such an outbreak ; ' he 
 will never be forgiven for it, although he deplored 
 it deeply. The Gironde continued the war. Danton 
 had, far more than any of the Girondins, practical 
 eloquence, a clear insight into events and the popular 
 sense ; he was also as strongly opposed as they to any 
 negation of our national temperament, to that puri- 
 tanical rigidity which is incompatible with the French 
 mind. Doubtless he would have prevented the 
 Girondins from rushing into the federalist movement 
 in the face of the foreigner, into that idea which 
 divided, weakened, and broke up France ; an idea 
 which, by a strange irony, the Hebertists of 1871 
 borrowed from the Girondins of 1 793. 
 
 But the fatal error of these men was their mutual 
 misunderstanding. They condemned each other too 
 often on calumnious evidence. Danton helped on the 
 downfall of the Girondins, whom he did not hate ; he 
 only wished to weaken their power in the Assembly ; 
 but he awoke, scared, to find that he had co-operated 
 in their death. ' Do not make the first split in the 
 Assembly,' Danton cried out to the Girondins, at the 
 time when they demanded the prosecution of Marat. 
 After May 31, the Assembly was more than split up ; it 
 was decimated ; it was bleeding to death. Danton 
 had not intended May 31 to be a day of slaughter; 
 but, in these critical times, the axe was not to be played 
 with. The excited and irresponsible crowd, urge on 
 the arm that would willingly hold back the knife. 
 
264 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 To slaughter the Gironde was to promise Dantort- 
 ism to the executioner. Besides, Danton had not pre- 
 served his dauntless daring, since the murders which 
 had mowed down so many and such various talents, 
 so many heads full of thought and charm. Thence- 
 forth the excesses which he had hoped to govern 
 and moderate revolted him. Those with whom 
 he strove were the infuriate madmen of the time. 
 This Titan wrestled with the men of the Commune. 
 Hebert and his followers succumbed in the struggle ; 
 but if the Committee sacrificed Hebertism, they only 
 did so with the intention of punishing Dantonism. As 
 we shall see presently, it was a double blow; Robespierre 
 and the members of the Committee struck both the 
 infuriates and the moderate party, within a few days 
 of each other. Then there remained only the 'purs! 
 They did not perceive that the Revolution was dead, 
 and that their turn was coming ! The majority of 
 the tremblers asked no better than to revolt against the 
 Committee, and to avenge those whom they had just 
 sacrificed. 
 
 O eternal cowardice of mankind ! 
 
 'Some days after the fall of Danton, Camille Desmoulins 
 
 was at the sitting of the Thermidor, in which Robespierre 
 
 cruelly and ironically abused the unhappy victims of his 
 barbarity. " I perceived beside me," says Courtois, " a citizen 
 who, at those portions of the tyrant's discourse most loudly 
 applauded by the majority of the Convention, clapped his 
 hands also, with all his might, and looked laughingly at me. 
 I thought I could discern that his applause was not sincere, and 
 I answered him by a smile which let him understand that I 
 was not duped by his acting. He came close to my ear, then, 
 and said in a low voice : ' If it cost me the pair of gloves 
 with which I am applauding (his hands were bare), I would 
 willingly sacrifice them to be guaranteed, at that price, the 
 
The Dantonists. 205 
 
 fall of the monster who occupies the tribune at this moment.' 
 I told him to restrain himself. He pressed my hand, his 
 eyes filled with tears, and he disappeared." ' ' 
 
 The revolutionists forgot that the trembling 
 majority, who had too long applauded all these pro- 
 scriptions, was composed of courtiers and sycophants 
 as little convinced as this admirer of Robespierre. ' I 
 drag Robespierre with me ! ' said Danton in his 
 death hour. But Vergniaud had done the same, and 
 the sacrifice of so many men, devoted at least to the 
 public interests, could only end in France being flung 
 at the feet of a victorious soldier, worn out, with 
 her legislative power decimated, disheartened, and 
 discredited. 
 
 II. 
 
 Let us now pass in review the group who are 
 shortly to sit together upon the benches of the accused : 
 Herault de Sechelles, Westermann, Philippeaux, Fabre 
 d'Eglantine, the Dantonists, the companions and friends 
 of Desmoulins. 
 
 Herault de Sechelles, called the handsome Sdchelles, 
 a man of sensitive mind, dashed with bitterness and 
 haughtiness, brought into the Dantonist party a lofty 
 and profound intelligence, eloquence remarkable for its 
 vigour, and unflinching courage. These qualities he 
 had placed at the service of the popular cause, since 
 the commencement of the Revolution. Born at Paris 
 in 1760, grandson of Rene Herault, lieutenant-general 
 of police, and enemy of the Jansenists, who, from 1725 
 to 1 739, had filled Paris with spies and policemen ; son 
 
 1 Courtois (de l'Aube). Unpublished Notes. 
 
206 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 of Herault de Sdchelles, colonel and commandant of the 
 regiment de Rouergue, who was killed at the battle of 
 Minden, in trying to break through the impenetrable 
 English infantry with his squadrons — Marie-Jean 
 Herault de Sdchelles belonged to the privileged caste. 
 At twenty, he was an advocate at the Chatelet, and, 
 hailed as a rising orator. He had also been particularly 
 well received at Court. 1 The Duchess de Polignac, 
 his cousin, was eager to present this Cicero in his 
 twentieth year, this intelligent and charming young 
 man, to the Queen. In spite of a certain rigidity of 
 manner, and his evident distaste for royalty, the Court 
 was pleased with him ; and pronounced this well-made 
 
 1 With respect to He'rault, I find in the ' Journal de Paris ' of August 
 7, 1785, the account of an assize at the Chatelet, in which He'rault de 
 •Seehelles, the Crown lawyer, spoke for the last time prior to taking his 
 place in Parliament as attorney- general. 'The speech of the young 
 magistrate,' says the ' Journal de Paris,' ' did not aim at florid eloquence ; 
 his style was calm and tranquil, like that of the law. It indicated that 
 repose of the passions, which is so necessary for the mind in search 
 of truth. Conviction and light came gently and by degrees from his words, 
 without any parade of reasoning, without any of that sort of syllogism 
 which is not reason, and offends against taste ; but by the connexion of 
 facts, of documents, and of laws, and the concise development of one and 
 the other, he arrived at his conclusions through the evidence. He might 
 have almost dispensed with drawing his conclusions. They had been heard 
 in the laws, whose intentions and wisdom he had so clearly shown. The 
 tone of his eloquence was wisely fitted to the nature of his case, and the 
 universal interest he inspired showed itself in the general applause, which 
 he seemed to wish to make over to the orators who had spoken before 
 him. The homage he paid them seemed merited, but especially that 
 awarded to M. de Seze, son of a celebrated lawyer in the Parliament of 
 Bordeaux, and whose talents are of great promise. 
 
 ' This speech of M. He'rault de Sdchelles was the last he was to make 
 at the Chatelet, and all dreaded to hear the end ; the young orator 
 himself shared this feeling, and he gave expression to it with touching 
 eloquence in his farewell to the president. All the magistrates and the 
 court shared his emotion, and the audience accompanied M. Herault 
 de Se"chelles to his carriage amid prolonged applause.' 
 
HSrault de Sdchelles, 207 
 
 Alcestis to be distinguished looking. Herault was 
 handsome. Virgil says : 
 
 Gratior et pulchro veniens in corpore virtus. 
 
 The Queen herself deigned to embroider a scarf 
 for him when he was made attorney-general at the 
 Chatelet. 'The wife of the King,' says Camille, 'has 
 sent the black girdle to the young and handsome 
 Sechelles.' But an ardent love of liberty, a deeply- 
 rooted conviction that the nation must perish if prompt 
 recourse were not had to reforms, had already made 
 Herault de Sechelles an adversary, almost a rebel. 
 In the Parliament he strove against Dambray on 
 behalf of reforms in the government; on July 14 he 
 did better than this : he enrolled himself among the 
 stormers of the Bastille. Herault was then nine-and- 
 twenty. Two years later he was deputed to the Legis- 
 lative Assembly by the Paris electors. 1 He was to be 
 among those who cried out that France must answer 
 foreign insolence by war (January 14, 1792). . Herault, 
 too, demanded and obtained that the country should 
 be declared in danger. Refusing the post of mayor 
 of Paris after August 10, he entered the Convention 
 as the representative of the department of Seine-et- 
 Oise. On the 2nd of June, when Henriot came, at 
 the head of his artillery, to threaten the Convention, 
 and, with eighty thousand men and a hundred and sixty- 
 three cannon at his back, to demand the arrest of the 
 proscribed Girondins, in the name of the insurgents, 
 Herault, president of the Convention, went down into 
 the court of the Tuileries, which was invested by the 
 
 1 See the Complementary Documents for a speech by Herault and a 
 harangue by Danton. 
 
208 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 insurrectionists, and endeavoured to calm the mob. 
 To Henriot's words — ' The people have not risen to 
 listen to fine words ; it is the traitors they want ! 
 Give up the traitors, or go back to your place' — 
 Herault de Sechelles replied, as coldly as the law : 
 ' Seize the rebel ! ' But Henriot cried out, in a voice 
 of thunder, ' Men ! to your guns ! ' Herault was 
 carried by the crowd into the Convention, and the 
 Assembly had to deliberate under the menace of the 
 bayonet, while Marat embraced Henriot, hailing him 
 as ' the saviour of the country ! ' 
 
 Herault, at least by his attitude, seems to have 
 responded to Henriot's rude command by 'Members ! 
 to your places!' The next day he, with Danton and 
 Lacroix, demanded the arrest of the revolutionary 
 general. Herault, who afterwards elaborated the project 
 of the Constitution presented by the Committee of 
 Public Safety, was about to have the honour of pre- 
 siding, on August 10, 1793, at the first national f£te 
 dedicated to the French Republic. He it was who, 
 in the Place de la Revolution, standing at the foot of 
 an enormous funeral pile on which were heaped 
 the emblems of royalty, cried aloud to the crowd 
 and waving a lighted torch: 'Perish the signs of 
 slavery ! Let nothing remain immortal but the love 
 of virtue ! Let the plough, the wheat-ear, the cap 
 of Liberty, the wonders of art which adorn and enrich 
 society, form for the future the Republic's sole deco- 
 rations ! Hallowed earth ! be covered with these true 
 riches, and refuse to bring forth aught which can only 
 serve the purposes of empty pride ! ' Then, amid the 
 acclamations of nearly a million of men at this popular 
 auto-da-fe, Herault applied his torch to the pile, which 
 was speedily swallowed up by the devouring flames ; 
 
■* 
 
 Hdrmilt de Se'chelks. 209 
 
 all that had been the admiration, the adoration of 
 former days : the crown, the royal mantle, the fletirs- 
 de-lysy the escutcheons, the fragments of the throne — 
 that throne which the Emperor Napoleon afterwards 
 defined as 'four boards covered with velvet! The pro- 
 clamation of the new Constitution, that of '93, was 
 about to follow this vain ceremony ; vain, for what 
 avails it to pull down what the future rebuilds ? It 
 is impotent folly to wreak our anger upon inanimate 
 objects, when we ought only to contend with ideas ! 
 We amuse ourselves childishly with signboard and 
 symbol reforms and revolutions ; and punish things 
 for the deceptions which men have practised upon us. 
 There is, however, a wide interval between the cere- 
 mony which Heraultde Seychelles presided over, and the 
 impious destruction of monuments and works of art, into 
 which the mob has too often allowed itself to be led. 
 
 Herault, rich, proud, and popular, made a great 
 impression on that famous day upon the ' Republican 
 multitude,' to use an expression of Louis XV. to the 
 Duke de Choiseul some years before. His figure 
 was tall and erect, he had a straight nose, a finely- 
 cut mouth, a plump face, slightly tinged with red, a 
 double chin, and powdered hair ; and he wore, accord- 
 ing to the coloured portrait engraved by Quenedey, 
 and bequeathed to us by the Physionocrate, a white 
 waistcoat and an elegantly cut coat striped with blue. 
 The gentleman always peeped . through the democrat ; 
 or, rather, Hdrault was one of those who prove that 
 democrats know how to retain good taste and elegance 
 of manners. His caste could not forgive him for 
 having enrolled himself on the side of the nation against 
 the cause of the king. Their hatred was great towards 
 one whom they called 'a renegade.' Lavater, who 
 
210 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 had known Herault, once wrote to him that 'such a 
 man as he could no longer remain the accomplice of a 
 few coarse, ignorant, and stupid scoundrels ! ' Herault 
 was at a sitting of the Committee of Public Safety 
 when the letter reached him ; he smiled and said, 
 ' These people do not understand our situation ! ' 
 
 He received many similar letters, also threatening, 
 insulting and anti-patriotic ones like the following 
 anonymous letter, which is in a feigned writing, 
 imitating the printed character of the documents in 
 the Archives to be found on the files of papers relating 
 to the Dantonists : 
 
 ' M. HERAULT, — That factious wretches, infamous scoun- 
 drels, who have risen out of the mire, should conceive and 
 execute every imaginable crime, to maintain the authority they 
 have usurped, will not surprise persons who know the rabble 
 and its ferocity ; but that a French gentleman, promoted to 
 the highest dignities, a magistrate entrusted with the main- 
 tenance of the laws, a Herault de Sechelles in short, should 
 consort with and preside over this unruly horde, should betray 
 his class, and assassinate his king — this is the excess of ras- 
 cality and abomination. 
 
 ' But the time of vengeance approaches, and these corrupt' 
 rulers, who have ruined their country, already watch with terror 
 the approach of the punishment due to their crimes. The 
 people, deceived in every way, greet this coming justice with 
 smiles ; they have seen with indignation the impudent and 
 lying announcement of the unanimous acceptation of the 
 brigandage called the Constitution, while it is notorious 
 that the tricks of a few members of the primary assemblies 
 have supplanted the real vote of the people. Among a 
 thousand examples it will suffice to cite this one:— The 
 canton of Tirepied, in the district of Avranches, having 
 unanimously (sic) rejected the Constitution, the deputy, chosen 
 to attend the Bacchanalian orgies of August 10, refused 
 to give in a negative vote ; but all the voters having 
 withdrawn, the superintendents of the proceedings took- 
 
Hfraitlt de S&helks. 2 r r 
 
 upon themselves to return an affirmative vote, and the deputy 
 charged himself with its delivery. 
 
 ' The same trick has been played throughout all France ; 
 but what will these impotent stratagems avail ? Has crime 
 blinded you so that you cannot see your approaching down- 
 fall ? You are going to excite the people to rise in a body ; — 
 what folly ! what monstrous iniquity ! But will the people 
 lend itself to this project, visibly impracticable as it is, and 
 which, besides, can but hasten the success of the Powers whose 
 advance can no longer be arrested ? How can you doubt that, 
 if the people rise, it will only be to turn against you ? The 
 people see clearly, now, that those scoundrels who, under the 
 false appearance of their well-wishers, persuaded them to lend 
 themselves to their manoeuvres, will sacrifice them to prevent, 
 or rather to stave off, the punishment that threatens them : the 
 people are ashamed of their blind credulity, and will be the 
 first to punish these scoundrels for their crimes. 
 
 ' Farewell, Hdrault ! Before three months elapse I shall 
 have the pleasure of seeing you expiate on the wheel the 
 blood of your king and of all the brave Frenchmen who 
 have been sacrificed to your criminal and ferocious madness : 
 York, Ricardo, Cobourg, Nassau, Brunswick, and Conde" are 
 my securities for this, in spite of the great general Houchard. 
 
 'August io, 1793, the Fifth Year of all the Crimes. 
 
 ' P.S. I have just heard that the company of Shoeblacks 
 in London have taken the decree issued against Pitt into 
 careful consideration, and return thanks for it to their brothers 
 of the Convention.' x 
 
 What could anyone expect that men, inflamed as 
 Herault was with the love of the nation, should feel 
 on reading such threats as these ? They burned with 
 anger to know that Frenchmen loudly and shamelessly 
 desired the success of Conde, allied with Cobourg, 
 Brunswick, and Nassau. This proof of the Royalists' 
 complicity with foreigners excited still further the fierce 
 zeal of those legislators, whose passion was their country. 
 
 1 National Archives ; Committee of Public Safety, c. vii. 4608. 
 
 P2 
 
2 1 2 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Hence their fury and their excesses. Moreover, 
 Herault de Sechelles was destined to die, not because 
 he had been too cruel, but because he had tried to 
 save a woman, an dmigrde, from the grasp of the 
 law. Already denounced on December 16, 1793, by 
 Bourdon (de l'Oise) as an ex-aristocrat, and for 
 receiving nobles at his house, and defended on that 
 occasion by Couthon and Bentabole, he was again to be 
 denounced in March 1794 for having been cognisant 
 of the presence of a woman at the house of Simond, 
 the deputy (du Mont-Blanc). In fact, a woman, an 
 aristocrat, had taken refuge at Simond's, and the law 
 of March 4, 1 794, interdicted all communication with 
 those accused of conspiracy under pain of being re- 
 garded as an accomplice. In December 1793 Herault 
 attempted to defend himself. ' If the accident of my 
 birth is a crime that I have to expiate,' he said, ' be it 
 so ; I tender my resignation as a member of the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety.' But this resignation was 
 rejected ; in March 1794 Herault made no attempt to 
 exculpate himself. He seemed tired of life ; he did 
 not resist the order of arrest ; he did not retort upon 
 his accusers. He entered the prison of the Luxem- 
 bourg like a man who had expected worse than a 
 prison. 
 
 Some time before he had been in the habit of going 
 every day, as one might go to a theatre, to the corner 
 of the Tuileries, to see the condemned pass by in the 
 tumbrils ? One of his friends met him there, to his great 
 surprise. ' What ! do I find you here, Herault ? ' said 
 his friend ; ' you, who have judged those who are passing 
 by ? ' ' Yes ; it is I,' he replied. ' I have come to see the 
 Republic in its death-throes, and to learn how to die!' 
 
 How far away were those days when Herault, sent 
 
Hdrault de Sdckelks. 2 1 3 
 
 to Savoy by the Convention, made a poetical pilgrimage 
 to Les Charmettes, and had a tablet of white marble 
 (now defaced) placed upon the house which had wit- 
 nessed the loves of Jean-Jacques and Madame de 
 Warens. No doubt he then wrote the inscription and 
 the verses upon the tablet : — 
 
 Rdduit par Jean-Jacques habits, 
 Tu me rappelles son g^nie, 
 Sa solitude, sa fiert^, 
 Et ses miseres et sa folie. 
 A la gloire, a la verity 
 II osa consacrer sa vie, 
 Et fut toujours persecute" 
 Ou par lui-m6me ou par l'envie. 
 
 The admirer of Jean-Jacques was no longer the 
 lover of aught but rest — I would almost say, of the 
 grave. He too felt himself, like Danton, ' sick to death 
 of men.' And yet, only one year before, what a refined 
 and brave spirit had been that of Herault de Sechelles ! 
 An unpublished private letter, relating to his mission 
 in Savoy, paints him as he was in February 1793. It 
 shows us a brilliant imagination, a keen and rapid 
 intelligence, an acute understanding, abandoning itself 
 entirely to the delightful chit-chat of a letter to his 
 colleagues who had been sent to Nice, and is indited 
 with charming and sympathetic ease. It is eminently 
 characteristic, and deserves to be preserved : — 
 
 ' Moutiers en Tarentaise, February 26, 1793 ; Year 11. 
 
 'My dear colleagues, — I have had news of you three 
 times : three letters from Grdgoire ; three words from Jagot. 
 I have had a laugh over your freaks, I have made the gravest 
 beings in all Chamberi laugh at them : it seems to me that the 
 Proven$al spirit has already taken possession of you. Your 
 
2T4 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 sayings are air witty sayings. (Vous ne dites pas un mot 
 qui ne soit un bon mot.) 
 
 ' Die ! you have not seen Saint-Pierre d'Albigny. 
 Heavens ! what an enchanting spot ! And no one at Cham- 
 beri spoke of it to us. Nature in the Alps in her most 
 whimsical, mood, with all the coquetry, all the most refined 
 arts of her wild toilet — waterfalls, maisonnettes, vistas, immense 
 masses, fir-trees, flowery plains, limpid streams, poplars, 
 in fact everything ! In vain have you lived in eternal spring, 
 and made love under the olive-trees ; — die, and die twice over, 
 that you have not seen Elysium — Tempe — Armida — Eden — 
 Albigny ! 
 
 ' Now I am going to speak of something very different. 
 Cavelli is a deputy ; he passed at an evening sitting, like a 
 bad decree. Gavard passed yesterday at a morning sitting. 
 
 ' How plainly I recognise my friend Jagot in your new 
 Misanthrope in three acts, killing all the men and kissing all 
 the women ! 
 
 ' Reassure yourself, Gregoire ! The two mistakes in your 
 epistle to the Valaisans will be, or rather already are, cor- 
 rected. A young French abb6, who was passing this way, 
 spent a morning in doing you this service. Five people have 
 already asked for your work. I have certain means of getting 
 it to its destination. It goes the day after to-morrow. 
 
 ' But, respecting your speech upon the oath, just listen to 
 the abominable bad turn those beggarly rascals did us. 
 Fancy, at the same time that they were trying to kill us with 
 their filthy libels, they took it into their heads to deprive us of 
 the means of defending ourselves, by shutting up the printing- 
 presses in the Alps. 1 Consequently, Gowin corrupted our 
 workmen. That fine fellow, Champ-d'Avoine, spent three 
 days, arid often far into the night, in chasing them from 
 hiding-place to hiding-place, and from tavern to tavern. At 
 last he caught them and put them in prison, with the alter- 
 native of remaining there or of working. However, they 
 preferred the latter. Well, what do you say to that ? Is it 
 not treacherous ? 
 
 ' B which means, Gregoire, your speech, which is a sheet 
 
 r 
 
 1 Alpes Maritimes. 
 
A Letter of de Sichcllei. 215 
 
 and a half long, has been set up, and the proofs have been 
 corrected by me. Of the first sheet, there are still seven 
 pages of copy to set up. These fellows • are doing this now 
 under compulsion, and with the cudgel of Liberty held over 
 them. You will make your appearance. And I ? Shall 
 I not appear too, after you ; I, a layman ; I, unworthy ; I, 
 profane ? Just fancy ! M. Gobemouche has set me going. 
 I have written a pamphlet, in a spirit of buffoonery. Irritated 
 by the visits of electors and priests on the subject of the 
 oath, I imagined a dialogue in which all these fellows should 
 take a part, which should contain all their propositions and 
 all their objections. See what man is ! As I have already 
 told you, I formerly treated this subject and studied it 
 thoroughly in Alsace. All my ideas have come back to me. I 
 have written a work of fifty pages ; I did it in a day and a half ; 
 I did it without reading it over ; I sent it sheet by sheet to 
 the press. Let Gregoire (whom I quote somewhere) tell me if 
 there are any heresies in it, and I will submit like a F^nelon. 
 
 ' All this is great fun. I will send you my work by the 
 first post. It is being printed. 
 
 ' My letter is dated from Moutiers, and it is time" to tell 
 you that I am at Moutiers. What a country for a man who 
 has come from Saint-Pierre dAlbigny ! O nature ! Here 
 I have a brown wrap consisting of eight mountains. Day 
 hardly breaks here. The sun takes leave of the place for eight 
 months in the year. Moutiers is all but a sinecure to him. 
 You will confess this is very hard upon a town in which there 
 used to be an archbishop's palace, a parliament, an excise- 
 office, a mint, &c, for the good of twelve hundred inhabi- 
 tants all told. I arrived at night. I have not seen anyone 
 yet. I shall see the municipality, the club, and the bishop, 
 and then be off. 
 
 1 By the way, they say the bishop is a good fellow, and 
 has not forbidden anyone to take the oath. He is himself 
 halting between two opinions. I will give him a shove this 
 morning. Our friend Simon remains at Chamberi, detained 
 by the business of his diocese. 
 
 ' And now I must tell you of a new plot of that execrable 
 .municipality and town of ChambeVi. Fancy, my dear fellows, 
 
2 1 6 Camilte Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 that insatiable Chambdri wanted to take away the bishop's 
 house from Ann^cy and have it itself. They have made 
 every effort to induce the old aristocrat bishop of Chamben 
 to take the oath. They destroyed a letter of his to the Pope, 
 and he has cheated them by adding to it a private letter. 
 This attempt will either place the bishopric at Chamberi (if 
 the Pope will consent, which is not to be thought of), or 
 paralyse the Electoral Assembly, and prevent it from 
 nominating a bishop. At all events, it baulks Annecy. I 
 possess this specimen of mean Italian trickery. I have not 
 had time to copy it for you ; you shall have it on my return. 
 But be easy ; we will out-general those rascals. 
 
 ' Many clerics have fled from the mountains to Geneva, in 
 Switzerland. However, they leave their friends their address, 
 and I feel sure they will come back. 
 
 ' Lyons is in a hateful state of ferment. I prophesy 
 that the Assembly will be obliged to send down more com- 
 missaries. 
 
 ' Eighteen ecclesiastics of the neighbouring departments, 
 propagandists of the oath and of patriotism, have arrived here. 
 They are first going to rig up their platform in ChambeVi, to 
 make themselves known, and from that to make themselves 
 desired. This will puzzle the club a little. 
 
 ' Farewell, my Nizards. With you at least stabbing is 
 done gracefully. I leave you to go and preach to an old 
 bishop. I embrace you both and Arnaud, like Saint-Pierre 
 dAlbigny. Make a copy of my letter, so please you, that I 
 may refer to it hereafter.' ' 
 
 Under the elegant lucidity of the style of this 
 letter the disappointed man can be detected ; he who 
 has made the sacrifice of his life, and, like a true son of 
 the eighteenth century, is only seeking to make a good 
 use of the remnant of existence. In truth, Herault 
 was essentially a son of the eighteenth century. He 
 
 1 I have to return my best thanks to Madame Charras, who kindly 
 allowed me to take a copy of this precious autograph letter from the 
 important album she possesses, and which contains many fragments, 
 doubly interesting from a literary and an historical point of view. 
 
The ' Theory of Ambition! 2 1 7 
 
 had, like Camille, its solid learning and its cultivation 
 of mind. In 1788., Herault de Seychelles had begun 
 a collection of thoughts, which J. B. Salgues repub- 
 lished in the year X. (1802), under the title: 'The 
 Theory of Ambition ; first published under the mock 
 title, Codicille politique et pratique d'un jeune habi- 
 tant d'Epone.' The original work was revised by 
 Herault in the prison of the Luxembourg. He was 
 putting it into a new form up to the moment when he 
 was summoned to execution. A curious book is this 
 half-posthumous work ; a book of psychology, or rather 
 of physiology, and quite modern in tone. He"rault's 
 bitterness of spirit appears here undisguisedly ; he was 
 saddened, tired of mankind, disheartened, and almost 
 sickened, but still and always faithful to the law of 
 justice. 
 
 Herault exacts from man that he shall demand his 
 strength, his glory, and his happiness from himself : 
 
 'Believe thyself, know thyself, respect thyself. The 
 practice of these three maxims will make man healthy, 
 enlightened, good, and virtuous. 
 
 ' Each individual (he says again) is the centre of the 
 universe. An individual idea is but the representation, the 
 copy, of an individual. Each individual idea may therefore 
 be the centre of all others.' 
 
 I know what will be said to this, I foresee the ob- 
 jections. This theory of HeVauIt's is nothing but the 
 code of selfishness. Not so ! Egotism, Goethe would 
 reply ; that is to say, respect and culture of the me, 
 absolute knowledge of this me, which ought to lead to 
 the knowledge of others. 
 
 Many modern ideas, brought forth and grown up 
 since Hdrault's time, will be found in his pages, in 
 which, strangely enough, we meet with evidences of 
 
2i§ Cainille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the handsome Sechelles' utter severity towards women ; 
 he was as implacable to them as are those disappointed 
 melancholy men who owe women a grudge : 
 
 ' Take (he said) the idea of weakness from a woman. 
 
 ' Women oftener rule vain men than proud men. These 
 latter only want a woman, and that from time to time. The 
 former always want to be preferred, and, above all, to seem so. 
 
 ' Venus sape excitata, raro peract'a ingenium acuit! 
 
 Sometimes Herault's precepts are weighty and 
 high-minded ; at others they affect a cutting and be- 
 wildering irony. Now he is a stoic, full of the 
 sternest principles; anon he is a cruel satirist, who 
 takes pleasure in throwing, as it were, a mourning veil 
 over life. Listen to him ! there is in him, by turns, 
 something of Marcus Aurelius and of Swift :— 
 
 ' Have a high idea of your powers, and then work ; you will 
 treble them. 
 
 ' We mafie great progress only at the time when we turn 
 melancholy — at the time when, discontented with a real world, 
 we are forced to make for ourselves one more bearable. 
 
 ' Fly from what is little, and seek what is great. 
 
 ' Society is the cure for pride, and solitude for vanity. 
 
 ' Man is only great in proportion to the continuous esteem 
 he has for himself. Therefore, avoid the meaner part and the 
 company of tmworthy men ; the disdainful end by forcing 
 their fellows to believe in them! 
 
 This is the lofty thinker, the manly and daring 
 moralist. But, suddenly, the satirist lets his shrill note 
 be heard, and the author of the ' Theorie de l'ambition.' 
 displays a disdain of the human race which I am very 
 sure he did not feel. I can only see a vindictive 
 irony, after the pattern; of Larochefoucauld, in the pre- 
 cepts which Herault de Sechelles lays down for those 
 who are ambitious of literary glory : — 
 
Hdrautt 's Maxims. 219 
 
 ' Praise those -with whom yon converse for the things upon 
 which they pride themselves most, in order that you may get a 
 chance of being praised yourself . 
 
 ' Tell many people that your reputation is great ; they will 
 repeat it, and these repetitions will make your reputation. 
 
 ' Slip in your praise of a man between two censures, so as 
 to enhance the criticism by the contrast. 
 
 ' Put problems into your books .and your conversation 
 witlwut giving the solution; riddles, without giving the 
 anszvers ; so as to bring yourself ittto request, and to fix 
 attention upon the author : people do not forget the names of 
 places at which, in spite of themselves, they Jiave had to stop} 
 
 ' Never stand on the defensive zvhen attacked, but be always 
 ready for the attack, either in word or in act! 
 
 The few pages of the ' Traite" . d'ambition,' in 
 which He>ault, with rigid exactness, studies man and 
 mankind from a purely physical point of view, are 
 perhaps the most curious and the most significant in all 
 this singular, startling, and little known book. HeVault 
 had not been the friend of Lavater some years before 
 for nothing. He skilfully applies the reflections and 
 the researches of the master : — 
 
 ' The female brain (he says) must be carefully distinguished 
 from the male brain. The first is a sort of matrix; it receives 
 and it gives forth, but it does not produce' 
 
 A materialist idea if you like, but clear, absolute, 
 and well stated. HeVault condenses his thought still 
 more in the observations which follow : — 
 
 ' Eye steady ; thoughts and will steady. 
 ' Eye unsettled ; thoughts and will unsettled. 
 ' Visual ray downcast ; sign of a proud, disdainful, and 
 passionate character. 
 
 1 This was Honore" de Balzac's opinion : ' I let fall here and there, 
 in my books, a few incomprehensible ideas, so that the public may think 
 me, at least in these special points, superior to themselves, and in con- 
 sequence respect me,' 
 
226 Camitle Desmoutins and his Wife. 
 
 ' Visual ray upward ; sign of a timid, humble, and retiring 
 character. 
 
 ' Visual ray level ; sign of an equable, constant, sociable 
 character. 
 
 ' Double voice, double character. 
 
 'As the texture of the skin, so is the texture of the 
 opinions and of the style. 
 
 'By comparing the form, the colour, the physiognomy, 
 the tone of voice, the appearance, and, in one word, the 
 external qualities and the movements of a man with the 
 external qualities of animals, we can, by the known consti- 
 tution of the latter, discover the hidden constitution of the 
 former. Example : the cry of the peacock, and the noise, 
 that it makes with its feet to get itself looked at, greatly 
 resemble the loud voice and the noise that those people make, 
 in putting themselves forward, who like to parade themselves 
 and to attract notice.' 
 
 Everyone may criticise or verify the observations 
 Herault de Sechelles has made. They are undoubt- 
 edly interesting, and this ' Theorie de 1'ambition ' 
 shows us clearly that the author was a hard thinker, 
 and a man of vast knowledge ; one of those mascu- 
 line brains of which he speaks. Not in vain had 
 he received the education of the eighteenth century ; 
 sound, full of facts, rich in ideas, not in mere words. 
 He had, at the same time, its gracefulness — as we have 
 seen in his letter to his colleagues — and its feeling ; the 
 lines written upon Les Charmettes, the remembrance 
 of Rousseau evoked at Savoy, and afterwards in his 
 prison, have shown us that ; above all, he had its 
 vigorous science. At twenty-five, in 1785, did not 
 Hdrault de Sechelles publish a ' Visite a. Buffon,' 
 which even then disclosed a remarkable writer and, 
 better still, a philosopher ? 1 It was a curious, a life- 
 
 1 Reprinted by J. B. Noellat in 1802, under the title of 'Voyaged 
 Montbard/ and followed, in this new edition, by • Rdflexions sur la 
 
Buffon and de Sdchelles. 2 2 1 
 
 like portrait of the author of the ' Histoire Naturelle.' 
 Madame de Polignac's nephew was greeted by the 
 aged Buffon as an acquaintance. 'We have been 
 looking out for each other this long time,' said the great 
 writer, on receiving his young admirer at Montbard. 
 
 Herault describes the fine, noble, calm face of this 
 old man of seventy- eight years, whose sole weakness 
 was to rate his fame below his title — that of 'Count.' 
 ' I stammered a few words, being careful to say M. Ic 
 Comte, for in that none must fail. I had been warned 
 that he had no dislike whatever to this way of address- 
 ing him.' Can we not see the scarcely hidden smile 
 of Herault, in these lines — do we not discern that in 
 1785. the young aristocrat is indifferent to his own 
 nobility of birth ? The revolutionist already whispers 
 in this sceptic's words. 
 
 This picture of an interior, this portrait of Buffon, 
 when all but an octogenarian, taken three years before 
 his death, is a finished painting. It would be worth 
 while to have it reprinted, and we should there see a 
 Buffon who is little known, who treats religion as a 
 purely human institution, 'which must be respected 
 outwardly.' A calumny ! cries Noellat, who re-edited 
 the work. It is the fact that in 1 788 Buffon did ask 
 for the Viaticum. It is certain that Herault de Sey- 
 chelles had no other intention in speaking thus than 
 to praise Buffon's independence of mind. 
 
 In order to be thoroughly acquainted with this 
 Herault de Sechelles, who was so eloquent, so en- 
 chanting, so much petted and praised, we ought to read 
 the fragment upon ' La Conversation,' in which he deli- 
 
 d&lamation/ by a fragment upon ' La Conversation,' by an ' Eloge 
 d'Athanase Auger,' and by ' Pensees et anecdotes/ which are also by 
 J.-M. Herault de S&helles. 
 
222 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 neateswith a touch, a stroke of the pencil, or a turn of. 
 the hand, the celebrated talkers who thronged the 
 saloons before '89, and each of whom made his personal 
 mark upon the French mind. They all live once more 
 under his pen ; one line is enough to call them forth — 
 here is Delille, witty and elegant, a thorough Acade- 
 mician ; here Ducis, of the grand and polished manners ; 
 Garat's way of holding up his head and knitting his 
 brows ; Cerutti's precise speech ; the nipping pincers of 
 Chamfort's genius ; the verbose audacity of the Abbe" 
 Fauchet ; the sudden harangues and the loud voice of 
 D'Epremesnil ; Lavater's lively and expressive mien ; 
 Marmontel's continual and thoroughly French talk ; the 
 grave, large-minded, enlightened disposition of Con- 
 dorcet, with a dash of malignity ; and reminiscences 
 of Rousseau, who punctuated his words so well, and 
 of Diderot, who brightened them up like a sunbeam. 
 There is nothing Herault de Sechelles does 'not 
 remark and quote as an example, even to the ' silence 
 of the celebrated Franklin.' With all these men did the 
 future member of the Convention mix, and closely did 
 .... he study them. ' For a long time,' he said, ' I acted the 
 part of a listener.' It is by knowing how to fill this 
 part that we learn to perform every other. The best 
 method whereby youth may learn (a method forgotten 
 now-a-days) is to hearken to the aged. 
 
 The young magistrate, the future conqueror of 
 the Bastille, borrowed a new charm, fresh knowledge 
 and wit, from the company of these eminent men. He 
 fought far the future with the elegant manners of a 
 man of the past ; the democrat set the high fashion 
 to the gentry. 1 
 
 Such was Herault de Sechelles — fascinating and 
 
 1 The family of Herault de Sdchelles still exists. According to 
 
La Morency. 223 
 
 sparkling, the true type of the grand seigneur, who was 
 also a man of letters, devoting himself entirely to the 
 popular cause, yet preserving the refined manners of 
 a caste which he had not yet ceased, as he said, 'to 
 combat and to despise.' 
 
 La Morency, whose autobiographical romance, 
 ' Illyrine, ou l'Ecueil de l'inexperience,' contains more 
 than one valuable historical detail, has given us several" 
 life-like traits of the physiognomy of the man whom 
 she calls ' the delicious Skhelles! She describes the 
 apartment on the second floor of No. 16, Rue 
 Basse-du-Rempart, in which Herault lived ; the immense 
 library of the member of the Convention, and the 
 private room in which he received his guest, ' hung with 
 English paper, of a yellow colour, •with arabesque 
 borders ; Cupids painted on the ceiling ; a couch, . a 
 mirror from the top to the bottom of the wall ; pots of 
 flowers in the window, and blinds which only admitted 
 a half-light' There was something of the Epicurean, 
 or at least of the Athenian, in. this Montagnard. One 
 morning Herault said to Morency — to that woman 
 whom for a fleeting moment he loved — ' I want to 
 live quickly; — and when they take my life, they will 
 think they are killing a man of thirty-two, and I shall 
 be eighty; for I shall have lived ten years in one 
 day!' 1 
 
 the abolition of the rights of primogeniture, bore the title of De Sechelles, 
 Kas very rich descendants near Tours. 
 
 1 ' Illyrine, ou l'Ecueil de l'inexperience,' by G. de Morency (3 vols, 
 in 8vo.), Paris, in the year VI., can be had of the author, Rue Neuve- 
 saint-Roch, No. ill; at Rainville's, the publisher, Rue Feron, No. 991 ; at 
 Mademoiselle Durand's library ; Favre's library at the Palais- Egalite", and 
 from all the sellers of new publications, with this motto : — 
 ' Ce monde est une come'die 
 Ou chaque acteur vient a son tour, 
 Amuser les hommes du jour 
 Des avent.ures de sa vie.' 
 
 Epttre & Sophie, par le citoyen Alibert. 
 
224 Camille Desmoulins and Ms Wife. 
 
 III. 
 
 Pierre Philippeaux, born in 1759, at La Ferriere- 
 aux-Etangs, in L'Orne, had been judge of the court 
 of Mans, before the ^Revolution, and was returned 
 by La Sarthe to the National Convention, in '92. 
 There, he voted for the death of the king, and at the 
 same time called for an appeal to the people ; and he, 
 who was accused of being the accomplice of Dumou- 
 riez, demanded that three hundred thousand livres 
 should be promised to anyone who would deliver up 
 the treacherous general to his country. It was a sinister 
 proceeding, to set a price on such a deed. Honest 
 and upright, of unequalled probity, but easily blinded 
 concerning men, while faithful to principles, gentle 
 and firm at the same time, Philippeaux had voted 
 against the Girondins, and repented it afterwards. 
 When sent into La Vendee to re-organize the 
 administrations, which were tainted with federalism, 
 he from the first opposed the plan proposed by the 
 generals and deputies assembled at Saumur, ' the Court 
 of Saumur ' as he called it. Agreeing with the 
 military staff of Nantes, Philippeaux wished to subdue 
 La Vendee by sending into it flying columns, which 
 should multiply, escape, appear, disappear, scatter and 
 
 This collection of follies, as the author says, possesses some interest. 
 We see in it several illustrious members of the Convention in undress : 
 Quinette, who writes to Illyrine : ' Adieu, Lili ; I will go and federate 
 with you in three or four days, July 14;' Fabre d'Eglantine, 'a 
 little man, whose eye expressed genius, and his voice feeling ; ' then 
 Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, who draws forth this cry from La 
 Morency — ' How beautiful she is ! how superbly handsome ! ' Illyrine 
 relates that one day HeYault was supping at her house with a friend, who 
 said to him, ' Hdrault, do you stand well with Robespierre ? ' He 
 reddened, and retired early, in tears, giving this excuse — ' I have to make 
 a report for to-morrow.' 
 
Philippeaux. 225 
 
 form again, righting after the fashion of the Vendeans, 
 opposing a man-hunt to the war of ambuscades. 
 
 Rossignol and Ronsin, on the contrary, would not 
 attempt to measure themselves against the Vendeans 
 without a considerable force. But while they were 
 concentrating this force, the civil war continued its 
 ravages, and spread like a conflagration, or rather — for 
 the word used at the time was correct — like a canker. 
 The Committee of Public Safety approved of Philip- 
 peaux's measures ; but the flying columns were beaten 
 and dispersed. Philippeaux, who was recalled, 
 defended himself as he best could. He defended 
 himself indeed, after French fashion, by straightway 
 attacking his enemy. 
 
 On the 1 8th Nivdse he made a deliberate attack 
 upon those whom he called ' the executioners of La 
 Vendue,' and, like Camille, later on, he demanded 
 clemency for the Vendeans. Useless cruelties and 
 senseless tactics he denounced with terrible vehe- 
 mence. ' What have you done, you unlucky fellow ? ' 
 a friend said to him, when the sitting broke up ; ' you 
 have let loose the War Office, the Committees, the 
 Cordeliers, and the Commune upon yourself! ' In fact, 
 the Convention had been unanimous in deciding 
 against La Vendee. 1 Philippeaux persisted. This 
 was the same man who afterwards wrote to his wife 
 from his prison : 'It is glorious to suffer for the 
 Republic and for the good of the people.' ' I have 
 sacrificed personal interest to the higher interest of 
 public affairs;' And, after his death, he left a fresh 
 
 1 The Breton Lanjuinais, in his loyal indignation against the insur- 
 gents, not only wished (like the Gironde) the rebellious Bretons to be 
 sent before the revolutionary tribunal, but even the goods of those who 
 had been killed to be confiscated. Cambace'res suggested military justice. 
 — Michelet, ' Histoire de la Revolution Frangaise/ vol. v. pp. 431-432. 
 
 Q 
 
226 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 proof of his courage and boldness in speaking the 
 truth. (' Reponse de Philippeaux a tous les defenseurs 
 officieux des bourreaux de nos freres dans la Vendee,' 
 at Paris, de Vimprimerie des femmes, in the year III.) 
 His wife published this document, which is a kind 
 of last will and testament. 
 
 Philippeaux — severe even to injustice upon Bou- 
 chotte (the records of the war give evidence of this) — 
 had been the judge of the operations in La Vendee. 
 
 Westermann was the general of this war in La 
 Vendee, which was made known in Paris by the member 
 of the Convention. Westermann was forty-three in 
 1794, having been born on September 5, 1 751, at Mol- 
 sheim (Alsace). His father, a surgeon in that town, 
 had given him so good an education, that, after having 
 served at fifteen in Esterhazy's regiment, at eighteen 
 in the petite gendarmerie, which he left in 1773 with 
 the rank of a non-commissioned officer, we find 
 Francis- Joseph Westermann, in 1775, at twenty-four, 
 advocate to the Superior Council of Alsace (in proceed- 
 ings instituted against him, and of which the papers still 
 exist in the National Archives). Truth compels us 
 to say that these proceedings (of which nothing has 
 been said until now) do no honour to the morality 
 of Westermann. Was he driven to theft by necessity ? 
 I do not know ; but the fact is that F.-J. Westermann 
 appeared before the commissioner, Joseph Chenon the 
 younger, on Saturday, September 16, 1786, on the 
 charge of having stolen a silver dish, with a crest en- 
 graved upon it, from the sieur Jean Creux, hotel-keeper 
 in Paris, Rue des Poulies. Westermann, then lodging 
 at the Hotel de la Marine, was taken into custody. 
 A month later, October 20, 1786, the plaintiffs 
 withdrew their accusation by their notary; but the 
 
Westermann. 227 
 
 ' instruction ' remains, and can unfortunately be substan- 
 tiated. Before that, in March 1775, Westermann had 
 been accused by Dumouchet, a slop seller, of the theft 
 of two waistcoats. He was also compromised in I 
 know not what robbery of plate with a certain Roch 
 de la Verdure, whom Westermann accuses of being the 
 only one guilty. He was taken up a second time on 
 January 4, 1776, and set at liberty on the 10th of the 
 same month ; and then he at once entered the regiment 
 of Royal Dragoons, to be for the third time arrested 
 and accused, eleven years after, in 1 786. 
 
 Strangely enough, Westermann was brought on 
 September 16 before Commissioner Chenon, to answer 
 to the charge made by the eating-house keeper Jean 
 Creux; and fourteen days after/ before the commissioner, 
 Chenu, another personage, more famous than Wester- 
 mann — Saint- Just, then aged nineteen — was brought up 
 to account for several articles — a silver basin, a goblet, 
 a flagon, some silver cups, some gold lace, a ring, a 
 pair of pistols mounted in gold — which he had taken 
 with him when running away from his mother's house. 
 Saint-Just, who had to expiate this freak by a year of 
 seclusion — demanded by his mother, not by the law, at 
 La Dame Marie de Sainte-Colombe at Picpus — ought 
 to have derived a little indulgence for human weakness 
 from his own experience. But Saint-Just, stubborn 
 before the commissioner who interrogated him in 1 786, 
 •and protesting that he had done no more than possess 
 himself of his own property, and had a right to do as 
 he chose — Saint- Just was afterwards implacable towards 
 those whom he accused — and accused, wretched man ! 
 in the name of virtue ! 
 
 Westermann, at least, tried to make up by a 
 daily sacrifice for the faults for which man had not 
 
 Q2 
 
228 Camille Desmoiilins and his Wife. 
 
 condemned him, but which his conscience did not 
 pardon. 
 
 He is to be seen everywhere, risking his life like a 
 man who is weary of living. Brave to rashness, daring 
 to a fault, throwing himself in the way of sword and 
 bullet, Westermann seemed really to have no relish for 
 anything but death. Alsace made him sheriff of Stras- 
 burg, then member of the municipality of Haguenau ; 
 August 10 found him a soldier once more, com- 
 manding the sections, who were eager for the fray. 
 On that stormy day Westermann multiplied himself, 
 sword in hand, his coat off and his shirt sleeves tucked 
 up to the elbow ; that day Westermann was the 
 right arm of the battle. We might have wished for a 
 soldier freer from reproach, but not for a braver. 
 Danton and his friends were then ignorant — and all 
 the world, even history, was until now ignorant — of the 
 antecedents of this intrepid soldier who had some 
 heroic qualities, and who fought like a Trojan and 
 died like a hero. Once more I discern a yearning for 
 death in his frenzy for fighting. 
 
 The Executive Council had, on September 14, 
 1792, nominated Westermann to the post of adjutant- 
 general. The warrior of August 10 set out for 
 Dumouriez' army. Made colonel of the Legion of the 
 North, September 27, 1792, he felt happy ; he knew 
 himself to be powerful. His artless pride betrays itself 
 in a letter, dated October 3, in which, writing to a 
 friend, Westermann is quite proud, poor man! of 
 having dined at the Prussian camp, during a suspension 
 of arms. 
 
 I admired this Westermann, and my imagination 
 made a brother-in-arms to the great and valiant Repub- 
 lican Kleberof this Alsatian officer; but truth will out 
 
Westermann. 229 
 
 and military courage, however magnificent, cannot 
 condone everything. 
 
 m 
 
 Letter of October 3, 1792. 
 ' To Citizen Philibert, at Strasburg. 
 
 ' I am chief of the Legion of the North, staff-adjutant of the 
 army, and commissary-general of the Executive Power. I 
 have been to the Prussian camp to dine with the King of 
 Prussia. For the time I am all-powerful. What can I do 
 for you ? Would you like the post of that imprudent 
 Ehrmann (the son) ? I will have him dismissed and the post 
 given to you. I have had Thomassin dismissed. 1 
 
 'Westermann.' 
 
 The all-powerful Westermann had only to wait : 
 less than two years later he might have bethought 
 himself, in his turn, of claiming the favour which he now 
 offers with such frank pride. Let us say briefly, that 
 he asked for nothing, and suffered death with admirable 
 composure. The rough soldier did not give the lie to 
 his life in his last hour. 
 
 In January 1793 he was detached from the army 
 in Belgium to join the army in Holland. There he 
 fulfilled his functions as adjutant-general so well that 
 Breda and Gertruydenberg were forced to surrender. 
 But General d'Arcon received the keys. Westermann, 
 in a fury, complained to Dumouriez, and talked of 
 favouritism ; Dumouriez sent him to Turhout with the 
 Legion of the North. 
 
 The check at Aix-la-Chapelle placed Westermann's 
 troops in a perilous situation, but the intrepid com- 
 mandant opened a passage for himself to Antwerp by 
 keeping up a brisk fire, night and day ; and when he 
 reached Antwerp, the fortress had just surrendered. 
 
 1 See 'L' Amateur d'autographes ' of July 16, 1863, No. 38. 
 
230 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Westermann and his soldiers were taken back to 
 the French frontier by an Austrian escort. Once 
 •on French soil, he was arrested. Lecointre (of 
 Versailles), deputed by the Convention to examine 
 into the charges against Westermann in the name of 
 the Committee of Public Safety, after having read 
 all the documents in the suit — even those of the 
 citizens of the section of the Lombards, which recapi- 
 tulated the soldier's antecedents — proposed that it 
 should be decreed that there was no reason to find 
 Westermann guilty. This was on May 4. ' Had he 
 saved liberty by his single arm,' Legendre had said 
 some months before, ' and were he a rascal, he ought 
 to be punished.' 
 
 May 10, 1793, Westermann set out for La Vendee 
 as general of brigade. Impetuous, enthusiastic, kind- 
 ling the zeal of the conscripts, rousing his soldiers to 
 enthusiasm, he was the real chief of the advance 
 guard ; and after having surprised Parthenay, he pur- 
 posed to crush La Rochejaquelein and Lescure together, 
 before Chatillon, besieged by les blancs. The Royalist 
 chiefs gathered together a considerable force ; but this 
 mattered little to Westermann. He broke through" the 
 hostile army, on July 3, entered the town, delivered the 
 prisoners, and taking up his position on the heights 
 which command the town, he sent for help to Biron. 
 The victory was won ; he only required supports, but, 
 in the night, one of those foolish panics, too common, 
 alas ! among French troops, seized upon his soldiers. 
 All fled. The torrent carried Westermann away with 
 it. Guns and ammunition— all were abandoned ! The 
 Convention called Westermann to strict account for 
 that day, which Madame de la Rochejaquelein, an 
 inimical witness, declares in her ' Memoirs ' to have 
 
Westermann. 23 1 
 
 been one of glory for Westermann, whom she re- 
 presents as irresistible at the head of his hundred 
 hussars. He appeared at the bar of the Convention on 
 July 17, and the military tribunal of Niort, before 
 which he was referred, acquitted him, 'with honour/ 
 on the 29th August. 
 
 It might be interesting to trace the charges to 
 which W.estermann's too hasty conduct gave rise. 
 Here is the identical text of a letter (I shall cite 
 others) addressed by a soldier, named Bare, to his 
 father, who sent it, at the time of the trial of the 
 Dantonists, to Fouquier-Tinville, as an accusing 
 document : — 1 
 
 ' Saint-Maixent, July 24, 1793. 
 
 ' The second year of the French Republic. 
 
 ' My dear Father and Mother, — In answer to your letter 
 of the 1 8th instant, which I received on the 21st, I must tell 
 you I was bivouacking, so could not write sooner to enquire 
 after your health ; as for mine, it is very good. I can only 
 give you a few details of our situation, for I have not as y€t 
 mastered them all, since we left Paris. On arriving at Niort, 
 we were put to sleep in the church of Notre Dame, with only 
 straw to lie upon, after having marched a hundred and ten 
 leagues ; while the others were quartered upon the citizens ; 
 for one prefers sleeping in one's trousers to lying on bare 
 boards. First, we remained eight days in the church at Niort, 
 after that we slept two days in a bed, after that we set out 
 on our way to Tours. When we arrived at Poitiers, we 
 received orders to return to Saint-Maixent, and from thence 
 to Parthenay, to rejoin Westermann's army, which had gone 
 to Chatillon. The day after we arrived at Parthenay we 
 received orders to set out for Bellessuire at four in the 
 afternoon. Three hours after we beat the retreat, for Wester- 
 mann's army had been defeated ; nothing was left but the 
 
 1 This letter, in the original, with its remarkable orthography, will be 
 found in the Appendix^ 
 
232 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 cavalry ; as for the infantry, there was none remaining. We 
 returned to the heights at Parthenay, where our two bat- 
 talions bivouacked. At three o'clock in the morning, General 
 Westermann reviewed us, and we remained at the bivouac. 
 The day after we were sent to take up another position. 
 Here there was a misunderstanding ; for on being taken down 
 a declivity there was a cry of " treason." The general was 
 informed of this, and was told that it was our captain Rouy ; 
 and all the while he was not there, having gone to the 
 hospital with a man who had received a shot in the arm, 
 during the afternoon. While I was looking about for a dinner 
 in Parthenay, the commandant of our battalion — the same 
 who had told the. general it was our captain — said to me: 
 " Here's a fine business ; your captain and the captain Bare 
 will have their heads broken." I, who knew nothing about 
 it, asked why ? He told me we were betrayed, and left 
 me in great agitation. This increased when I saw General 
 Westermann at that moment pass with his cavalry, which 
 was going to the bivouac ; and I said to one of my comrades, 
 that if they were going to kill my captain I would desert, 
 since one was no longer allowed to open one's mouth, 
 for I saw the general behaving like the absolute master, 
 without assembling a council of war, and not choosing to 
 listen to Captain Rouy, who told him he did not know what 
 was meant. General Westermann, like a despot, told him he 
 would make an example of him, and said to him, " Kneel 
 down." This the captain did at once ; whilst the grenadiers 
 were ready to fire, and the light cavalry faced our battalion, 
 the general having said that if they budged an inch he would 
 cut them to pieces. The moment the captain was on his 
 • knees, his son threw himself into his father's arms, saying that 
 he would die with his father. At the same time a com- 
 mandant of a battalion d'Orteans said to the general that the 
 troops begged for mercy for the captain. He did not want 
 it, for he had done no harm. See the reign of Liberty ! I 
 leave you to think how terrified we were at seeing justice 
 administered on the spot. However, as if in mercy, the 
 general said to the captain, " Get up." This man, who had 
 not been guilty, had no need of a pardon ; for we can only 
 
An Accusatory Letter. 233 
 
 forgive a criminal. Let us pass over this. From that 
 moment the general could not endure us. We left Parthenay 
 the same night to return to Saint-Maixent, where the general 
 had the troop put into beds, and our Paris battalion was 
 chosen out to be quartered at the bishop's house. Here we 
 have been for three weeks, which shows that the Parisians 
 are loved. I do not know why ; there are townspeople who 
 are quite astonished ; for five thousand men have been lodged 
 in this town, and there were not two thousand of us when 
 we came here, and there are not five thousand of us yet. 
 This is how we are placed. I think they are sorry to see us 
 in these countries. We are nearly all married and fathers of 
 families; and this is our recompense. Westermann has set 
 out for Paris. Citizen Daillac has replaced him ; it is not 
 Daillac now — I think it is General Vajusquit — and this is why 
 I beg you to let me know if Westermann is in Paris, and 
 what news there is of him, for I am still at my post ; but if 
 Westermann comes back to this country, I shall be obliged 
 to run away, for if he were to know what I have written, he 
 would have me killed. Yet we sleep on the ground by 
 choice, always. Another thing I will tell you, that I have 
 received a letter from my wife which has given me great 
 pleasure. As for the cabinet of which you speak, pray do 
 with it as if it were your own. I hope, nevertheless, to 
 return before long. I beg of you to be very careful to whom 
 you show my letter. I end, my father and my mother, with 
 hearty love, 
 
 ' Your son, 
 
 ' E. P. BARfi. 
 
 ' Let me know what the news is about Westermann and 
 Paris. ' l 
 
 This letter shows the necessity imposed upon 
 Westermann for raising the tone of the troops, 
 which were as yet undisciplined, and I know not 
 a better eulogium upon a general than to say he 
 contrived to conquer with such soldiers. Furious at 
 
 1 ' National Archives.' Trial of the Dantonists. 
 
234 Camille DesmouHns and his Wife. 
 
 the check he had received on the 3rd July, Wester- 
 mann, with the vanguard, carried Chatillon, entered 
 Beaupreau, pursued the Vendeans beyond the Loire, 
 with his jaded troops ; harassed the Royalists in Poitou, 
 and on the 13th December attacked them in the town 
 of Mans. This was a terrible battle. Three times 
 was Westermann repulsed by the Vendeans, who 
 fought with intrepid courage. Three times he fell 
 upon them to dislodge them. Marceau arrived during 
 the action bearing a letter from the representative 
 Bourbotte, sent by the Convention to the armies of 
 the West. ' Cease firing,' was Bourbotte's order. 
 Marceau spoke of choosing a better position before 
 Mans. 'The best position,' Westermann replied, 
 ' is in the. town itself. Forward ! ' And, in spite of the 
 darkness, the battle began afresh. 
 
 Westermann, who was wounded, bleeding, and 
 black with powder, had two horses killed under him. 
 He never relinquished his post or his sword. He 
 entered Mans sword in hand. The Vendeans being 
 driven back, he pursued them. Twelve days after, 
 with Kleber, he crushed them at Savenay. La Vendee 
 has had no more formidable adversary than this 
 Alsatian, who marched, half-clothed, at the head of 
 the battalions, and imparted to his soldiers the 
 intoxicating foretaste of victory. 
 
 On January the 4th, 1 794, Westermann returned to 
 Paris. The hero of La Vendee had no suspicion that 
 death awaited him there. He was about to be regarded 
 as the prime mover of the Dantonist party. The 
 Committee of Public Safety heard with mistrust the 
 clanking of the sword of the warrior of the 10th August 
 in the lobbies of the Tuileries. On the 6th January, 
 the general was dismissed. Westermann seeing the 
 
Fabre d 1 Eglantine. 235 
 
 danger, wished to forestall it by marching upon Paris, as 
 he had marched upon Chatillon and upon Mans. He 
 proposed to carry off the Committees. Danton refused. 
 Westermann disgraced was speedily to become Wes 
 termann accused. He must often have felt himself a 
 prey to melancholy and to disgust. He had had his 
 luggage and his weapons taken to the Rue Meslay, to 
 the house of Citizen Le Loir, who had let him a 
 lodging. At the bottom of a trunk Westermann care- 
 fully preserved the different epaulets which marked 
 the stages of his various ranks — the worsted epaulet, 
 the silver epaulet, and the golden epaulet. He con- 
 templated them sorrowfully sometimes ; as a soldier 
 without arms, a warrior in repose, he waited. For 
 what ? An opportunity ; — the first shot fired. Here, 
 in the Rue Meslay, he was arrested by order of the 
 Committees. 
 
 Fabre d'Eglantine, born at Carcassonne, December 
 2 8. i755» was, together with Desmoulins, secretary to 
 the group of which Westermann had been the arm. 
 Amiable and elegant, of less corrupt morals than has 
 been supposed, this writer of chansons, who wrote the 
 couplet for Simon, the musician, ' II pleut, il pleut, 
 bergere,' and for Garat the romance, ' Je t'aime tant, 
 je t'aime tant ! ' — this man of letters, whose principal 
 comedy, ' Le Philinte de Moliere,' is much above the 
 rank of second-class works ; this worldling who united 
 idyll to tragedy, gracefully paraded his fancies amid 
 the tempests of the Revolution. -His real name was 
 Philippe- Francois Fabre. While still a youth he was 
 the winner in the 'jeux floraux ' of Toulouse, and 
 added to his name that of the golden Eglantine 
 awarded as a prize to his verses. He was born a 
 dramatic poet. His genius was essentially comic. 
 
236 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 He said one day to Arnault, his colleague, ' Between 
 the moment in which I give you this snuff-box and the 
 moment in which you give it back to me there is a 
 comedy.' This saying is charming, most characteristic 
 and personal. ' And while saying this/ adds Arnault, 
 ' he improvised a plot upon the event. He saw comedy 
 everywhere.' 
 
 He even saw it, unfortunately for him, in the Con- 
 vention and in public affairs. I am convinced that he 
 was innocent of the falsifications of which he was 
 accused (January 13, 1794), with respect to the decree 
 relating to the liquidation of the Compagnie des Indes. 
 But the man who dared accuse the Girondins, in his 
 deposition against them, of complicity in the robbery 
 of the garde meuble, deserved to be calumniated in 
 his turn, that he might know how heavily the charge 
 of infamy falls upon the accused. Fabre was, more- 
 over, to have the honour of being accused by Hebert, 
 and to be treated as one of the moderate party. At 
 such a time this was at once a threat, a danger, and a 
 distinction. 
 
 Such were the principal personages in the group of 
 the Dantonists to which Camille Desmoulins belonged, 
 at least in death. Bazire, the generous-hearted, was 
 attached to it by pity and fate. But I pass over — 
 for I am far from looking on them as combatants in 
 the same cause— scheming financiers like D'Espagnac 
 and foreigners like Gusman, the Spaniard, and the two 
 Austrians, the elder and the younger Frey, with whom 
 the revolutionary tribunal coupled Danton and Camille. 1 
 In the light of the future, we need only class with 
 
 1 I find in a work published upon Danton— (see the newspaper ' La 
 Republique Franchise ' of September 25 and November 3, 1873), respecting 
 the articles there given by Dr. Robinet to the < Revue Positive ' upon the 
 Prods des Dantonistes, the following curious information : 
 
The Freys. 237 
 
 the vanquished, those men with whom they were proud 
 to brave death for their political faith. 
 
 ' There was much to say about the Austrians, Frey (or rather Frei), 
 and the naturalised Spaniard, Gusman. Regarding the two Austrians, 
 M. Robinet is astonished that the author of " Anacharsis Clootz" should 
 hold them in high esteem, and he even points out that the Baron de 
 Trenck denounced them as spies. Setting aside what the Baron de 
 Trenck may have said, and without being explicit here as to what this 
 Prussian was himself doing in France, we may tell M. Robinet that the 
 elder of the two brothers, Junius, is the author of a " Philosophic sociale," 
 dedicated to the French people, which appeared some days before he 
 was arrested ; that in this book Junius makes all society rest upon 
 the principle of individual preservation, and pronounced, "like a free 
 man," against certain propositions of Jean-Jacques. We believe this 
 publication contributed to the arrest of the two brothers, inasmuch as 
 Robespierre, in drawing up his report against Chabot, seems to aim at 
 the philosopher in Junius, whom he represents as " always dreaming, pen 
 in hand, of the rights of man, and bent double over the works of 
 Plutarch and Jean-Jacques." It is therefore possible to honour the two 
 Austrians, although step-brothers to Chabot, as the author of " Anacharsis 
 Clootz " has done. 
 
 ' M. Robinet should at least have given these victim3 their right name, 
 which we find in the gaolers' book. We read there — Eschine Portock. 
 This name is assuredly inexact ; but, however it may be, it would none 
 the less be a help in the researches which might be made, either in 
 Vienna or in Moravia, into the origin of these two foreign patriots. 
 And, at the same time, why not make enquiries about their sister 
 Ldopoldine, the natural daughter, it was said, of an eminent personage in 
 Vienna. Who knows if, one day, it may not be discovered that the 
 beautiful Leopoldine was one of the seventy-four natural children of the 
 Emperor Leopold, and then, how strange it would be should the capuchin 
 Chabot prove to be the nephew of Marie Antoinette. 
 
 ' But since we are upon strange coincidences, let us point out one sug- 
 gested by Gusman, the Spaniard. M. Robinet gives some valuable 
 information concerning this grandee of Spain, who was a small, muscular 
 man, of fiery temper, like Marat, whose friend he was. Who knows whether, 
 in prosecuting his researches, M. Robinet might not have discovered in 
 this friend of Marat's one of the ancestors of the ex-Empress of the 
 French ? ' 
 
 These exceedingly interesting details have probably been given to us 
 (the article is anonymous) by M. George Avenel, one of the men most 
 competent to treat of the history of the French people, and whose 
 life-like studies of Pache and his friends deserve especial attention. 
 
238 Camille Desmotdins and his Wife. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. Proclamation of the Republic (September 21, 1792) — The death of 
 the king — Camille Desmoulins' vote — Lucile and Marie-Antoinette — 
 Struggle with the Gironde — Marat — Danton and Camille — Clemency 
 — Disheartenment — Arthur Dillon — Camille undertakes his defence — 
 The ' Histoire des Brissotins' — October 3i^Maebeth. : - 
 
 2. ' Le Vieux Cordelier ' — Saint-Just and Billaud-Varennes— Struggle 
 with the Hdbertists— Anacharsis Clootz and Anaxagoras Chaumette 
 —Camille and' Tacitus — The infuriates — Liberty— Camille denounced 
 to the Jacobins — Pere Duchesne — The Committee of Clemency. 
 
 3. The last numbers of the 'Vieux Cordeliers' — Fragments by Camille 
 not printed in 1794 — Camille and Lucile — Lucile Desmoulins' despair 
 — Letter to FreYon — Brune — Cras moriemur .' — Robespierre and 
 Camille — The Song of the Swan. 
 
 4. Punishment of the Hdbertists — The arrest of the Dantonists is re- 
 solved upon — Death of Camille's mother — The Dantonists in the 
 prison of the Luxembourg — Camille's letters to Lucile — Saint-Just's 
 report— The ' instruction ' — The trial— Letter of M. Desmoulins the 
 elder to Fouqiiier-Tinville — Horror of the tribunal — Testimony of 
 Fabricius — The outlawry of the accused. 
 
 I. 
 
 It was Friday, the 21st September, 1792, little more 
 than one month after the 10th of August. In the 
 palace of the Tuileries, the Convention recently estab- 
 lished by the popular vote awaited the members of the 
 Legislative Assembly, who were about to place the fate 
 of France in the hands of the new tribunes. At a 
 quarter past noon the Legislative Assembly met. 
 Francois de Neufchateau was spokesman and made 
 over the ' reins of government ' to the Convention. 
 ' In nominating you,' he said, ' the primary Assem- 
 
The Convention. 239 
 
 blies have sanctioned the extraordinary measures 
 necessary for the welfare of twenty-four millions of 
 men against the perfidy of one.' 
 
 This announcement was applauded. The National 
 Convention quitted the hall of the palace of the 
 Tuileries and repaired to the Riding-school, where the 
 legislative body sat. The usual occupants of the gal- 
 leries were in attendance.' They saw their deputies 
 passing, and greeted them with acclamations. Petion 
 took the President's chair. Condorcet, Brissot, 
 Vergniaud, Camus, Lasource, Rabaut, Saint-Etienne, 
 occupied the bureau. 
 
 Two hours after, a proposition made by the man, 
 who years afterwards as a senator, first demanded, and 
 then proclaimed, the downfall of Napoleon, was put to 
 the vote. 
 
 There was a profound silence. 
 
 The motion of Gregoire, ex-cure of Embermesnil, 
 was adopted amid frenzied shouts and clapping of 
 hands, and, from the tribunal of the Convention, these 
 words fell, like the death-knell of the monarchy : — 
 
 ' The National Convention decrees that royalty is abolished 
 in France ! ' 
 
 Shouts and acclamations were heard ; the' enthu- 
 siasm spread, thundering from the galleries. 'Long 
 live the nation ! ' the occupants cried, in their intoxi- 
 cation. The light cavalry, organised into free com- 
 panies, swore to conquer or to die. To the Austrians 
 who were bombarding Lille, to the foreigners who 
 advanced upon Paris, to the kings who declared war, 
 France replied : Kings are no more ! Before setting 
 out for the Pyrenees, the Alps, or the Rhine, . the 
 soldiers offered two days' pay. Drunk with love of their 
 
240 Camille Desmoulins and Ms Wife. 
 
 country, happy and proud, they paraded before the 
 Convention, then in the first flush of victory, and of its 
 conviction that the liberty of the country was for ever 
 established. When the sitting broke up at four o'clock, 
 the shout of the Assembly spread throughout Paris, and 
 from Paris over the world, with its decree : — 
 
 ' Royalty is no more ! Royalty is abolished ! ' 
 
 Alas for those sublime defenders of a liberty which 
 we have not yet been able to establish, for which we 
 still grope in the dark ; their bones lie in the cata- 
 combs, in dungeons, in the lime of the Madeleine or 
 the mud of Clamart. But what of that ? Sacrifice is 
 never fruitless ; self-devotion is never vain ; and, despite 
 every deception, every trial, ultimate success belongs 
 only to the right, 
 
 On the eve of the same day on which Gregoire, the 
 schismatic priest, as the Royalists called him ever after, 
 carried the vote for the Republic, the cannonading of 
 Valmy proved to foreign nations that France was still 
 living. Chambery was occupied by the French three 
 days later, on September the 23rd ; Nice on the 
 28th ; Spires on the 30th ; Worms on October the 
 4th ; Lille, which had been besieged by the Austrians, 
 beheld their departure on the 8th. On the -2 2nd there 
 was no longer a Prussian in France ; on November 
 the 2nd there was not an Austrian in France, except 
 the Queen. What intoxicating success ! The Republic 
 was synonymous with Victory. 
 
 But if the nation seemed to have only one mind 
 against the enemy, she had millions of hands where- 
 with to rend and ruin herself. It is not our inten- 
 tion to follow the phases of those struggles, which 
 made the ' first breach ' in the National Convention, 
 
Camilles Vote. 241 
 
 then decimated, and finally disgraced it. Once more, 
 it must be borne in mind that this is a history of a 
 man, or of some few men, not of an epoch. 
 
 The Convention had abolished royalty ; now it 
 struck at the king. Thirty years after the trial of 
 Louis XVI., the aged and upright Lakanal wrote 
 to David (d' Angers) with respect to his vote for the 
 king's death : — 
 
 'As for me, I followed the line of my duty and my 
 convictions, and twenty-two years of exile have but confirmed 
 me in the belief that I thereby justified the confidence of my 
 constituents. ... 1st. We had the right of judgment. The 
 decree of the Legislative Assembly, given in Vergniaud's 
 report, said : The interest of the public demands that the 
 French people should manifest its will by the vote of a 
 National Convention formed of representatives invested with 
 unlimited powers by the people. 2ndly. Two millions of 
 addresses congratulated this courageous Assembly upon the 
 judgment which it had passed upon the perjured king,' ' 
 
 Camille Desmoulins, who voted for the king's 
 death, mingled facetiousness with condemnation, and 
 produced loud murmurs by wording his vote thus : 
 ' Manuel, in his " opinion " of the month of November 
 said : A king dead is not a man the less. I vote for 
 death, perhaps too late for the honour of the National 
 Convention.' 2 
 
 1 Unpublished letter. Madame de Charras' collection of auto- 
 graphs. 
 
 2 Had he received the following letter from his father ? 
 
 ' My dear son, — You can immortalise yourself, but you have only a 
 moment to do it in ; this is the warning of a father who loves yoj. This 
 is pretty nearly what I should say in your place : " I am a Republican in 
 feeling and in act, and-have given proof of it. I was one of the first and 
 most eager to denounce Louis XVI. ; and for these very reasons I 
 decline to vote. I owe this to the strictness of my principles ; I owe it 
 to the dignity of the Convention ; I owe it to my contemporaries and to 
 posterity ; in a word, I owe it to the Republic, to Louis XVI., and to 
 myself." 
 
 R 
 
242 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Under circumstances such as these, Camille ought 
 to have learned from Lucile to restrain his natural 
 tendency to extremes. What a pity that this beloved 
 wife had not taught him to combine dignity with modera- 
 tion and firmness. But Camille, who was an indif- 
 ferent speaker, and who made no figure in the rostrum 
 of the Convention (he was a member of the ' Comite 
 de correspondance,' and was more in his place there), 
 chafed at his second-rate position, and thought, no 
 doubt, by displays of this kind to maintain his popu- 
 larity and his reputation as a pitiless Frondeur. Even 
 Lucile indulged at that time in flights of fancy and 
 imagination, and we find evidence of the exaggeration 
 of her ideas in some of her writings. 
 
 For instance, she writes concerning Marie- Antoi- 
 nette, soon to be accused like Louis XVI., 1 and 
 sacrificed even more uselessly than he : — 
 
 ' This is between ourselves, so that you may have the sole merit ; I 
 only wish to be able soon to comment upon the affair to your advantage, 
 and for your peace of mind and my own, for I am your best friend. 
 'January 10, 1793.' ' DESMOULINS. 
 
 1 .Two years before, Camille Desmoulins had ventured to write of her, 
 whom he called ' the Austrian ' (following in this the example of the Comte 
 de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII.) as the wife of the great man-eater: — 
 
 ' Many patriots continue to regard Marie-Antoinette as irreconcila- 
 ble with the Constitution. All the public papers announce that she found 
 this note in her plate at dinner, on Sunday : At the first cannon ball your 
 brother orders to be fired against the French patriots, your head will be sent 
 hint. Perhaps the anecdote is apocryphal, but so many journals pub- 
 lished it, that the note might as well have been actually put under the 
 Queen's plate ' (' Revolutions de France et de Brabant '). 
 
 A pamphlet of the day amuses itself over the anger the Queen would 
 feel on reading Desmoulins' attacks upon her : 
 
 ' Request of the Queen to the heads of the tribunal of police of the 
 H6tel de Ville at Paris. 
 
 ' The humble petition of Marie-Antoinette of Austria, Queen of 
 France, spouse— often separated in body, and always in interest,— of His 
 Majesty Louis XVI., formerly King of France and Navarre, and as such 
 authorised to sue for her rights by action-at-law. 
 
 ' She complains of Desmoulins, who calls her the king's wife, and 
 
Lucile s Reflections. 243 
 
 'What I would do in her place. 
 
 ' If Fate had placed me on the throne, if I were Queen, 
 and if, having wrought the misery of my subjects, a certain 
 death awaited me ; as the just punishment of my crimes, I 
 would not wait for the disorderly populace to tear me from 
 my palace and drag me, with infamy, to the foot of the 
 scaffold ; I would forestall the attack, I say, and by my death 
 overawe the whole world. 
 
 ' I would have a large enclosure made ready in a public 
 place ; I would have a funeral pile erected and surrounded 
 by barriers ; and three days before my death I would have 
 my intentions made known to the people. Within the 
 enclosure and opposite the funeral pile I would have an altar 
 erected. 
 
 ' During those three days I would pray at the foot of the 
 altar to the great Master of the universe ; the third day, the 
 day of my death, all my family should accompany me to 
 the funeral pile, in mourning. The ceremony should take 
 place at midnight and by torchlight.' ' 
 
 It was, therefore, not Lucile who could have re- 
 demands that he shall be, not shut up in the Bastille— since, in conse- 
 quence of the insurrection of the people of Paris, the prison of the Bastille 
 is no more in existence — but confined as a madman in some prison.' 
 
 1 On the other hand, Lucile wrote in her red copy-bpok the following 
 verses, which she had either heard in the street, or which had been com 
 posed by some poet-friend : — 
 
 Complainte de Marie- Antoinette, Reine de France. 
 (Sur l'air de la Complainte de Marie Stuart, Reine d'Angleterre. ) 
 
 De votre reine infortune'e, 
 Francais, e"coutez le remords ; 
 A la coupable destined 
 Demandez raison de mes torts. 
 Pres de mon palais $olitaire, 
 Autrefois plein de faux amis, 
 Du peuple j'entends la colere, 
 II m'accuse, et moi je gemis. 
 
 A tous les coups mon ame est prlte, 
 Mais ou m'entrainent ces bourreaux ? 
 Ou suis-je ? J'entends sur ma t£te 
 Se croiser de fatals ciseaux. 
 
 R2 
 
244 Camiile Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 called Camiile into the path of moderation at this 
 time, or kept him in it. This gay young girl, who 
 died like a Roman, lived like an Athenian ; loving- 
 more than that, adoring her husband, but knowing 
 neither how to counsel nor how to restrain him. In 
 May 1793 Camiile, urged on by Robespierre, pub- 
 lished his ' Histoire des Brissotins ' (' Fragment de 
 1'Histoire secrete de la Revolution '). In the struggle 
 between the Gironde and the Mountain, he took a 
 decided part against the Gironde. His style had 
 never before been so aggressive. He spoke of the 
 rascality of Brissot, the hypocrisy of Roland, Gen- 
 sonnd's complicity with Dumouriez, Guadet's venality ; 
 and in order to secure ' a fowl in the pot for everybody ' 
 (alluding to the historical saying of Henri Quatre) he 
 proposed that the Brissotins should be ' vomited forth ' 
 by the Convention, and the Revolutionary Tribunal 
 ' amputated.' An awful pamphlet ! Desmoulins was 
 to be tremendously punished for it, by finding the 
 accusations he had made against the Girondins 
 turned against himself. He accused them of an 
 Orleanist and Anglo-Prussian conspiracy, and he was, 
 together with Danton, sentenced to death for having 
 been the Duke of Orleans' friend, and the contriver 
 of an imaginary restoration of the Monarchy ! 
 
 On m'arrache le diademe, 
 Un voile est pose 1 sur mon front, 
 Je vais done survivre a moi-mSme ? 
 Non, je mourrai de cet affront. 
 
 > O vous, pastourelles naives, 
 Qui portiez envie a mon sort, 
 Dans quelques romances plaintives 
 Placez mon nom apres ma mort. 
 Dites de Marie- Antoinette 
 L'ambition et les malheurs ; 
 J'expire un peu plus satisfaite 
 Si votre reine obtient des pleurs. 
 
Marat's Triumph. 245 
 
 Events followed in due ^political order. The 
 Girondins, enamoured of liberty, had blundered by 
 demanding the impeachment of Marat, without calcu- 
 lating that his popularity as a constant remembrancer 
 of old popular grudges would ensure his acquittal, and 
 that Marat would be returned upon their hands, 
 in greater favour than ever, by the verdict of the revo- 
 lutionary tribunal. Marat's triumph was the first 
 severe shock to the Gironde. What man so powerful 
 as the peoples friend — its evil genius — after such an 
 acquittal ? 
 
 Bailly has painted this scene in a picture, which is 
 placed in the Museum at Lille, and which gives an effec- 
 tive idea of the intoxication of the mob. It is lifelike 
 and charming ; the painter has made an idyll of one 
 of the fatal storms of the Revolution. We expect to 
 find something wild and savage like the Marat of 
 David, but we behold a festive scene after the man- 
 ner of Greuze. The people's friend, carried on the 
 shoulders of stalwart fellows, is sweetly smiling upon 
 the crowd with the air of a passionless sage, just 
 rescued from the grasp of death, and who salutes the 
 life for which he cares little. The market-porters, 
 clean, spruce, and neat, like the bridegroom of a comic 
 opera, wave their broad felt hats with enthusiasm. A 
 comfortable, fatherly-looking citizen stands with folded 
 arms, in the attitude of one of Jan Steen's or Adrian 
 Brauwer's Flemings, contemplating this good M. 
 Marat, just taken out of the hands of the judges. 
 Women, dressed in pale grey silk, coquettish and 
 charming, one of them holding by the hand a child in 
 the costume of the National Guard (the fashionable 
 attire), mix with the crowd, which seems not so much 
 shouting for joy at seeing a tribune again, as deeply 
 
246 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 moved at the sight of a father. The background of 
 the picture is, however, sombre, despite its silvery tone ; 
 the long chill lobby of the tribunal, the two heavy 
 square columns plastered over with lime, the windows 
 with half-broken panes, the terrible little door with, 
 its sculptures representing the law, the dismal gallery, 
 throw a solemn and lugubrious air over the picture, 
 otherwise as radiant and gay as a Kermesse by Teniers 
 or a Cinpcantaine by Knauss. 
 
 This false move cost the Gironde dear. Instead 
 of going to the Abbaye, Marat, henceforth invincible, 
 re-entered the Convention, and again stood erect before 
 those whom the Vendean journalist disdainfully calls 
 'statesmen.' Nevertheless, it was not Marat, but Robes- 
 pierre, who dealt the Gironde the hardest blows, and 
 Camille, ruled just then by Maximilien rather than by 
 Danton, and more Jacobin than Cordelier, held the 
 pen while Robespierre, — I will not say dictated, — but 
 advised. Thence came the ' Histoire des Brissotins,' 
 a collection of calumnies, of petty gossip, and of mur- 
 derous outbursts. 
 
 This cruel pamphlet had an enormous success. 
 More than four thousand copies were sold. It was— 
 and Camille boasts of it ! (see his letter to his father) — 
 ' the precursor of the Revolution of May 31, the mani- 
 festo! In fact, the ' Histoire des Brissotins ' served to 
 precipitate the fall of the Gironde ; and by inditing, 
 soon after, the ' Adresse des Jacobins aux departements 
 sur l'insurrection du 31 Mai,' Camille believed he had 
 done the Republic good service. 
 
 A thunderclap opened his eyes, or rather, he awoke, 
 as with a start, from his culpable error, at the sound 
 of Sanson's knife falling upon the necks of the Brisso- 
 tins. What ! Boyer-Fonfrede, Ducos, Isnard, Girey- 
 
The Fate of ' the Brissotins.' 247 
 
 Dupre, Carra, Valaze — are these the men whom he had 
 wished the Convention to vomit forth ? Well ! it was 
 done now. But denunciation cannot be played at. 
 The fatal heedlessness of Camille was to cause him 
 bitter remorse. The Convention would not content 
 itself with weeding out some ; it would proceed to 
 sacrifice. It condemned to death, as Royalists, Guadet 
 and Lasource, who had divulged Lafayette's project of 
 marching upon Paris — aye, as Royalists and accomplices 
 of that Dumouriez whom Brissot and his friends (see 
 Garat's ' Memoires ' and the ' Considerations de Mallet 
 du Pari ') suspected at the very time (March 10, 1793), 
 when Robespierre still declared, ' I have confidence in 
 - Dumouriez, ,' The men whose federalism — dangerous 
 no doubt in the face of the enemy, and at the time 
 proposed, — was, nevertheless, an idea taken up later 
 by the ' decentralizers ' of the Committee of Nancy in 
 1866, and, as I have already said, in 1870, by the most 
 furious enemies of the Gironde, the very heirs of the 
 Commune, were about to be accused of having sought 
 to dismember France. These men were to be sacrificed 
 because of the senseless, wicked saying of Isnard, 
 which threatened Paris with being ' razed ' to the 
 ground ; and yet Barere had said almost the same ! 1 
 
 Camille, who would have wished to save the 
 Girondins, helped on their condemnation. Danton, 
 also, who offered them to go to Bordeaux as their 
 hostage, would willingly have rescued them from death ; 
 
 1 The saying of Isnard, in May 1793, a saying which hastened the 
 climax, had been uttered by Barere at the sitting of March 10, 1793, with- 
 out exciting a murmur ; on the contrary, he was applauded. 
 
 Barere (' Moniteur' of the 12th, p. 243) : 'The heads of the deputies 
 are held in trust for every department of the Republic. (Repeated ap- 
 plause.) Who then would dare touch them ? The day of this impossible 
 crime, the Republic would be dissolved and Paris annihilated.' 
 
248 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 and Bazire, the upright Bazire, whom Chabot dragged 
 down with him, hid his brief from the Committee of 
 Public Safety, as if concealing the names of the accused 
 would save their heads. When the sentence was 
 pronounced (October 31), Camille, pale, in tears, cried 
 out, striking his breast and his forehead : — ' Ah ! 
 wretch that I am, it is I who am killing them, it is my 
 " Histoire des Brissotins !" And they die Republicans ! ' 
 On hearing the charge of Fouquier-Tinville, Camille 
 would fain have blotted out his falsehood with his 
 tears. Vilate relates this moving scene : — 
 
 ' I was,' he says, ' seated with Camille Desmoulins on the 
 bench placed before the table of the jury. When they re- 
 turned from their deliberation Camille advanced to speak to 
 Antonelle, who came in one of the last. Surprised at the 
 alteration in his face, Camille said to him, rather loud : " I pity 
 you ; yours are terrible functions ; " then hearing the decla- 
 ration of the jury, he threw himself into my arms, in distress 
 and agony of mind : " O my God ! my God ! it is I who 
 kill them ! my ' Brissot unveiled.' O my God ! this has 
 destroyed them J " As the accused returned to hear their 
 sentence, all eyes were turned on them ; the most profound 
 silence reigned throughout the hall ; the public prosecutor con- 
 cluded with the sentence of death. The unfortunate Camille, 
 fainting, losing his consciousness, faltered out these words: — 
 " I am going, I am going, I must go out." He could not.' l 
 
 Thus came swift remorse. But all the tears, all 
 the sobs of Camille, could not efface from remembrance 
 his attacks upon those of whom he said : 
 
 ' Necker, Orleans, Lafayette, Chapelier, Mirabeau,'Bailly, 
 Desmeuniers, Duport, Lameth, Pastoret, Cerutti, Brissot, 
 Ramond, Petion, Guadet, Gensonne, were the impure vases 
 
 1 < Les Mysteres de la Mere de Dieu devoileV third volume of the 
 < Causes secretes de la Revolution,' of the 9 th to the loth Thermidor ; by 
 Vilate, ex-juror of the revolutionary tribunal of Paris, in detention p 51. 
 
Camille s Remorse. 249 
 
 of Amasis," of which was formed, in the matrix of the Jaco- 
 bins, the golden statue of the Republic. Until these our 
 days it was held to be impossible to found a Republic except 
 upon the virtues, like the ancient legislators ; but it has been 
 the immortal glory of this society to create the Republic tvith 
 vices! l 
 
 Now he wept over these pages, bitterly, but in vain. 
 He wept ; but, as Shakespeare says : ' All theperfumes 
 of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand! 
 
 I know, through information given me by M. Labat 
 the elder, that one evening in that mournful summer of 
 1793, Danton and Camille Desmoulins had walked to 
 the Cour du Commerce, along the Seine, by the quay 
 des Lunettes, and, thinking of that 31st of May, which 
 was to end in the events of the 31st of October, Danton 
 pointed out to Camille the great river in which the rays 
 of the sun, setting behind the hill of Passy, were reflec- 
 ted so vividly that the river looked like blood. ' Look,' 
 said Danton — and, like Garat, Camille saw the tribune's 
 eyes fill with tears — ' see, how much blood ! The Seine 
 runs blood ! Ah ! too much blood has been spilt ! 
 Come, take up your pen again; write and demand 
 clemency — I will support you ! ' 
 
 Before that, at Sevres, Souberbielle had exclaimed : 
 ' Ah ! if I were Danton ! ' and Danton had replied : 
 ' Danton sleeps ; he will awaken ! ' 
 
 Danton's awakening was to be a plea for clemency. 
 
 Danton wanted to go and rest at Arcis for a 
 while. Weariness had come upon him, bitter weari- 
 ness. The back of the Colossus was breaking. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins, too, was tired out. Even 
 before the death of the Girondins, before the scene 
 related by Vilate, he had felt remorse and depres- 
 
 1 ' Histoire secrete.' 
 
250 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 sion. After August 10, 1793, he seems, judging by 
 his letter to his father, to envy his brother, who had 
 fallen, fighting for his country. His life, so happy 
 until now, so full of charm, with Freron, Brune, 
 Madame Duplessis, Lucile, was growing gloomy 
 and filled with fatal presentiments. Too long had 
 he been thoughtless, happy, bewilderingly happy. 
 He had seen Freron-Lapin (rabbit) playing with the 
 rabbits in the garden, Patagon (Brune's surname among 
 this young and playful group) wandering under the 
 trees of Bourg-la-Reine with Saturn (Duplain, of the 
 Commune). The young rabbit (little Horace), his 
 mother-in-law Melpomene ; the pranks in the gardens, 
 when Lucile, the indefinable being, threw potfuls of 
 water at Freron, who only laughed ! All this was far 
 off. Happy laughter of bygone days ! Camille was 
 to hear it no more ! He now dreaded the loss of his 
 son — ' this child, so loveable, and so much loved.' 
 ' Life,' he says, ' is made up of evil and good in 
 equal proportions, and for some years evil has floated 
 around me without touching me, so that it seems to me 
 my turn to be engulphed mtist soon come! Where were 
 his quips now ? Where was his bitter sarcasm ? Camille 
 was a father, a husband, a friend. The spoilt child of 
 fortune is punished by the course of events, and he 
 who defended yesterday attacks to-day : he undertakes 
 the. defence of General Dillon, a prisoner in the 
 Madelonettes. 
 
 'Everyone has had a Dillon] he said afterwards, 
 when before the tribunal, he was reproached for his 
 connection with this open or covert Royalist, formerly 
 an adherent of Marie-Antoinette, and who was accused 
 of having acquainted the Prussians with the move- 
 ments of the brave and unfortunate Custine, in '92. 
 
General Dillon. 251 
 
 A friend of M. de Pastoret related that he was Dillon's 
 aide-de-camp, and saw the general gp every night 
 from the French to the Prussian camps. But Camille 
 was volatile, and defended whom he pleased ; so that it 
 gave rise to the remark that this fascinating Dillon, 
 formerly noticed by the Queen, had made a still more 
 profound impression upon Lucile Desmoulins. Who 
 says so ? Desmoulins himself, in a tone of banter, 
 astonishing enough : — 
 
 ' But do you know Dillon well ? ' he was asked in con- 
 versation. ' Of course I know him. Have I not got myself 
 into a scrape for him, against his will ? ' ' Your wife knows 
 him better than you do.' ' What do you mean ? ' 'I am 
 afraid of annoying you.' ' Don't be frightened.' ' Does your 
 wife often see Dillon ?' 'I don't think she has seen him 
 four times in her life.' ' That a husband can never know ; ' 
 (and as I did not seem agitated) ' since you take it so philo- 
 sophically, you must know that Dillon betrays you as well as 
 the Republic. You are not a handsome fellow.' ' Far from 
 it.' ' Your wife is charming, Dillon is still handsome ; the 
 time you pass at the Convention is very favourable, and 
 women are so .fickle ! ' ' Some, at least.' ' I am sorry for 
 you ; I liked you because of your " Revolutions," which de- 
 lighted my wife in the country.' ' But, my dear fellow, how 
 is it you are so well informed ? ' 'It is the public talk, and 
 five hundred persons have told me of it this morning.' ' Ah ! 
 you reassure me ; already, like the daughters of Prcetus, 
 
 " In lsevi quserebam cornua fronte." 
 
 I am believed to belong to the kingdom of Buzot, which is 
 much worse than belonging to it in reality, according to La 
 Fontaine's testimony. But let your friendship make its mind 
 easy ; I see plainly that you do not know my wife, and if 
 Dillon betrays the Republic as he betrays me, I will answer 
 for his innocence.' 
 
 Camille was a spoilt child ; but whatever allowance 
 one may make for his humour, here one must cry hold ! 
 
252 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 He goes too far. Certain things are not to be told to the 
 outer world, and this lover of antiquity ought to have 
 remembered that the gyna^ceum was sacred. Lucile's 
 devoted love for him was a surer guarantee of her 
 virtue than this almost sacrilegious pleasantry. Yet, 
 under this raillery, pity was hidden ; Camille was 
 defending an accused man, and may therefore be 
 forgiven. 1 
 
 It appears that from this time forth Camille was 
 actuated by only humane feelings. H-e desired to 
 create a reaction against the Reign of Terror, against 
 the fury of the people. But he was borne down by 
 the popular feeling. The vulgar orators of the clubs, 
 gifted with that ' aristocracy of the lungs ' on which he 
 rallied Legendre, either did not allow him to speak or 
 shouted him down. ' It has been said that in every 
 country under an absolute government, the grand way 
 to succeed is to be commonplace. I see that this may 
 be true of a Republic' Success, even the success he 
 loved so much, mattered little to him now. ' Of what 
 importance is success to me ? But I cannot bear the 
 sight of all this accumulated injustice, ingratitude, 
 and wrong' He was haunted by the thought that the 
 men killed in war or otherwise — have children, have 
 
 1 Dillon addressed the following letter to Camille : — 
 
 ' Madelonettes, July 26, '93, 7 P.M. 
 
 ' This tremendous business of mine, now become so simple — thanks to 
 your kindness, to your courage, and above all to your fair-dealing, holds 
 by only one thread, which is frightfully elongated by the laziness of your 
 cousin, Fouquier de Tinville. Three days ago the president of the 
 tribunal pressed him to make a report ; the period allowed him expires to- 
 morrow, Saturday. See him, I beg of you ; induce him to finish, as he pro- 
 mised. He knows my innocence ; my request is worthy of you, my kind 
 and upright defender ; only a word from your cousin is wanted. See him 
 very early to-morrow morning ; let him say this word, and give back to 
 the Republic a man who only aspires to save it from the tyrants who are 
 advancing with rapid strides.' 
 
The ' Vieux Cordelier! 253 
 
 fathers also. And after having cursed war, the fancy 
 took him to go and be killed in La Vendue or on the 
 frontiers, ' to free himself from the sight of so many 
 ills.' 
 
 ' Farewell,' he said to his father, ' I embrace you ; 
 take care of your health, so that I may press you to 
 my heart if I am to outlive this revolution.' x 
 
 If the liberty of the press had not been left him, 
 Camille would have been completely beaten down and 
 without hope. But, thank God, he says to himself, we 
 can fight against ambition, cupidity, and cheating. 
 ' The condition of things, such as it is, is incomparably 
 better than four years ago, because there is a hope of 
 '' amendment." ' And he was tempted then to repeat 
 the cry, which served as a motto to his ' Lettre au 
 general Dillon,' ' Give me my inkstand ! ' 
 
 II. 
 
 Camille was to seize his inkstand again soon, and 
 to wield a pen as valiant in demanding clemency as it 
 had been in the attack. The ' Vieux Cordelier ' was 
 about to appear — the ' Vieux Cordelier,' that indestruc- 
 tible monument of compassion, of generous ardour, of 
 courage, and of humanity. 
 
 The death of the Girondins had left profound 
 sorrow and overwhelming bitterness in the heart of 
 Danton. ' I could not save them,' he said to Garat, 
 speaking in distress and consternation that bowed 
 his athletic form ; ' and great tears,' adds Garat, ' fell 
 
 1 See ' CEuvres de Camille Desmoulins ' (Charpentier's edition, 2 vols. 
 1874, vol. ii. p. 373). 
 
254 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 down the face whose lines would have served for 
 that of a Tartar.' This man, who had tried to 
 rally the Girondins, who cried out in speaking of 
 them ' They refused to believe me ! ' who had 
 offered them— I repeat it to his honour— to withdraw to 
 Bordeaux as a hostage of the final peace he offered 
 them ; this all-powerful tribune had not been able to 
 save even Ducos, not even Vergniaud ; and Saint-Just 
 soon after reproached him with having held out his 
 hand to the latter. Weary of the conflict, cast down, 
 broken-hearted, sick of men (these words of his have 
 been already quoted), he had left Paris towards the 
 middle of October 1793, 1 and he had gone, towards 
 the end of November (about the 15th or the 20th) 
 to Arcis-sur-Aube, where he wished to remain, and 
 cultivate his garden, like Candide. There, at least, 
 in his native home, under his mother's roof, he could 
 breathe, he could forget. He wished to be far from 
 Paris, during the slaughter of October 31, when the 
 purest blood of the Gironde was to be spilt. He 
 regained his old self by his mother's side, with old 
 Marguerite Hariot, his nurse, and his rough shell fell 
 off; he again found room for affectionate feelings, for 
 tenderness, and forgotten aspirations. It seemed to 
 him, on arriving from Paris at this little town in Cham- 
 pagne, that he had passed from the atmosphere of a 
 blacksmith's forge into the restful air of an oasis. " It 
 is told in the place that while he was chatting in the 
 evening at the fireside, telling his mother that he 
 should soon return to Arcis not to leave it again, the 
 
 1 Sitting of October 12 :— 'The president informs the National Con- 
 vention that Citizen Danton, deputy, asks for leave of absence that he 
 may go to Arcis to recruit his health. The Convention grants the leave.' 
 
Dantoris brief Holiday. 255 
 
 townsfolk came out of curiosity (and some in horror), 
 and flattened their noses against the window-panes 
 of Madame Danton's house, to get a look at the 
 face of the Titan of the Revolution. And when 
 they saw him, tranquil, dreamy, melancholy, or some- 
 times laughing, they withdrew astonished and sub- 
 dued. 
 
 This rest of Danton's, this retreat, which may be 
 compared with the short visit Robespierre' made to 
 Ermenonville on the eve of Thermidor, was a fleeting 
 abdication which proved ruinous to him. When he 
 returned, his powerlessness to check a fatal movement 
 of the Revolution — (a powerlessness visible before his 
 departure, since all his efforts to save the Gironde were 
 vain, and his attack upon the Committee of Public 
 Safety, on September 25, had ended in a victory for 
 Billaud-Varennes and Robespierre) — was complete. 
 During the weeks Danton had passed at Arcis, the 
 government had been proclaimed revolutionary until 
 the conclusion of peace. (Saint-Just's Report, October 
 10). * Amar had secured, almost by intimidation, the 
 death of the Girondins, and the Committee was more 
 formidable than ever. This Committee, formerly pro- 
 posed by Isnard, who was to be its victim, might, per- 
 haps, have been governed by Danton ; but he had — 
 from weakness, or rather from a total want of ambi- 
 tion — refused to become a member of it. At the end 
 of 1793 he only reckoned one friend in it .(Thuriot 
 
 1 Saint-Just said : — ' The laws are revolutionary ; those who execute 
 them are not. The Republic will only be established when the will of the 
 sovereign (people) represses the monarchical minority and rules it by the 
 right of conquest. Prosperity is not to be hoped for so long as one enemy of 
 liberty draws breath. You have to punish not only traitors but the indiffe- 
 rent; you have to punish all who are passive in the Republic, and who do 
 nothing for her.' 
 
256 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 having sent in his resignation) HeVault de Seychelles, 
 of whom the Committee speedily rid itself. 
 
 In truth, Billaud-Varennes and Saint- Just reigned. 
 Robespierre was popular and powerful with the Jaco- 
 bins at the Convention, and in the Committee. The 
 Reign of Terror was the order of the day, that terror- 
 ism of which a Revolutionary writer, M. Louis Blanc, 
 has candidly admitted that it wore out the Revolution. 
 In vain Saint-Just gave it the name of Justice; Billaud- 
 Varennes, that outspoken patriot, as Camille called him, 
 frankly called it Terrorism, and desired that name to 
 be associated with it. ' How many traitors,' said Saint- 
 Just, ' have escaped the Terror which talks, but who 
 would not have escaped Justice, which weighs all crimes 
 in her hand ? ' Billaud-Varennes, more intractable, 
 did not understand any distinction ; he only wished to 
 terrorise. He it was who, vexed at the efforts of 
 Robespierre, which were feeble enough, hastened, in 
 concert with Saint-Just, the fall of Danton, Camille, 
 and their friends. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins, besides, had been imprudent 
 enough, at the time of the ' Lettre au gendral Dillon,' 
 to make enemies of two all-powerful men, Saint- Just 
 and Billaud-Varennes. He had at the same time, and 
 in the same document, accused Billaud of cowardice 
 and Saint-Just of conceit. 
 
 ' Why,' he wrote to Dillon, ' why did you say in the 
 presence of many deputies that, when Billaud was a Com- 
 missioner of the Executive Power in your army in the month 
 of September, he was in such a fright one day that he begged 
 you to turn tail, and that he has looked upon you askance 
 ever since, and as a traitor for having made him face the 
 enemy ? Judge if the bilious patriot will forgive you for this 
 jest, any more than he will forgive me for repeating it.' 
 
Personalities. 257 
 
 And further on, in a note upon Saint-Just :— 
 
 ' After Legendre, the member of the Convention who has 
 the highest opinion of himself is Saint-Just. One can see by 
 his gait and bearing that he looks upon his own head as 
 the corner-stone of the Revolution, for he carries it upon his 
 shoulders with as much respect as if it were the Sacred Host. 
 But what makes his vanity killing is, that some years ago he 
 published an epic poem in twenty-four cantos, entitled 
 " Argant." ' (It is ' Organt.' Camille is quite capable of mali- 
 ciously misprinting the name.) ' ' Now Rivarol and Champ- 
 cenetz, whose microscope, used in the interests of the " Alma- 
 nach des grands hommes," not a single verse, not a single 
 hemistich in France, has ever escaped, have in vain gone in 
 search of this ; they who have hunted up even the least 
 little scrap of literature, have not seen Saint-Just's epic 
 poem in twenty-four cantos. After such a misadventure, 
 how can he show himself? ' 2 
 
 For these personalities Camille was to pay dearly. 
 Neither Billaud nor Saint-Just was likely to forgive 
 them. But all this makes it evident that Desmou- 
 lins, even before he wrote the ' Vieux Cordelier,' had 
 
 1 Page 52. 
 
 2 The following notice is to be found in the ' Revolutions de France 
 et de Brabant' : — ' " Organt," a poem in twenty cantos, with the following 
 motto : " Young man, have you said good-bye to good sense?" And the 
 following preface : " I am twenty ; I have done ill ; I can yet do better." ' 
 (No. 6, p. 283.) 'In the Portefeuille de Camille,' published by M. Matton, 
 in a letter from Saint-Just to Desmoulins, in which the future accuser 
 of Camille writes to him, ' Your country is proud of you ! ' Saint- 
 Just describes himself in this letter as amusing himself at the cha- 
 teau of the Comte de Lauragnais with cutting off the heads of the ferns. 
 With respect to ' Organt,' Grimm's ' Literary Correspondence ' al- 
 ludes to this poem, in the month of June, 1789 (vol. v. part 3, p. 178, 
 edition of 1813) :— ' " Organt " (first attributed to M. de la Dixmerie, the 
 friend of the famous Chevalier d'Arc, the author of " Lutin," of the 
 " Sibylle Gauloise," of " Toni et Clairette "), seems to be the work of a 
 young man who has read " La Pucelle " too much, and not enough ; too 
 much, for every moment we find reminiscences or awkward imitations of 
 the French Ariosto ; not enough, because he rarely catches his wit, his 
 elegance, or his genius.' 
 
258 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 decided on risking a struggle with the Committee. 
 Once more it was Danton who gave the signal 
 for clemency. Robespierre had advised Camille to 
 demand that the Committee should arrest the 
 course of the Reign of Terror ; but he deserted his 
 friend midway. Danton, however, persevered to the 
 end — his own death. These two men had already 
 originated, as we have seen, the idea of the Committee of 
 Clemency:,, to Camille belongs the honour of giving it 
 form and' substance. 
 
 The moment seemed well chosen; not doubtless 
 from the point of view of personal prudence, but from 
 that of public utility and the national welfare, from a 
 Republican point of view above all ; for it was impor- 
 tant that the Republic should at last realise its theories ; 
 should be generous, liberal, and fraternal. The Conven- 
 tion, which had become, in the hands of the Committee, 
 and according to Isnard (confirmed by Sieyes at thesitting 
 of the 4th Germinal, year 1 1 1.), a machine for decrees, re- 
 gained a little heart and spirit when accents such as 
 Bazire's were heard. ' When,' exclaimed this man, he who 
 had tried to save the Girondists by hiding the 'dossier' 
 under the papers of the Committee — ' when will 
 this butchery of deputies cease ? ' It was time that the 
 long-stifled cry of pity should find eloquent utter- 
 ance. 1 
 
 1 It has been very justly remarked that the struggle between the 
 Committee of Public Safety and Danton had its counterpart in England. 
 The debates of the English Parliament at this epoch afford evidence of 
 this. The political destiny of Danton was intimately united with that of 
 Fox. Lord Wycombe and Sheridan had already spoken of peace. ' I have 
 always been,' said Fox, 'for treating with the French Jacobins.' Fox had 
 pressed for peace, Pitt continued the war with energy. The downfall of 
 Fox deprived Danton of a great deal of power. These are points of 
 view that can only be indicated in a. note in such a work as this, but 
 which ought to be developed in a general history, or readers will fail to 
 understand the synoptical picture of French histoiy at this epoch. 
 
The ' Vieux Cordelier! 259 
 
 This cry was Camille's. The ' Vieux Cordelier ' 
 came out on the 15th Frimaire, year II. (December 5, 
 I 793)> two days after a sitting of the Jacobin club, at 
 which Danton. had demanded that they should set at 
 defiance ' those who would carry the people beyond the 
 limits of the devolution, and who proposed- ultra-revo- 
 lutionary measures.' His speech had been received 
 so ill that Robespierre had been obliged to defend him. 
 Here was sufficient proof that Danton's popularity and 
 influence an; the' club were irrevocably lost. What 
 matter! Fight they must. Besides Robespierre's, 
 influence would, suffice, at a pinch, to conduct the enter- 
 prise to a happy end. ' Victory is with us,' Camille- 
 wrote, after the first number of his ' Vieux Cordelier,' 
 'because, amid the ruifis-of.. so many "colossal civic re- 
 putations, Robespierre's is unassailed ;' because he lent 
 a hand to his competitor - in patriotism, our perpetual 
 President of.the^-i'.Anciens Cordeliers," our Horatius 
 Codes, who .alorie held the bridge against Lafayette 
 and his. four thousand Parisians.' Then, addressing 
 Robespierre, he said : 'In all the other dangers from 
 which you have delivered the Republic you have had 
 companions in your glory ; but yesterday alone you 
 saved it.' 
 
 It is therefore clear that these men were allies at 
 the beginning of this movement ; that Robespierre, like 
 Danton, wished to end the Reign of Terror. Camille 
 wrote, and they dictated. But Maximilien regarded 
 even the first number of the new publication as com- 
 promising ; Billaud-Varennes and Saint-Just frowned 
 at it; Robespierre, required Camille to submit the 
 proofs of the forthcoming numbers to him. In the 
 second number of the ' Vieux Cordelier ' Robes- 
 
 s 2 
 
260 Camille Desmouhns and his Wife. 
 
 pierre's influence is clearly perceptible; he was then 
 preoccupied with ridding himself of Chaumette and 
 Anacharsis Clootz, guilty, in his eyes, of having 
 put into too life-like a form the philosophy of the 
 eighteenth century. Alas ! Camille again, and for 
 the last time, handled the instrument of death. 
 The former virus was still in his ink, and the 
 pantheistic dreamer Clootz, he who formerly called 
 Desmoulins 'illustrious patriot, intrepid Desmoulins' 
 (see Clootz' letter, August 28, 1790) ; he whom 
 Camille in his* turn called ' Our friend Clootz ; 
 Baron in Prussia, Citizen in Paris', and of whom 
 he said, ' A Prussian Anacharsis is indeed a rare 
 being ! ' — Anacharsis, the citizen of the world, and 
 Anaxagoras, the humanitarian philosopher, felt its 
 effects. 
 
 Chaumette, who had offended Camille by calling 
 himself Anaxagoras, and who was one of those 
 who obtained the abolition of the lash, and of cor- 
 poral punishment in schools, the suppression of lot- 
 teries, the closing of gaming-houses, the daily opening 
 to the public of those libraries which under the 
 monarchy had only been opened two hours a week ; — 
 Chaumette, who wrote to his friend Thomas on his 
 becoming a priest, 'As well that walk in life as 
 another ; the essential is, to be an upright man,' was 
 far from being dangerous. Whilst many of his col- 
 leagues in the Commune gained an evil reputation, he 
 was occupied in organising benevolent schemes. He 
 obtained that the patients, hitherto crowded in the 
 
 1 Here are a few autographic lines which depict this mystical per- 
 sonage :— ' Strong in virtue, one hand resting upon the breasts of nature, 
 with the other I shall repulse all the sophistries of knavery.— ANACHARSIS 
 Clootz.' 
 
Chaumette. 261 
 
 hospitals, sometimes five or six together, should each 
 thenceforth have a separate bed ; that books should be 
 sent to these hospitals ; that a separate building should 
 be assigned to the use of lying-in women ; that the 
 atrocious treatment of the insane should be amended ; 
 that the blind, who were lodged in the Quinze-Vingts, 
 should receive five sous daily ; that means should be 
 taken to assure an asylum to the indigent and the 
 aged. This victim of Camille's bitter pen helped to 
 found the Conservatoire of Music, and procured the 
 suspension of the Vandal restoration of pictures at the 
 Louvre, which certain superintendents have since ven- 
 tured to resume. He brought wooden shoes into 
 fashion, that leather might be left to the soldiers, the 
 defenders of the country, who were marching barefoot 
 through snow and mud. Finally, he demanded equality 
 of burial, and wished (a dream, but a beautiful one !) 
 that the winding-sheet of every citizen in his coffin 
 should be a tri-coloured flag. For all this, Camille 
 rallied him none the less cruelly. He helped to doom 
 him. Let us turn the page ; I am in haste to reach 
 the sublime hour of Camille's life. At last he pub- 
 lished his third number ; he called Tacitus to his aid : 
 the hand so adroit in Picard and Parisian satire 
 seized the red-hot iron of the Roman, and branded on 
 the forehead those whose cry was for a perpetual Reign 
 of Terror : — 
 
 ' In ancient days in Rome (says Tacitus) there was a law 
 which specified what were State crimes and crimes of lese- 
 majesty, and those were punished with death. Under the 
 Republic crimes of lese-majesty were reduced to four kinds : 
 abandoning an army in a foreign country ; exciting seditions ; 
 maladministration of the public affairs and money by the 
 members of constituted bodies ; degrading the majesty of the 
 Roman people. The Emperors needed only to add a few 
 
262 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 articles to this law in order to include whole cities in a 
 proscription. Augustus was the first to extend the law of 
 lese-majesty, within which he comprised all writings called 
 "anti-revolutionary." Under his successors the extensions 
 ceased to have any limits so soon as words had become State' 
 crimes ; thenceforth, one step changed simple looks, sorrow, 
 compassion, sighs, and even silence, into crimes. 
 
 'It was a crime of l,ese-maj : esty or " counter-revolution " 
 that the. town of Nursia raised a monument * to its inhabi- 
 tants who were killed at the siege of Modena, fighting under 
 Augustus himself, it is true,, but then Augustus was fighting 
 against Brutus. , . 
 
 ' It was a crime against the revolution that Dibonius 
 Drusus asked the fortune-tellers if he should not one day 
 be possessed of great riches. It was a crime against the 
 revolution that the journalist, Cremutius Cordus, called Brutus 
 and Cassius the last of the Romans. It was a crime against 
 the revolution that one of Cassius' descendants had a portrait ■ 
 of his ancestor in his house. Mamercus Scaurus committed 
 a crime against the revolution by writing a tragedy in which 
 were certain verses capable of a double meaning. It was 
 a crime against the revolution that Torquatus Silanus had 
 spent money ; that Petrelus had had a dream about Clau- 
 dius ; and that the wife of Claudius had had a dream con- 
 cerning Appius Silanus, was counted a crime on his part. 
 It was a crime against the revolution that Pomponius, a 
 friend of Sejanus, had taken refuge in one of his country- 
 houses. It was a crime against the revolution to complain of 
 the misfortunes of, the times, for this was to sit in judgment 
 on the government.- Anti-revplution'ary crime was implied 
 in the non-invocation of the divine genius of _Caligula. For 
 having failed in this, numberless citizens were torn by scourges, 
 condemned to work in the mines, or thrown to the wild beasts ; 
 some were even sawn in two. It was a crime against the 
 revolution that the mother of the consul Furius Geminus, 
 mourned for the death of her son. 
 
 ' It was necessary to rejoice in the death of a friend or 
 relative, if one wished to escape death oneself. Under Nero, 
 
' Le Vieux Cordelier! No. III. 263 
 
 several whose relatives he was about to put to death went to re- 
 turn thanks to the gods ; and illuminated their houses. At least 
 it was necessary to wear a contented air, a frank and serene 
 countenance. There was fear lest even fear should be ac- 
 counted guilt. 
 
 ' Everything gave umbrage to the tyrant. Was a citizen 
 popular? He was the prince's rival, who might excite a 
 civil war. Studia civium in se ver'teret, et si -multi idem 
 audeant, bellum esse. Suspected. 
 
 ' Did a man fly from popularity, and keep by his fireside ? 
 This retired life had made him noticed, and .had, gained him 
 consideration. Quando metu, occultior, tanto famce~adeptus. 
 Suspected. : '. •;— c; \-j. r :■ .-.*.• 
 
 'Were you rich ? There was imminent, danger that the 
 people would be corrupted by your gifts. Auri vim atque 
 opes Plauti principi infensas. Suspected. 
 
 'Were you poor? Then, O invincible Emperor, we 
 must watch this man closely ; there is no person so enter- 
 prising as he who has nothing. Sylla inopem, inde prczcipuam 
 audaciam. Suspected. 
 
 'Were you of a grave, melancholy disposition, or carelessly 
 dressed ? You were in affliction because public affairs were 
 going on well. Hominem bonis publicis mcestum. Suspected. 
 
 ' If, on the contrary, a citizen enjoyed life and had in- 
 digestion, he was amusing himself because the Emperor had 
 had that attack of gout (which, happily, would be nothing) ; 
 it was necessary to make him feel that his Majesty was still 
 in the prime of life. Reddendam pro intempestivd licentid 
 moestam et fun'ebrem noctem qud sentiat vivere Vitellium et 
 imperare. Suspejcted. 
 
 ' Was he virtuous and strict in his morals ? Good ! A 
 new Brutus, who aspires, by his pallor and his Jacobin wig, 
 to censure an amiable and well-curled Court. Gliscere cemulos 
 Brutorum vultfts rigidi et tristis quo tibi lasciviam exprobrent. 
 Suspected. 
 
 ' Was a man a philosopher, an orator, or a poet ? Be- 
 coming, indeed, that he should have more renown than the 
 rulers ! Was it bearable that more attention should be paid 
 
264 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 to an author in the gallery or the pit than to the Emperor 
 in his private box? Virginium 'et Rufum claritudo nominis. 
 Suspected. 
 
 ' Finally, had a man acquired a great reputation in war ? 
 He was all the more dangerous. With an incapable general 
 there are some resources. If he be a traitor he cannot de- 
 liver up the army to the enemy so effectually as if he be 
 clever. But if an officer of merit, like Agricola, turned 
 traitor, not a man would resist him. It was best to get rid 
 of such generals. At least the Emperor could not be dispensed 
 from removing them from the army. Multa militari famd 
 metum fecerat. Suspected. 
 
 ' It is easy to see that it was still worse to be the grandson 
 or connection of Augustus ; such a one might one day 
 pretend to the throne. Nobilem et quod tunc spectaretur e 
 Casarem posteris ! Suspected. 
 
 ' And suspected persons under the Emperors were not 
 only sent, 'as with us, to the Madelonettes, to the Irlandais, or 
 to Sainte-Pe'lagie. The sovereign sent them an order to sum- 
 mon their doctor or apothecary, and to choose, within twenty- 
 four hours, the sort of death they liked best. Missus centurio 
 qui maturaret eum. 
 
 ' Thus, it was not possible to have any quality, unless it 
 were one that might be used as an instrument of tyranny, 
 without awakening the despot's jealousy and exposing oneself 
 to certain death. It was a crime to hold a high post, or to 
 tender one's resignation ; but the greatest crime of all was 
 to be incorruptible. Nero had so utterly destroyed honest 
 people, that after he had rid himself of Thrasea and 
 Soranus, he boasted of having banished even the name of 
 virtue from the face of the earth. When the Senate con- 
 demned each of them, the Emperor wrote a letter of thanks to 
 it for having caused an enemy of the Republic to perish ; just 
 as Clodius the tribune erected an altar to Liberty on the 
 site of Cicero's dismantled house, whilst the people shouted, 
 "Long live Liberty ! " 
 
 ' One was condemned because of his name and that of his 
 ancestors ; another, because he possessed a beautiful house at 
 Alba ; Valerius Asiaticus, because his gardens had taken the 
 
' Le Vieux Cordelier ;' No. III. 265 
 
 ' fancy of the Empress ; Statilius, because his face had displeased 
 her ; and a multitude of others for no conceivable cause. 
 Toranius, the tutor and old friend of Augustus, was proscribed 
 by his pupil for no reason, except that he was an upright man 
 and loved his country. Neither the prsetorship nor his inno- 
 cence could save Quintus Gellius from the bloody hands of the 
 executioner ; Augustus, whose clemency has been vaunted, 
 tore out his eyes with- his own hands. Men were betrayed 
 and stabbed by their slaves or their enemies ; and if they 
 had no enemies, an assassin was found in a guest, a friend, 
 or a son. In one word, during these reigns, the natural death 
 of a celebrated man, or of a man in a high place even, was so 
 rare that it was gazetted as an event, and handed down by 
 the historian to the memory of future ages. Under this 
 consulate, says our annalist, there was a pontiff, Pisonius, who 
 died in his bed : this was looked upon as a marvel.' 
 
 Is this all ? No. A blind and generous fury 
 seemed to have taken possession of Camille. He 
 was fairly -launched. Sensitive and impressionable, 
 he excited himself to that work of humane reaction 
 which, whatever Tissot and Louis Blanc may say, did 
 no harm to the Republic. ' The anti-revolutionists 
 clapped their hands,' says M. Louis Blanc. That may 
 be, but, at that moment, the ultra-revolutionists were 
 more dangerous to the Republic, perhaps, than its 
 bitterest enemies. They did more than fight against 
 her : they compromised her. They were, as has been 
 well said, to the Revolution what the ' Jacques ' were to 
 ^v Etienne Marcel, the Anabaptists to the Reformers, 
 and the Iconoclasts to the proud Huguenots of 
 Flanders. These 'enrage's' pushed the 'purging out' 
 and ' death ' system to the point of madness. 
 
 The name of enrage's was at first given to the 
 members of the left of the Constituent Assembly, the 
 adversaries of the Noirs ; it dated, in fact, from the 
 
2§6 Camille Desinoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Manage. The Royalists then applied it to the men of 
 movement. Later, this name indicated the exaltds. 
 Marat applies it to Jacques Roux, Leclerc, and Varlet. 
 Until the beginning of 1793 the enrages were con- 
 founded with those who were afterwards called He- 
 bertists. All were ultra-revolutionists ; but the shades 
 of the ultra party, to which Desmoulins ingeniously op- 
 posed the citra, are not clearly defined. On the 10th of 
 March and the 31st of May, 1 793, the enragds, acting in 
 concert with others rather than on their own account, 
 took the stage and played a part. On the 3 1st of May 
 they were in the vanguard. Later, they aspired to be the 
 bulk of the army — what am I saying ? — to be the grand 
 Staff of the nation. After the victory, they began to dis- 
 play themselves under their true aspect, to manifest 
 their doctrines distinctly ; they appeared as socialists ; 
 they were. Cordeliers, not Jacobins. They attacked the 
 Constitution, and then all parties fell upon them, and 
 pursued them with animosity unfil they were crushed. 
 They held , out a hand to the socialists at Lyons. 
 Leclerc is the connecting link between Lyons and Paris', 
 between Chalier and Jacques Roux. Looking every- 
 where for help, they enlisted the ' women of the Revo- 
 lution.' The men of the party were Varlet, J. Roux, 
 Leclerc, a certain Dubois, whom Robespierre (at the 
 end of Ventose, year III.) designates as a confederate 
 of Jacques Roux ; among the women, the notorious 
 Rose Lacombe had already appeared. Probably they 
 knew Babeuf. Even in 1792 confused rumours of 
 Communism had arisen. Danton, a practical man, 
 saw that Babeuf was a dangerous dreamer, a 
 seductive and terrible sophist. 
 
 Camille was determined to harass them. His 
 Jihird number had appeared on December 15; his 
 
An appeal by Camille. 267 
 
 fourth number was for sale on December 20. It was 
 in everyone's hand. Camille complained that it was 
 sold at ' an exorbitant price.' France, which is gene 
 rous, humane, foolish, but not cruel,' thoughtless but 
 not implacable, recognised itself, so to speak, body. and. 
 soul, in those eloquent and heart-inspired pages. Yes,>, 
 their source was the heart, whence come, not only great 
 thoughts, as Vauvenargues says, but great resolutions 
 and great deeds. 
 
 Like a man in love with pure liberty, Camille 
 uttered a great cry for clemency : — 
 
 ' Liberty,' exclaims Camille, ' has neither old age nor 
 infancy ; she has but one age, that of strength and vigour. 
 This liberty, which I worship, is not an unknown deity. We are 
 fighting in defence of the good things which she puts into 
 the possession of those who invoke her : these good things 
 are the Declaration of Rights, the sweetness of Republican 
 maxims, fraternity, holy equality, and the inviolability of 
 principles. These are the footprints 1 'of the goddess/ these 
 are the signs by which I distinguish 'the' nations among "who'rfr 
 she dwells. ■ ' - ~» 'o J -•,., •{ >;j ;<""' --r 
 
 ' If by liberty,' he says again, 'you do not mean, as I,d9, 
 principles, but only a bit of stone, then never has there'beeri 
 an idolatry more stupid and more costly than ours ! O my 
 dear fellow-citizens ! shall we so far debase ourselves as to 
 fall at the feet of such divinities ? No ; liberty, the liberty 
 that comes down from heaven, is not a nymph of the opera ; 
 it is not a red cap, a dirty .shirt, or tatters. Liberty is happi- 
 ness, reason, equality, justice ! . . . . 
 
 ' . . . . Would you have me acknowledge her, fall at her 
 feet, spill my blood for her ? Open the prisons of those two 
 hundred thousand citizens whom you call " suspects," for, m 
 the Declaration of Rights there was no prison for suspected 
 persons, but only for felons. Suspicion has no prison/ it -has 
 the public prosecutor ; there are no . suspected persons but 
 those who are accused of crime by the law. Do not believe that 
 this measure would be fatal to the Republic, it would be the 
 
268 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 most revolutionary step you have ever taken. You wish to ex- 
 terminate all your enemies by the guillotine ! But was there 
 ever greater folly ? Can you bring one to the scaffold without 
 making to yourselves ten more of his family or his friends ? 
 Do you think that these women, these old men, these egotists, 
 these laggards of the Revolution whom you shut up, are 
 dangerous ? Of your enemies, none remain to you but the 
 cowards and the sick ; the brave and the strong have emi- 
 grated ; they have perished at Lyons or in La Vendee ; the 
 rest do not deserve your anger.' 
 
 It was done : Camille had given vent, as Michelet 
 says, ' to that divine cry which will touch all hearts for 
 ever.' The nation thrilled at the sound like the 
 earth at the touch of spring. Only the blind, the 
 inflexible, the obstinate, and the men whom Desmou- 
 lins calls ' patriot adventurers, who profit by revolutions,' 
 were angered by these appeals for clemency. If this 
 ray of true liberty had but fallen upon France in those 
 first days of 1 794 ; if the Reign of Terror had been 
 ended, if a reconciliation had been at this time effected, 
 while the heads of so many generous, intelligent, and 
 courageous men had not yet fallen, what evils would have 
 been avoided, what fresh trials, what reactions far 
 more dangerous than mercy to the Republic, would the 
 country have been spared ! 
 
 The terrorists did not understand this. Robespierre, 
 scared by the protests which the ' Vieux Cordelier ' 
 excited, broke with Camille. The anger of his allies, 
 the J acobinical madness, as the English said, would soon 
 have reached him, for it was about to strike Camille. 
 Maximilien contented himself, soon after, with defending 
 his friend in such a fashion that Camille Desmoulins 
 took the defence for an attack, and was angry. 
 
 ' O my dear Robespierre', says Camille in his fourth 
 
' Le Vieux Cordelier', No. IV. 269 
 
 number — (thus avowing that Robespierre was, 
 so to speak, standing behind Desmoulins whilst the 
 latter wrote his articles) — 'you have already come 
 closer to this idea ' (that love is stronger, more last- 
 ing than fear) ' in the measttre which you have had 
 decreed.' Maximilien must have been in despair at 
 seeing that ' his old friend ' was revealing him so 
 openly. From that time forth Robespierre allowed 
 Camille to risk his life, and Desmoulins had no support 
 but Danton, who, at least, did not dissuade him from 
 pleading the cause of clemency. 
 
 Camille mentioned Philippeaux in terms of praise 
 — Philippeaux the brave denouncer of Ronsin in La 
 Vendde. Camille had attacked Hebert, 1 whose ad- 
 vice might still be followed by the Paris populace, 
 and who had alarmed the Committee of Public 
 Safety. 2 Camille was to be attacked for all these 
 
 1 ' Let the people,' said Hubert, a little time before, 'gather in a 
 body to-morrow at the Convention, surround it as they did on May 31, 
 and not quit their post until the National representatives have adopted 
 proper means for our safety. Let the revolutionist army set out the moment 
 the decree shall have been issued ; but, above all, let the guillotine follow 
 every line, every column of the army' — Sitting of the Commune, Sep- 
 tember 3, 1793 ; ' Rdpublicain Francais,' No. ccxciv. ; ' Journal de la 
 Montagne,' No. xcvi. ; Buchez et Roux, xxix. p. 23. 
 
 z It might be interesting to show what the official functions of this 
 Committee were, according to the ' Almanach' of 1773 :— 
 
 ' The Committee is established by the decree of October 2 last. 
 It consists of thirty members ; a considerable number, but hardly 
 sufficient for the many operations and the assiduous labour involved 
 in their functions. 
 
 'These thirty members are nearly all chosen from the Legislative 
 Assembly, re-elected for the National Convention. 
 
 ' It may be said that this Committee has no other functions than to 
 watch over the general safety of the State ; and with this object, it 
 should have relations with every place and citizen in the Republic. 
 
 ' In this supervision, which excepts nothing that relates to the 
 general safety, four objects are especially notable. 
 
270 . Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 writings, in the Jacobin club. On the 1st Niv6se, 
 N kolas,' the: ' EardrhMer. 'Ijuror and printer of the revolu- 
 tionary' tribunal, who escorted Robespierre with his 
 flunkeys .armed -wirthiStickBp declared from the rostrum 
 of the club, that ' Camille- Desmoulins had been within 
 a close shave' of the guillotine for a long time ! ' This 
 was a terrible saying. Camille tried to turn it off with 
 a jest ; but it was a death-knell sounding its sinister 
 warning in his ear. Let us do Desmoulins justice : 
 it did not make him relax in the accomplishment of 
 his task. Denounced, threatened by Hdbert, treated 
 as a ' political blackguard,' a ' scoundrel,' a ' renegade 
 from Sansculottism,' a ' miserable intriguer ; ' accused 
 by the ' Pere Duchesne ' of ' speaking the language of 
 the fops whose company he frequented, and whose 
 sentiments he shared as well as their language ; ' he 
 persisted in his work. ' You, the friend of counts and 
 -marquises, ' Hebert said to him ; ' you, the guest of 
 
 ' The Committee is charged : 
 
 ' 1. To watch the enemies of public affairs in Paris, and to interrogate 
 them when arrested, in order to discover plots, their authors, their chiefs, 
 and their agents. 
 
 ' 2. To find out and prosecute the fabricators of false assignats. 
 
 ' 3. To have those who are denounced to it as agents of foreign 
 Courts, and all those who trouble public order in any way whatsoever, 
 arrested. 
 
 ' 4. And, finally, to watch equally closely those whose names are in 
 the Liste civile — that is, in the list of the men who were sold to the lateking. 
 
 'By another decree of the same day, October 2 last, the National 
 Convention bestowed another function upon this Committee ; authoris- 
 ing it to receive an account of all arrests relating to the Revolution 
 which have taken place throughout the Republic since August 10 ; to take 
 cognisance of their motives ; to inspect the correspondence of arrested 
 persons, and, generally, ulHhe r documents tending either to their justifica- 
 tion or giving proof-'of the matters' of which they were accused, so as to 
 make a report to the National Convention, upon which it shall come to 
 such determination as it may think fit. 
 
 'The report of the Committee upon this last subject should be 
 printed and sent to the eighty-four departments.' 
 
Camille s Courage. ■'"■•■ ■"£> ISty-i 
 
 that D'Orleans of whom you now speak- no more, 
 because you would rather not remember your days of 
 distress, now that you live like a Sybarite (sic). You 
 blush to recall the H6tel de la Frugalite, where we 
 used to meet, side by side with honest masons and 
 poor workmen, worth more than you and I.' This was 
 a strange reproaoh to come from the pen of Hebert, 
 who wore gloves, and really lived, as he says, ' like a 
 dandy,' all the time he was writing his infamous pub- 
 lications. Under these reproaches lay blood and death ; 
 but Camille did not flinch. The man who has been 
 accused of want of self-command when confronted 
 with the guillotine, did not hesitate for a moment to 
 ■continue the fatal work he had begun. Camille met 
 these accusations by a series of personal denials which 
 were rather successive attacks upon his enemies. And 
 what attacks! those whom he strikes down rise no 
 more. So long as the name of Hebert survives in 
 history, he will carry Camille's marks :— - 
 
 ' Do you not know, Hubert, that when the tyrants of 
 Europe 'wish to vilify the Republic, to make their slaves 
 believe that France is covered with the darkness of barbarism, 
 that Paris, the city of Attic glory and taste, is peopled with 
 Vandals, they insert fragments of your writings in their 
 newspapers ? As if the people were as ignorant and as stupid 
 as you would have Mr. Pitt believe them to be ; as if no one 
 could speak to him but in language like yours, as if such were 
 the speech of the Convention and of the Committee of Public 
 Safety ; as if your filthiness were the nation's ; as if a Paris 
 sewer were the Seine ! ' ' : " 
 
 1 Hubert's answer has been little quoted. In it he raUies"'Garfiiire 
 reminding him with irony, which unfortunately hit the 1 right naU'ori the head 
 that he had not always been so tender and pitiful;'' v«i j ■; 1 >-r. - 
 ' 'Here, my brave sanscttlottes,' said 'H^bertV^'hereis' a great man 
 whom you have forgotten ; it is truly ungrateful of" you, for he declares 
 
272 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 It is plain that Camille did not mend his ways. 
 Hebert redoubles his fury; he speaks thus of Des- 
 moulins : ' A little ass with long ears (the anon des 
 Moulins of the Ap6tres), who never was mouthed or 
 spurred, has been straining every nerve these last few 
 days. After having pleaded the cause of dandy Dillon 
 and maintained that, without the protection of the 
 "red-heels " (a mark of nobility), the Republic could not 
 
 be saved, nowadays he turns champion of all the 
 
 who are in quod.' But Camille was afraid neither of 
 Hebert's attacks nor of Robespierre's countenance. 
 He cared not to follow the prudent counsel of Pol- 
 lionus : ' Never write against him who can proscribe thee! 
 And as for his Committee of Clemency, in spite of the 
 threats of Nicolas and the enragds, in spite of the 
 censure of Barere, he maintained its principles and 
 cried out, like Galileo, when condemned by the Sacred 
 College, ' It moves for all that.' 
 
 III. 
 
 The fifth number of the ' Vieux Cordelier,' dated 
 the 5th Nivose, year II. (December 25, 1 793) was, how- 
 
 that, without him, there would never have been a Revolution. Formerly 
 he called himself " Procureur-Gdndral de la Lanterne." You think I am 
 speaking of that famous cutthroat whose celebrated beard made the 
 aristocrats take flight ; no, he of whom we speak boasts that he is the 
 most pacific of men. To believe him, he has no more gall than a 
 pigeon ; he is so sensitive, that he never hears the word guillotine with- 
 out shivering to his very bones ; he is a great teacher who, in his own 
 person, has more wisdom than all the patriots put together, and more judg- 
 ment than the entire Convention ; it is a great pity that he cannot speak ; 
 or he would prove to the " Moniteur " and the Committee of Public Safety 
 that they have no common sense. But if he cannot speak, master Camille 
 can make up for it by writing, to the great satisfaction of the modirds, 
 Royalists, and aristocrats.' (' J. R. Hubert, author of " Pere Duchesne," to 
 Camille Desmoulins and Company.') 
 
Camille s last Writings. 273 
 
 ever, not for sale until the 16th Niv$se (January 5, 
 1794). The sixth, dated, by mistake, the roth Niv6se 
 (December 30), did not come out until the 15th 
 PluviSse (February 1794). This No. VI. was to 
 be the last which should appear in the lifetime of 
 Desmoulins. In it Camille had begun what he called 
 his political credo ; but at the seventh number Desenne 
 his publisher took alarm, and refused to print it. Those 
 sheets, covered with Desmoulins' close handwriting, 
 frightened him. The seventh number did not appear 
 until Prairial, year III. (June 1795), on the day 
 after the outbreak whose history we have related. 1 
 But Desenne only issued fragments of it in 1795, and 
 M. Matton, senior, the inheritor of Camille's manu- 
 scripts, and who published the ' CEuvres ' of his famous 
 relative, did not give No. VII. complete in 1834. In 
 an article in the ' Complement de l'Encyclopddie 
 modern e,' 2 the late Edouard Carteron, keeper of the 
 National Archives, who was well versed in the history 
 of the Revolution, has printed, under the heading 
 ' Indulgent,' some pages from this No. VII. which 
 may still be regarded as unpublished or at least 
 unknown. 
 
 They are taken from the collection of Baron de 
 Girardot, of Bourges. M. Carteron copied them from 
 the manuscript itself, ' consisting of several loose 
 leaves, which were formerly a continuation of each 
 other.' Other fragments are copied from the original 
 by Panis, a Dantonist and Camille's friend. They 
 will be found interesting. There are, among them, 
 certain pages which do not figure in the ' CEuvres ' of 
 Camille. What an uproar they would have created 
 
 1 See the ' Derniers Montagnards.' 
 8 Firmin Didot. 
 
2 74 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 at the Jacobins and the Cordeliers may be guessed on 
 perusing them. 
 
 Fragments of the 'Vieux Cordelier.' 
 
 i. 'It is under the mask of patriotism, and contrary to 
 that sensible maxim from which Machiavel so strongly re- 
 commends a sovereign never to swerve, — Ministers and generals 
 should have honours, high posts, and riches heaped upon them, 
 so that they cannot hope to gain so much by treason as by 
 ■fidelity — that the Convention first decreed that the maximum 
 of the retiring pension of a citizen who had been general- 
 in-chief, and had exterminated the enemy, could only be 
 three thousand livres ; and then the deputy Chabot, who had 
 just acquired a hundred thousand crowns by his marriage, 
 proposed, in order to make himself popular, that ministers, 
 generals, and deputies should only have the same pay as 
 the soldiers. When we remember that retrenching half-a- 
 crown a month from his salary deprived Portugal of Magellan's 
 services and discoveries, and when we see folly of this kind 
 presiding at our deliberations, should we not be tempted to 
 think that Pitt himself has a seat on the benches of la Mon- 
 tague ? 
 
 ' It was under this mask of patriotism that, in order to 
 disgust with office any citizen of talent who might have 
 been useful to the Republic, and by the removal or disgrace 
 of all men of merit, so that the most important places were 
 left to men whose ignorance was as useful to our enemies as 
 if it had been treason — denunciation falling unceasingly 
 upon all who had distinguished themselves — we had arrived 
 at such a happy state that there did not remain at the head 
 of our eleven armies a single man who, I do not say knew, 
 but who had even learned the profession of war. By these 
 perpetual denunciations, the only generals in those two cam- 
 paigns in which a siege or a battle could be cited which did 
 honour to the commandant and not to the valour of the 
 soldiers or to French impetuosity— Dillon, Custine, Aubert- 
 Dubayet, Harville, Lamarliere — and, indeed, all our generals 
 in succession, have been thrown into prison or dragged to 
 
No. VII. 275 
 
 the scaffold. In one single campaign, all that history- 
 relates of the Carthaginians, who crucified their generals, 
 we have surpassed by the guillotine ; and the French nation 
 has not hesitated to pronounce against itself a judgment 
 which will stain it for ever ; for, if all the generals whom it 
 has condemned have in truth been traitors, it follows that 
 our nation, with its boasted loyalty, has included, in two years, 
 more traitors than all other nations together, since, throughout 
 the entire history of the Roman Republic, only two generals 
 were traitors. 
 
 'When will this denunciation tire itself out? It alone 
 promoted the officer to the rank of general, the journalist to 
 the Ministry, and the deputy to the Committee of Public 
 Safety ! It alone could, on the morrow, command the 
 applause of the tribunes for the representative of the people 
 who had been most decried the day before. Had Robert laid 
 hands upon some rum ? He denounced General Bouchet, a 
 soldier without reproach, a venerable old man ; was applauded 
 by the galleries, and believed himself once more popular. 
 Had Duhem misconducted himself in his mission to the 
 North ? Had he levied, for his own table, two thousand 
 bottles of excellent " emigrant wine," by an order to the 
 representatives of the people ' addressed to the department 
 of the Pas-de-Calais ? To make himself popular again, he 
 severely denounced Lamarliere, who was in prison, after 
 having sung his praises as commissary to the army. In order 
 to regain his popularity, he made a deposition against the 
 "Twenty-One," which would have stifled the faction at its birth, 
 and spared you much evil if it had been done in time. Thus 
 he effaced the memory of his requisitions. Chabot made that 
 famous deposition against his one-and-twenty colleagues in 
 which the most shameless false witness comes to light in 
 more than one place ; and believed he had effaced the 
 memory of his marriage. Each thought his sins washed out 
 by a little word, not of penitence, as formerly, but of denun- 
 ciation, true or false. This man denounced some one to save 
 his own fine house ; that man, that he might be forgiven for 
 the mission from which he had returned ; the proconsul, in 
 order to get back to his province ; this one, to get a seat at 
 
 t a 
 
276 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the Committee of Surveillance ; that one, for a seat at the 
 Committee of Public Safety ; one, to be president ; another, 
 to be secretary ; and Levasseur, to prove that he had (not) 
 been the first to give the signal for flight in the fatal sortie 
 from Cambray, positively said that, returning from the fight, 
 where he had had his horse killed under him, he had met 
 with General Houchard behind a hedge, covered with wounds 
 from head to foot, and he accused him of cowardice ! What 
 must have been Hubert's feelings, after having denounced so 
 many for six months, on seeing Pare\ who had never de- 
 nounced anyone, preferred to himself as Minister of the 
 Interior. It was easy to see, in " La grande colere du Pere 
 Duchene " of the day after, that he could not pardon 
 Thuriot and Danton for this preference. What, then, is this 
 unquenchable thirst of ambition ? And ought not Hubert, 
 whom all Paris has seen distributing theatre tickets under the 
 vestibule des Italiens, to be contented with his scarf, with 
 the forty thousand livres a year given him by Bouchotte, the 
 Minister, as the subscription of the eleven armies to the 
 inestimable " Pere Duchene ; " with making France tremble 
 at his denunciations and bringing her on her knees before his 
 Jacqueline ? With what rapidity a Republic rushes towards 
 ruin, when denunciation has become the shortest road to 
 success, as it was under Tiberius and the worst of the 
 emperors ; when, every day, the denouncer, sacred and 
 inviolable, made his triumphal entry into the palace of the 
 dead, and received some rich inheritance ; when all these 
 denouncers arrayed themselves in fine names, and were 
 called ' Cotta, Regulus, Cassius, Severus ! But such is the 
 danger of the best institutions ; Marat's denouncers had contri- 
 buted not a little to clear the soil of France, and prepare the 
 way for the Republic. At his death, the altars raised every- 
 where to the deputy who, for four years, had exercised the 
 functions of denouncer in general, the feasts, the solemn pro- 
 cessions in his honour, his apotheosis in all the sections, 
 procured him successors who surpass him in zeal. The 
 honours of the Pantheon granted to Voltaire, to J.-J. Rousseau, 
 
 1 Anaxagoras (Chaumette) ; Anacharsis (Clootz) ; Fabricius (Paris, 
 recorder of the Revolutionary Tribunal). 
 
No. VII. 277 
 
 and to Descartes, will not give them too many imitators. 
 Let him refuse who will to arrive at glory by the road of 
 genius ; it is the narrow way. But so soon as public opinion 
 makes the imitation of Jean-Paul Marat — the physician 
 born at Neufchatel whom Voltaire ridiculed so much — the 
 acme of civic perfection, and the sure means of perching 
 oneself, one day, upon the high altar of the Pantheon - , the 
 pride which moves the heart of man, and the desire to leave 
 one's memory behind and to make a name, are sure guarantees 
 that the mob will rush into so broad and easy a road to immor- 
 tality. Thus, Quintus Cicero, not being able to attain to his 
 brother's elevation by eloquence, endeavoured to make as 
 great a name for himself by the severity of his judgments, and 
 made his government of Asia nothing but a record of cruci- 
 fixions and torture. Before long, Marat's successors had left 
 him far behind, and the " Pere Duch6ne " could look upon the 
 Friend of the People, who had acquitted Ducos and Fonfride 
 with contempt, as a mere Brissotin. 
 
 'Thenceforth, there was emulation among the Commis- 
 sioners of the Convention, who travelled through the depart- 
 ments, as to who should eclipse the glory of the great Marat and, 
 in his turn, multiply statues of himself like the sand of the sea. 
 ",I have changed all the federal administrations, from the 
 president of the department down to the mayor of the village ; 
 taxed the rich, like a true Revolutionist; pulled down the 
 bells ; shut up suspected persons ; guillotined all the royalists : 
 such is the summary of my journey," Laplanche said, on his 
 return from Loiret-et-Cher ; ' when, that he might obtain the 
 honours of triumph, he threw down before the Convention 
 more chalices, ciboriums, and Sacred Hosts, than Hannibal's 
 courier did rings of the Roman knights after the battle of 
 Cannes. 
 
 ' At this recital, inserted in the " Bulletin," Laplanche's 
 trophies disturbed the repose of Fouchd of Nantes at Nevers, 
 and he at once made an anti-episcopal visit to his diocese, 
 not leaving in the whole department of La Nievre a single 
 paten, altar-cruet, or thurible ; and instead of the one waggon 
 that Laplanche had sent to the Convention, he sent seventeen 
 
 1 'Moniteur' of the 30th of the first month, p. 122, 2. 
 
2 78 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 cartloads of sacred things. It was laughable to see the 
 representatives of the people laying their hands upon all 
 these symbols of fanaticism, servitude, and ignorance. 
 
 ' But the other deputies' mission in the departments was 
 one of chains and tears. If certain commissioners had had 
 secret instructions to fulfil their duties in such a manner 
 as to make the Republic hated, they could not have acted 
 otherwise than as they did. Andrd Dumont l counted his 
 prisoners only by the twenty or thirty tumbril loads. "In 
 leaving Montreuil," he wrote to the Convention, " I bring 
 with me forty-four carts 2 full of suspected persons ; " and he 
 alone made more French people prisoners in one department 
 in fourteen days, than the army of the North did Prussians, 
 English, and Austrians in the- whole campaign. In vain was 
 liberty of worship guaranteed by the Constitution : " You 
 shall confess that you are harbouring quacks (priests ?), or you 
 shall go to prison." 3 In his letters to the Convention, he 
 speaks of his prizes with as much emphasis as if he had gained 
 them by boarding dismasted ships, covered with wounds, 
 and after twelve hours' fighting. " Victory ! " he exclaims ; " I 
 send you an ex-count d'Hervily, who had buried his title- 
 deeds and his plate sixty feet below ground ; and ten other 
 rascals of his stamp." Now who is this d'Hervily? An 
 hypochondriac ex-nobleman, an octogenarian at thirty-six, 
 wasted by medicine rather than by illness, who had buried his 
 title-deeds and his plate, when his estate, near P6ronne, was 
 surrounded by the Uhlans, who had just burned the villages 
 within three-quarters of a league of his chateau. Who were 
 the ten rascals of his stamp ?* I know one among them, a 
 
 1 See Andre 1 Dumonr's letters : I. 'Moniteur' of September io, 1793, 
 p. 1075, col. 1 ; 2. ' Moniteur 'of September 16, p. 1098, col. 353.' Moni- 
 teur' of September 25, p. n 37, col. 3. 
 
 2 ' Moniteur' of October 6, 1793, p. 1 1 87, cols. 2 and 3 ; ' Moniteur' 
 of 1 8th of the first month, p. 74, 1. 
 
 3 'Moniteur' of the 1st of the second month, p. 124, col. 2; cf. 
 ' Moniteur' of the 5th of the second month (October 26, 1793), p. H3» 
 cols. 2 and 3. 
 
 4 See the 'Vieux CorHelier,' p. 81 and following ; Matton's edition, 
 concerning Vaillant, Camille's cousin, who had been arrested for having 
 given a bed to Citizen Nantouillet. 
 
No. VII 279 
 
 relative of mine, whose rascality consisted in having received 
 a man at dinner, at his country house, who had lived at 
 Peronne for five months, had mounted guard there, received 
 his rents there, in a word, was a French citizen, but whom 
 Andre Dumont accused of having made a journey to London ; 
 as if, before receiving a citizen, into my house, I were obliged 
 to enquire of him where he had been and what he had been 
 doing since the Revolution ! This is one of Andre" Dumont's 
 ten rascals. 1 
 
 'Even Andre" Dumont has, however, been surpassed by 
 his colleague Dubouchet, in the department of Seine-et- 
 Marne. Commissioner Rousselin's letter would have already 
 covered him with ridicule, 2 if one could laugh while a whole 
 province weeps. The decree of the Convention, 3 which for- 
 bade the sending of commissioners into the departments in 
 which they were born — a wise decree, in that it prevented 
 the deputies from being influenced by their relatives and 
 friends — had the defect of exposing the deputies, in a country 
 they did not know, to the suggestions and deceits of false 
 patriotism, on the 'alert to deceive them ; and the com- 
 plaints which arose on all sides against Dubouchet, fall less 
 upon him than those in whom he placed confidence. 
 Dubouchet, on arriving at Melun, enquired for the most ardent 
 patriot ; and a grocer was pointed out to him as the Marat 
 of the place. This fellow took care of his own customers, 
 and found suspected persons only among those who did not 
 deal with him.' 
 
 (End of the First Fragment.) 
 
 1 See the ' Moniteur ' (for the other Hdbertist manifestations of Andre* 
 Dumont) of 15th Brumaire,y&zx II. p. 184, 3 ; 17th Frimaire, year II. p. 
 309, 2 ; 23rd Frimaire, p. 334, 1 ; of the y&MvSse, p. 375, 3 ; 14th NivSse, 
 p. 418-19. 
 
 ' ' Moniteur,' 24th of first month, p. 96, 1 ; cf. ' Moniteur,' 29th of 
 first month, p. 118, 1 ; where is a reply to Rousselin's denunciation of 
 Dubouchet, deputy of Rh&ne-et-Loire ; ' Moniteur' of 3rd Frimaire, p. 
 255, 2 ; ' Moniteur,' 29th Frimaire, p. 358, 3. 
 
 8 Decree of July 5, 1797. 
 
280 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 N.B.— The original is identical with Panis' copy. The 
 different sheets on which Desmoulins wrote this long frag- 
 ment, are separated from each other in Baron de Girar- 
 dot's portfolio. Panis copied the sheets before they were 
 dispersed. 
 
 Second Fragment of the 'Vieux Cordelier.' 
 
 For the first fragment (as above) M. Carteron had had — 
 1st, Pants' copy ; 2nd, some loose sheets in Baron de Girardot's 
 portfolio ; but, on these sheets, which are in Camille 's hand- 
 writing, being put together, they are found to match perfectly ; 
 they have, without any doubt, served Panis for his copy. 
 
 The second fragment (the present one) has been restored 
 from the same sources. Panis' copy was made from Camille 's 
 manuscript ; but Panis, being an ignorant man, could not 
 read some words, such as non causa pro causa. Camille's 
 manuscript is composed of a single sheet, recto and verso ; there 
 was certainly a beginning and a continuation. 
 
 For the first (above mentioned) the beginning is wanting ; 
 but the manuscript ending at the bottom of a page and the rest 
 of the sheet being blank, this fragment may be held to end with 
 these words : ' who did not deal with him.' 
 
 ' . . . . While so far on my way, I did not fail to visit our 
 wise men. What was my surprise to hear hardly any dis- 
 cussion ! It seems that the rostrum of the Convention has 
 become as dangerous as a campaign in La Vendee under 
 certain generals of whom you know. If a deputy feel himself 
 obliged to declare his sentiments, good or bad, nothing is 
 more pleasant for the Republican who follows these sittings 
 than to observe with what ifs and buts, yeas and nays, what 
 concessions, circumlocutions, corrections, and oratorical pre- 
 cautions, he envelopes his meaning, for fear the guillotine 
 should find a way to the neck of it ; how he foresees future 
 contingencies, and how he parries in tierce and in carte all 
 M. Renaudin's interrogatories. 
 
 ' Not one of you dares give utterance on the morrow to the 
 opinion you have agreed upon the day before. Each of you 
 waits for the others. It seems that the most incorrupt of 
 
The Second Fragment of No. VII 281 
 
 deputies is he who, never having opened his mouth through- 
 out the session, will be able to say on coming away from 
 the Convention : " God be praised ! Let Fouquier-Tinville 
 come when he will ! I defy him to find a flaw in my 
 opinions ! " If this goes on, the nation, in order to have 
 faithful and irreproachable representatives, cannot do better 
 than elect Carthusian monks, who, without breaking their 
 vow of perpetual silence, will only have to stand up and sit 
 down, according to the applause of the galleries, and at the 
 back of Hubert (or ' Vincent). I have often thought already 
 that you looked, in your gloomy silence, not like the conscript 
 Fathers, but the Fathers of La Trappe or of Sept-Fonds ; 3 
 or rather, after hearing you a hundred times disapproving 
 of the measures .proposed, but keeping your places, and not 
 daring to ask leave to address the Assembly, I protest whilst 
 you sat listening to stump-orators who put you far above 
 the Greeks or the Romans, I, on this celebrated Mountain, 
 have merely seen mice deliberating, while no one dared to 
 bell the cat. 
 
 ' Whatever may have been the degradation of past gene- 
 rations, until now it has been held that a man may say every- 
 thing if he do but know how to say it. We know how 
 Abraham, in his walk with God in person— having to treat of 
 a very difficult matter, nothing less than to ask the Immutable 
 God to revoke his sentence upon Sodom — skilfully extricated 
 himself from his difficulty by the help of a figure of rhetoric. 
 " Lord," he said, " if there had been only five hundred patriots 
 who were not accomplices in the crime, would you spare 3 the 
 houses ? " " I would spare them," said God. " But even if 
 I were to rub out a cipher, and there were fifty, would you 
 spare them ? " " I would," " But if I rubbed out the last 
 cipher— if there were only five just patriots ? " " Even then," 
 replied the good God, " I would grant a reprieve." 
 
 ' I allow that a Republican would have been more candid ; 
 he would have said to God : " There is a flaw in the reasoning 
 
 1 These words ' or Vincent' are erased. 
 
 a An abbey of the Cistercian order, near Moulins. 
 
 3 ' not ' is wanting in the MS. 
 
282 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 here that is called in logic non causa pro causa, 1 and you lay 
 the blame on the walls ; pardon me, but . . . ." 
 
 ' " The walls also, great Lord, have they ....?" 2 After 
 all, from the creature to the Creator [from the clay 3 to the 
 potter] there is so great a distance that Abraham is quite 
 excusable ; and the watch should be allowed, in speaking to 
 the watchmaker, to use these circumlocutions and periphrases. 
 But I cannot forgive the revolutionary government of Billaud- 
 Varennes and the reign of terror he has made the order of the 
 day, in that, although it is constantly declared that all men 
 are equal and that the time has come for plain-speaking, you, 
 the representatives of the people and clothed with the dignity 
 of the first magistrates, far from speaking as equals to equals, 
 cannot even, by exerting all your rhetoric, 4 and resorting to 
 every imaginable circumlocution, utter an opinion adverse to 
 the one in favour ; that you dare not say that you differ from 
 Ronsin with respect to Lyons ; and since, by his avowal, there 
 are fifteen hundred patriots 5 in Commune-affranchie, you 
 share the sentiments of God the Father at least with regard 
 to the houses. I contend that such servility has never before 
 been seen, not only from man to man, but from the servant to 
 the master, and the clay to the potter : I contend that we 
 have never been so enslaved as since we have called ourselves 
 Republican, that we have never grovelled so abjectly before 
 men in credit and in place as since we have spoken with them 
 hat on head.' 
 
 These fragments clearly show the state of Camille's 
 mind at the beginning- of the year 1 794, the spring of 
 which was to witness his death. Miot de Melito, in his 
 ' Memoires,' shows him to us saddened and beset by 
 fatal presentiments. ' The few words he let fall,' says 
 Melito, ' were confined to enquiries into or observations 
 
 1 Panis could not read this. 
 8 Words wanting in the MS. 
 5 Erased in the MS. The words occur again in the page following. 
 
 * In the MS. and Panis' copy * rdthorique.' 
 
 * See the ' Vieux Cordelier,' p. 69, Matton's edition. 
 
Camille's Forebodings. 283 
 
 upon the sentences of the revolutionary tribunal, the 
 kind of punishment inflicted upon the condemned, and 
 the most noble or most decent fashion in which to 
 prepare for it, or to endure it. 1 He was weary ; he 
 felt that all was lost ; and that he had brought about 
 not his own destruction only, but that of his family. 
 Already two commissioners of the section Mucius 
 Scaevola, the section of Vincent, Hebert's friend, had 
 searched the house of M. Duplessis, Camille's father- 
 in-law, following up the perquisition by a seizure which 
 had called forth a protest at the Convention from 
 Danton, supported by Romme, against the seizure of 
 certain objects of art ; nor was this all : although he 
 had not married an Austrian, like Chabot, Camille 
 had, like the ex-Capuchin, to defend himself for having 
 married a rich wife. 
 
 ■ ' I will say but one word of my wife ' (he answered Hubert 
 on this subject in a touching tone, and with more emotion 
 than was usual with him) ; ' I had always believed in the 
 immortality of the soul. After sacrificing my personal interest 
 so many times to the liberty and happiness of the people, 
 I said to myself, in the heat of the persecution, — "There 
 must be a reward for virtue elsewhere." But my marriage 
 is so blissful, my domestic happiness so great, that I feared I 
 was receiving my reward on earth, and I lost my faith in 
 immortality. Now your persecutions, your invectives, and 
 your cowardly calumnies, restore to me all my hope.'- 2 
 
 Alas ! at the moment when he spoke of his ' great 
 domestic happiness ' Camille felt it was already 
 slipping from his hold, disappearing, passing away, 
 
 1 ' Memoires of Count Miot de Me"lito,' second edition (1873), vo1 - '• 
 p. 44. 
 
 3 The ' Vieux Cordelier,' No. 5. See ' CEuvres de Camille Des- 
 moulins,' vol. ii. p. 213. Charpentier's edition. 
 
284 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 leaving to the unhappy man no more than a shadow ! 
 Despair, disquiet, fear, had entered into the house, 
 which Sylvain Marechal had called in days past — how 
 long past! — the dwelling-place of innocence. There 
 is a letter of Lucile's, broken-hearted and despairing, 
 which she wrote to Freron, then at Toulon, and which 
 gives the keynote of this tragic time ; it has been 
 already quoted, but only partially, in the ' Histoire des 
 Tribunaux,' p. 283, and in E. Lairtullier's book, ' Les 
 Femmes celebres de 1789 a 1795/ It follows here, in 
 its entirety, just as I copied it from the original. 1 
 
 Freron was far away ; he had been absent for eight 
 months at the siege of Toulon ; he writes to Camille, 
 ' You know I love your wife to madness ; ' he wishes 
 his two children to be called, one Camille and the other 
 Lucile (these children of Freron' s both died in infancy, 
 as their namesakes died in the flower of their age). 
 He misses the lapin, the friend of Bouli-Boula — 
 Desmoulins' nickname — and of Roideau — Lucile's nick- 
 name ; he regrets ' the thyme and wild herbs with which 
 Madame Desmoulins' pretty, dimpled hands had fed 
 him ; ' he recalls the past ; the idylls, the willows, the 
 graves, and the bursts of laughter of that Lucile who 
 read Young and Grecourt at the same time ; he sees 
 her ' trotting about in her room, gliding over the 
 polished floor, sitting for a moment at her piano, and 
 whole hours in an easy-chair, dreaming, giving the 
 reins to her imagination, then making the coffee with a 
 filtering-bag, behaving like a sprite and showing her 
 teeth like a cat.' What a sweet portrait of Lucile, and 
 how one feels Freron was right, more right than he 
 thought perhaps, in saying he loved her, and that her 
 
 1 This letter, with its strange orthography, will be found in the original 
 in the Appendix. 
 
Frtroris Letter. 285 
 
 melancholy, mingled with her sweet laughter, had 
 charmed him. ' Farewell ! madly, a hundred-fold madly 
 loved Rouleau', he said to her. And he mimicked 
 her language after having described her attitudes. 
 ' What is that to me ? It is as clear as the day.' The 
 ' rabbit embraces the whole warren, until he can return 
 to frisk upon the grass of the Bourg-Egalite ! ' Then, 
 thinking of Camille, of the ' Vieux Cordelier,' of the 
 denunciations to which he was exposed, the future 
 reactionist of the days following Thermidor advises — a 
 thing to be noted! — that the loup-loup (Camille) should 
 bridle his imagination with regard to his Committee of 
 Clemency. ' It would be,' said Freron, 'a triumph for 
 the counter-revolutionists. Do not let his philanthropy 
 blind him ; but let him wage war to the knife with all 
 these patriot-adventurers.' Now, it is this letter which 
 Lucile answers, trying to make the friend at a distance 
 understand the terrible and pressing danger of a 
 situation of which he is ignorant. 
 
 ' 24th Niv6se, the second year of the Republic one and indivisible. 
 
 ' Come back, Freron, come back quickly. You have no 
 time to lose ; bring with you all the Vieux Cordeliers you can 
 meet with ; we have the greatest need of them. If it had 
 pleased Heaven not to have ever dispersed them ! You 
 cannot have an idea of what is doing here ! You are ignorant 
 of everything, you only see a feeble glimmering in the 
 distance, which can give you but a faint idea of our situation. 
 Indeed, I am not surprised that you reproach Camille for his 
 Committee of Clemency. He cannot be judged from Toulon. 
 You are happy where you are ; all has gone according to the 
 wish of your heart ; but we, calumniated, persecuted by the 
 ignorant, the intriguing, and even by patriots ; Robespiere 
 (sic) your headpiece, has denounced Camille to the Jacobins ; 
 he has had Nos. 3 and 4 read, and has demanded that they 
 should be burnt ; he who had read them in manuscript. Can 
 
286 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 you conceive such a thing? 1 For two consecutive sittings 
 he has thundered, or rather shrieked? against Camille. At 
 the third sitting Camille's name was cancelled. Oddly 
 enough, he made inconceivable efforts to have the cancelling 
 reported ; it was reported ; but he saw that when he did 
 not think or act according to [their '] the will of a certain 
 number of individuals, he was not all powerful. Marius 2 
 is not listened to any more, he is losing courage and vigour. 
 D' Eglantine is arrested, and in the Luxembourg, under 
 very grave charges. So he was not a patriot ! he who had 
 been one until now ! A patriot the less is a misfortune the 
 more. 
 
 ' The monsters have dared to reproach Camille with having 
 married a rich woman. Ah ! let them never speak of me ; let 
 them ignore my existence, let me live in the midst of a desert. 
 I ask nothing from them, I will give up to them all I possess, 
 provided I do not breathe the same air as they ! ' (Here let 
 me note a detail which gives a sinister air to this document, 
 about which hangs the savour of death. Lucile let fall a blot 
 of ink, and, her pen marking badly, she tried to make it better 
 by drawing lines and zigzags on the margin, which render 
 this letter still more curious and precious.) ' Could I but 
 forget them, and all the evils they cause us ! I see nothing 
 but misfortune around me. I confess, I am too weak to bear 
 so sad a sight. Life has become a heavy burden. I cannot 
 even think — thinking, once such a pure and sweet pleasure — 
 alas ! I am deprived of it. . . . My eyes fill with tears. . . . 
 I shut up this terrible sorrow in my heart ; I meet Camille' 
 with a serene look, I affect courage that he may {not lose his ; 3 ) 
 keep up his. 
 
 ' You do not seem to me to have read his five numbers. 
 Yet you are a subscriber. Yes, the wild thyme is gathered, 
 quite ready. I plucked it amid many cares. I laugh no 
 more ; I never act the cat ; I never touch my piano ; I dream 
 no more, I am nothing but a machine now. I see no one, I 
 never go out. It is a long time since I have seen the Roberts. 
 
 1 Struck out by Lucile. a Danton. 
 
 " Struck out. 
 
Lttciles Letter. 287 
 
 They have got into difficulties through their own fault. They 
 are trying to be forgotten. 
 
 ' Farewell, lapin, {thou l ) you will call me mad again. I 
 am not, however, quite yet ; I have still enough reason left to 
 suffer. 
 
 ' I cannot express to you my joy on learning that your 
 dear sister had met with no accident [and in Paris] ; I have 
 been quite uneasy since I heard Toulon was taken. I 
 wondered incessantly what would be their fate. Speak to 
 them sometimes of me. Embrace them both for me. I 
 beg them to do the same to you, for me. 
 
 ' Do you hear ! my loup cries out : Martin, my dear 
 Martin, here, thou art come that I may embrace thee\ ) come 
 back very soon. 
 
 ' Come back; come back very soon ; we are awaiting you 
 impatiently.' 2 
 
 Marius not listened, to !. We are calumniated, 
 persecuted ! D' Eglantine is arrested ! ' I cannot even 
 think.' What a picture! Cannot we imagine the 
 ■forced smiles, the heavy hearts, and the pale faces ? 
 Nevertheless, Camille persisted in his enterprise, in 
 spite of the advice given him. 3 Letters like the 
 
 1 Struck but. 
 
 3 Copied from the original. 
 
 3 Dialogue between Camille Desmoulins and myself when his fifth 
 number was about to come out : — 
 
 ' Mon cher Camille, il faut de la prudence, 
 
 En toute chose. Eh ! m'en suis-je dearth ? 
 
 Qu'ai-je done fait ? J'ai dit la veYite" ; 
 
 En homme libre, avec toute assurance, 
 
 Je veux la dire. Ah ! garder le silence 
 
 Serait trahir mon auguste devoir. — 
 
 Mais Robespierre est force" de se voir 
 
 Dans vos portraits. C'est l'unique remede, 
 
 Pour le gue'rir. A femme ou fille laide 
 
 II ne faut pas presenter un miroir.' — 
 
 ' Le Chiffonier,' by P. Villet, author of the ' Rhapsodies.' Paris, at all rag- 
 merchants, year VIII. 
 
288 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 following, which leached him from the prisons, spurred 
 him on, strung up his courage by echoing his cry 
 for mercy. 
 
 ' Quintidi, Niv6se. 
 
 ' Eternal thanks for your noble and touching idea of a 
 Committee of Clemency. But alas ! they will cut down too 
 many. At the moment when your fourth number was brought 
 me yesterday, I was reading the eighteenth chapter of the 
 philosopher Seneca's treaty on Clemency, and I had paused 
 at those memorable words of Augustus : Vitam tibi, Cinna, 
 iterum do, prius hosti, nunc insidiatori ac parricides. Citizen, 
 as virtuous as you are enlightened, when you say that this 
 Committee of Clemency would put an end to the Revolution, 
 the proof of your words is in this same chapter of Seneca's : 
 Post hcec nullis amplius insidiis ab ullo petitus est. May the 
 genius of humanity, which has inspired you with so beautiful 
 a commentary on the "Let us be friends, Cinna" convince our 
 rulers that there can be no Constitution without morals, and 
 that justice is the best and only policy. Ah ! if they had the 
 noble courage to say to the two thousand citizens whom they, 
 call suspect, " Let us be friends," with those two words they 
 would save the Republic far more surely than with the million 
 men armed for its defence. 
 
 ' If I recover my liberty, the first use I will make of it shall 
 be to converse with the friend whom misfortune has given me ; 
 but I despair of it if we are to be dragged from Committee 
 to Committee, and if the Convention, in its justice and its 
 wisdom, does not abridge the length of this labyrinth. 
 
 ' Must it then be, under the rule of liberty as under the iron 
 hand of despotism, that evil is poured out all at once, but good 
 drop by drop ! Do not fear to compromise yourself by what- 
 ever your noble heart may inspire you with in my favour, and 
 rest assured, man after my own heart and mind, that the 
 strictest examination into my conduct and principles can 
 never be too severe for my wishes. 
 
 'Amable Latramblaye.' l 
 
 1 Unpublished letter. 
 
 On the other hand, Camille received letters demanding from him 
 
' Polichinelle? 289 
 
 And at the same time another faithful friend wrote 
 encouragingly to Camille : — . 
 
 'nth Niv6se, year II. 
 ' How I thank you, my dear Camille, for your precious 
 gift! In truth, since the Revolution, I have not read any- 
 thing which has afforded me so much pleasure ! What a 
 delightful night you have given me while on guard ! Thanks 
 to you, I found Cicero and Voltaire awaiting me there. 
 My friend, I am not a fanatic, nor an enthusiast, nor a man 
 to pay compliments ; but if I should happen to survive you, 
 I mean to have your bust and to carve on it :— r" Wicked men 
 would have had us accept liberty kneaded together of mud 
 and blood ; Camille made us love it, carved in marble and 
 covered with flowers." 
 
 ' Let Robespierre stick to the Committee of Public Safety, 
 
 accusations and proscriptions of the persons denounced in them. I will 
 only quote one, taken from his unpublished papers : — 
 
 '20th Niv6se, year II. of the French Republic, one, 
 indivisible, and imperishable. 
 
 'Liberty, Equality, or Death. 
 
 ' Denunciation to the Committee of Public Safety. 
 
 1 Pitt and Cobourg have, perhaps, never to their knowledge had a 
 more useful colleague than the puppet Souchotte. His stupidities, his 
 incapacity, and his negligence are equivalent to the greatest treachery. 
 
 ' Rivalling his idiotic predecessor, whom I have followed closely for a 
 twelvemonth, he has, contrary to the text of the decrees, withdrawn from 
 the military levy a battalion of young men whom I offer to the Republic ; 
 far from sansculottising the generals, he has manned the staff with fops 
 and Royalists like himself, and, if possible, of even less value. 
 
 ' He makes the Republic pay for seven hundred thousand able men, 
 and a large number are incapable of service. He has supplied the armies 
 with generals who are fools as well as rascals ; and retained thieves, bri- 
 gands, and even nobles everywhere, even in the commissariat. Finally, I 
 offer any information and disclosure the Committee may require con- 
 cerning this petty captain of Esterhazy's. 
 
 ' Health and fraternity. 
 
 ' Hedoin, Republican. 
 
 ' Born 1739; fort y y ears in tne a-ray ; first Vice-President 
 of the section Lepelletier, at Rheims.' 
 
 U 
 
290 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Danton to the rostrum, and you to your pen, and soon the 
 French will find they owe to you three an ever-increasing 
 happiness. But, the more I reflect the less I comprehend 
 your incomprehensible Lucile. What have I done to give 
 her so mean an idea of poor Polichinelle ? Only yesterday 
 she would not lend me your paper for fear it should not be 
 to my taste. 
 
 ' What ! If I have loved liberty, even as it is roughly 
 sketched by artists often unskilful and unfaithful, was I not 
 sure to adore it when traced, after nature, by the painter who 
 has inherited the brushes and colours of Cicero, Lucian, Vol- 
 taire, and that child of Nature, Lafontaine ! 
 
 ' As a punishment, this Lucile, as ugly in mind as in body, 
 must send to her dear Polichinelle the MS. in which is " La 
 fleur que j'aime," your " Revolutions," all your works, and the 
 numbers present and to come of your " Vieux Cordelier." 
 
 ' You may easily believe I should have much more pleasure 
 in fetching them myself; but, for fear of disturbing you, I 
 prefer giving you my address ; thus you can let me know, 
 if, by any chance, you have a few minutes to give me at your 
 fire-side. You might as well come to see me one of these 
 mornings while I am getting up, and share the breakfast of 
 
 ' Polichinelle. 
 
 ' P.S. Although rather rare, I look upon the books. I present 
 you with as more useful than valuable. They are the most 
 suitable for you which my little library affords, but the whole 
 is entirely at your service. 
 
 ' Good-bye ; I am chattering to you and forgetting that I 
 have stolen away from the guard-room for my dinner. I must 
 run back, and beg you will not spare the citizens Rouleau, 
 Roulette, and Daronne, for I have a little spite against them.' 
 
 Some days later Brune breakfasted with . Camille, 
 but he was depressed, uneasy, full of mournful presen- 
 timents. Desmoulins, on the contrary, by a reaction 
 not uncommon to such excitable natures, had regained 
 confidence, and on Lucile saying to Brune, as she poured 
 out his chocolate, ' You see he must perform his mis- 
 
' To-morrow we die' 291 
 
 sion,' ' Pooh ! ' Camille said, quoting Latin to please 
 the lover of Horace, ' let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die.' This was a frequent saying at this 
 critical time. 
 
 M. D , formerly a lecturer at the College which 
 
 Camille had attended, met him in the Rue Saint-Honore, 
 a few days before his arrest. ' What are you carrying 
 there, Camille ? ' he asked, pointing to a packet of 
 newspapers under Desmoulins' arm. ' Some numbers 
 of my " Vieux Cordelier ; " will you have some ? ' 'No, 
 no ; they burn.' ' Coward ! ' returned Desmoulins. 
 ' Have you forgotten .that passage of Scripture, 
 " Edamus et bibamus, eras enim moriemur " ? ' 
 
 ' We die ! ' Poor Desmoulins little thought how 
 truly he spoke. The rupture between Robespierre and 
 himself was complete, as we have seen by Lucile's 
 letter to Freron. It is said that the rupture had its 
 rise in Camille's having imprudently lent ' L'Aretin,' 
 illustrated with obscene pictures, to Elisabeth Duplay, 
 the youngest daughter of Robespierre's landlord., Maxi- 
 milien's anger was great against Camille, ' this cor- 
 rupter of youth.' This anecdote is, however, im- 
 possible to verify. Perhaps Robespierre was secretly 
 vexed with Camille, because when he asked for the 
 hand of Mademoiselle Adele Duplessis, Lucile's sister, 
 he had been very gently refused. I imagine the 
 father, M. Duplessis, did not wish to give his second 
 daughter to a political man. Hence his refusal, no 
 doubt. It is probable that Camille pleaded his friend's 
 cause. However that may be, Robespierre's heart 
 reverted to the daughter of the joiner Duplay, whom 
 indeed it is known he loved with a profound, austere 
 affection. 
 
 The time was at hand when the rupture between 
 
 u 2 
 
292 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Camille and Maximilien was to be made public. On 
 the 7th of January, at the Jacobins Club, two days after 
 the appearance of the fifth number of the ' Vieux Corde- 
 lier,' the question was under discussion as to whether 
 Fabre d'Eglantine, Bourdon (de l'Oise), and Camille 
 Desmoulins should be expelled from the society. Three 
 times their names were called, and no one replied. 
 ' Very well,' said Robespierre, ' cite them, before the 
 tribunal of public opinion ; let it judge.' At that 
 moment Camille presented himself. He was required 
 to render an account of his connection with Philippeaux. 
 ' Camille replied that the Club was deceived, and that 
 the accusations brought against him were false. But 
 this was not the real gist of the debate. The 
 Jacobins wanted to blast the 'Vieux Cordelier.' If 
 Camille had come out vanquished, if 'purifying' had 
 been decreed, all would be over ; the guillotine would 
 be near at hand. At that time the way to the 
 scaffold was made up of several stations ; 'purification ' 
 was the first. Camille had not spoken upon the 
 chief accusation ere Robespierre demanded leave to 
 speak. 
 
 'While energetically blaming the "Vieux Corde- 
 lier," ' says Charlotte Robespierre, in her ' Memoires,' 
 ' Maximilien tried to justify their author. In spite of 
 his immense popularity and his extraordinary influence, 
 his words were received with murmurs. Then he 
 saw that, in endeavouring to save Camille, he would 
 destroy himself. Camille did not give him credit for 
 the efforts he made.' 
 
 The truth is that Robespierre, wishing to turn 
 aside the wrath of the Jacobins, thought it necessary 
 to sacrifice the work in order to save the author. 
 ' Camille,' he said, with a certain irony, and in a dry 
 
Camille and Robespierre. 293 
 
 tone which must have deeply irritated the impres- 
 sionable Desmoulins, ' Camille is a spoilt child ; he had 
 a good disposition ; bad company has led him astray. 
 Saint- Just afterwards made use of these words in his 
 murderous report, for which Robespierre furnished 
 him with materials. 
 
 ' Finally,' said Robespierre, in conclusion, ' we must 
 deal rigorously with these numbers, which even Brissot 
 would not have dared to acknowledge, but we must 
 keep Desmoulins among us. I demand, for example's 
 sake, that these numbers be burnt before this society.' 
 
 Burnt ! burnt by the Jacobins, as the ' France 
 libre ' had been by order of the Toulouse Parliament ! 
 Truly, it was too much for Camille, who did not 
 in the least understand Robespierre's aim. He drew 
 himself up, looked Maximilien in his face, and said, in 
 a clear voice, which contrasted with his usual stammer- 
 ing, ' Well said, Robespierre ; but I will answer with 
 Rousseau : Burning is not answering ! ' 
 
 Robespierre was surprised at so sudden a retort. 
 He did not expect it. He thought Desmoulins would 
 understand the meaning of his tactics. ' His friend's ' 
 exclamation irritated him in his turn, and he changed 
 his tone. ' Learn, Camille,' he said, ' that if you were 
 not Camille, you would not be treated with so much 
 indulgence ! The way in which you attempt to justify 
 yourself proves to me that your intentions were bad.' 
 ' My intentions ! ' replied Camille ; ' but you knew my 
 intentions ! Was I not at your house ? Did I not 
 read you my numbers ? ' 'I only read one or two ; I 
 refused to hear the others ! ' 
 
 In this way the duel of words went on, impetuous, 
 hasty, retort succeeding retort, like rapid passes be- 
 tween fencers with uncapped foils ; whilst the public, the 
 
294 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 witnesses, the excited crowd of the Cordeliers, eagerly- 
 watched both, with evident partiality for Robespierre 
 the incorruptible, who had been Camille's defender a 
 moment before, but was now his accuser. In vain did 
 Danton intervene, trying to persuade Camille that 
 ' he should not take fright at the rather severe lesson 
 Robespierre in his friendship had just given him.' 
 To appease him was impossible. The strife con- 
 tinued. ' Well then,' exclaimed Robespierre, ' let 
 them not be burnt ; let them be answered for.' And, 
 amid the murmurs of the audience, a secretary read 
 aloud the fourth number of the 'Vieux Cordelier.' 
 Camille and Danton must -even then have felt they 
 were lost. On January 8 (19th Niv6se) the Jacobins 
 again returned to the 'Vieux Cordelier.' The third 
 number, that terrible document in which the word 
 suspect resounds like the mournful refrain of a song, 
 was read by Momoro, who, in June 1789, had been 
 afraid to print ' La France libre,' and who now ac- 
 cused Desmoulins of moderantism. The reading 
 was received with gloomy silence. Then Robes- 
 pierre again spoke ; to his mind Desmoulins was ' a 
 whimsical mixture of truth and falsehood, of political 
 talent and chimerae.' Besides this, ' whether the Jaco- 
 bins expelled or detained Desmoulins mattered little ; 
 he was but an individual! The affairs of the public 
 only had real importance. Its interests were just 
 then menaced by two classes, the a'/ns-revolutionists 
 and the ^//^-revolutionists ; and these two factions 
 ' understand each other like brigands in a wood.' 
 ' And,' added Robespierre, ' Camille and Hebert are 
 equally wrong in my eyes.' 1 
 
 1 See in Courtois' book the sketch of a speech in which Robespierre 
 attacks both factions at once:— 'One preaches severity and the other 
 
Camille and Robespierre. 295 
 
 Thus, after the month of January, Maximilien's 
 project is quite plain ; it was necessary for him to 
 rid himself both of modire's and exagirds, of indulgents 
 and enragds. The see-saw condition of his mind had 
 come to an end. It only remained for him to strike. 
 
 Somehow this long discussion seemed to have 
 turned to Desmoulins' advantage. He was not expelled 
 from the club of the Jacobins, and the title of Cordelier 
 was restored to him. He might think • himself safe — 
 he was lost ! 
 
 At the end of this volume will be found the testimony 
 of Robespierre's sister, in which she tries to make out 
 that Maximilien really wished to save Camille. Au- 
 thentic evidence proves that Robespierre drew up, 
 for Saint-Just, an accusation of Desmoulins. The 
 rough draft of a report, which was published by M. 
 France in 1841 from the autographs, does not admit 
 of a doubt that Robespierre inspired the Chevalier 
 porte-glaive. What a strange destiny was Camille's, 
 to, be treated as vain, foolish, and versatile by him 
 whom he had called in days gone by his dear Robes- 
 pierre ! 1 Camille, as we have seen, was variable 
 in his opinions about" men. He had, for the most 
 
 clemency; one counsels weakness and the other folly. . . . The two 
 factions meet and blend with each other! Robespierre in this document 
 calls Desmoulins' libels the gospel of the aristocrats, and treats Wester- 
 mann as a ridiculous braggart. 
 
 1 Robespierre's relations with his former fellow-scholar at Louis-le- 
 Grand were odd enough. The two college friends lost sight of each other 
 for a short time. Robespierre wrote to Desmoulins on June 7, 1790, to 
 protest against an anecdote related by Camille. Robespierre did not 
 say, on the little Dauphin applauding the Mirabeau decree on May 22, 
 ' Oh ! let the brat clap his hands ! ' In this letter Robespierre, stiffly 
 enough, calls Camille Sir : — 
 
 ' Sir, — I have read in your last article,' &c. 
 
 ' You are quite in the right,' replied Camille, ' but you might at least 
 salute an old comrade with a nod, I do not love you the less for 
 
296 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 part, two judgments touching the same personage. 
 One man alone had fascinated and conquered him, 
 once and for ever; he whom he called, after 1791, 
 the stoutest athlete among patriots, the sole tribune 
 of the people who could have obtained a hearing in the 
 Champ de. Mars — Danton; and Danton's influence 
 urged him on to pity and to pardon. Therefore 
 Camille broke finally with Maximilien. 
 
 The seventh number, which was destined to be a 
 posthumous one, is full of direct, fiery, daring, and 
 desperate attacks upon Robespierre ; upon Vadier, 
 who, on the 16th of July, 17.91, said, in the tribune 
 
 being faithful to your principles, even though you are not faithful to 
 friendship.' 
 
 Later, Camille said concerning Maximilien : 
 
 ' One cannot speak of Robespierre without thinking of Pdtion.' 
 
 ' Deux gens de bien a Versailles vivoient ;' 
 
 as was said in the time of Turgot and Malesherbes. 
 
 In this same year (1790), in reference to Robespierre's speech in reply 
 to Cazales against military chiefs, martial law, &c; and after having 
 repeated these words of Robespierre's, that orator of the people, ' Do not 
 let us place the fate of the Republic in the hands of military chiefs ; do 
 not let us give way to the murmurs of those who prefer a peaceful slavery 
 to a liberty bought by sacrifice, and who show us incessantly the flames 
 of a few burning castles,' Camille expresses himself thus : ' Oh, my dear 
 Robespierre! it is not long since we were sighing together over our 
 country's servitude, since, drawing from the same sources the sacred love 
 of liberty and equality, amid so many professors whose lessons only taught 
 us to detest our land, we were complaining there was no professor of 
 cabals who would teach us to free it ; while we were regretting the 
 rostrum of Rome and Athens, how far was I from thinking that the day 
 of a constitution a thousand-fold more noble was so soon to dawn 
 upon us, and that you, in the rostrum of the French people, would be one 
 of the firmest ramparts of this budding liberty ! ' Finally, in his sixty-fifth 
 number of the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' Camille says again: 
 ' Robespierre, not Robertspierre, as some journalists affect to call him, 
 apparently thinking this name more noble and softer, and who are igno- 
 rant that this deputy, no matter how he called himself, would always bear 
 the most glorious name in France.' 
 
Ruin of the Dantonists. 297 
 
 of the NationalAssembly : ' I adore the monarchy and 
 abhor the republican government ! ' upon David, ' who 
 has dishonoured his art by forgetting that, in painting 
 as in eloquence, the fount of genius is the heart ; ' upon 
 Heron, La Vicomterie, &c. It is the song of the 
 swan ; a song of glowing indignation and of generous 
 hate. But this song was not to reach the world until 
 after the death of the singer. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Dantonists and Hebertists were irrevocably 
 condemned. 
 
 Hubert's friends tried to excite the Parisians to re- 
 volt in the spring of '94, but unsuccessfully. Carrier, 
 who had returned from Nantes, spoke in the rostrum 
 of the Cordeliers of ' a holy insurrection! They made 
 the attempt. Vincent carried a resolution that the 
 picture of the ' Rights of Man ' should be veiled with 
 black crape until the moderates were annihilated. 
 Hebert threatened, stormed, and the grande colere du 
 Pere Duchesne waxed terrible. Vain threats. Saint- 
 Just ascended the rostrum of the Convention, and 
 denounced the Hebertists, whom he accused of being 
 partisans of the enemy; and on the 24th of March 
 Hebert, Momoro, Clootz, and Chaumette were exe- 
 cuted. 
 
 The Ultras were no longer to be feared, it was the 
 turn of the Citras to tremble. The Committees had 
 broken up the revolutionary army; renovated and 
 disciplined the Commune ; regenerated — that is to say, 
 weeded out, the Cordeliers. They now turned their 
 whole strength against the Dantonists. To strike 
 
298 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 down Danton, to seize upon Camille, unpopular though 
 they were in the eyes of the Club, would be no easy 
 task. How many members might not still start up to 
 defend them ! And what audacity would it not re- 
 quire to accuse Desmoulins of royalism and Danton of 
 treason ! 
 
 The Committees manoeuvred skilfully. First they 
 put aside Herault de Sechelles, the only friend of 
 Danton who sat on the Committee of Public Safety. 
 Herault, tired out and disheartened, allowed this to 
 be done. He was charged with having taken home 
 with him the papers of the Diplomatic Committee ; of 
 having carried on a correspondence with Proly, Pereyra 
 and Dubuisson, which was false ; and of having given 
 shelter to an kmigre'e, which was true. On the 26th 
 VentSse he was arrested, and the Convention con- 
 firmed the arrest, the next day, on the report of 
 Saint-Just. This Saint-Just, the exterminating angel, 
 the knight sword-bearer, had returned from the army . 
 of the North, to perform the office of accuser with 
 unrelenting severity. He spoke in his weak but 
 resolute voice, with a sinister conciseness. Of 
 Herault, and later on of the other Dantonists, he 
 seemed, according to the report of an eye-witness, to 
 say, by voice and gesture, ' You are only asked for a 
 little impure blood.' 
 
 Herault's arrest was a direct threat to Danton. 
 His friends warned him. They knew that Billaud- 
 Varennes and Saint-Just were ready to ask for the 
 heads of all the moderate party . Danton shrugged his 
 shoulders. ' Nothing can be done,' he said. ' Resist ? 
 shed blood? Enough blood has been shed ; I would 
 rather shed my own. / prefer being guillotined to 
 guillotining' And when they spoke to him of flight, 
 
' They would not dare ! ' 299 
 
 the grand soul of the patriot breathed forth his ardent 
 love for France in words which will echo through the 
 ages : ' We cannot carry our country on the soles of 
 our shoes ? ' He repeated too, as did Camille, the 
 dignified saying of the Duke of Guise : ' They would 
 not dare ! ' (His answer was more coarsely worded.) 
 
 They did dare, however. A month previously 
 Billaud-Varennes had denounced Danton to the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety, 1 but Robespierre had risen 
 in a fury, saying, ' You want to destroy the greatest 
 of the patriots.' At the close of the night-sitting, 
 which decided the arrest of Danton and his friends, 
 Robert Lindet and the aged Riihl — who moreover 
 had not signed the decree for the arrest — warned 
 him, through Panis. ' Danton,' said Doctor Robinet 
 (' Comment se tuent les Republiques,' articles on ' La 
 Politique positive '), ' Danton had not gone out of 
 his house. Sitting at the fireside in his study, leaning 
 over the hearth lost in thought, from time to time he 
 roused himself from his immobility to poke the fire 
 violently ; then he would heave deep sighs and utter 
 broken sentences. At other times he rose abruptly, 
 and walked with long strides through the room ; then 
 throwing his arms round his nephew, from whom we 
 have this account, he embraced him with emotion.' 
 Panis' visit, although he was agitated and troubled, 
 and besought Danton to fly, did not move Danton. 
 Yet the danger was urgent. Billaud-Varennes, who, 
 according to Tissot, afterwards repented of having said 
 it, had already coolly declared, with bitter resolution, 
 ' Danton has conspired ; he must die ! ' Robespierre 
 and Saint-Just agreed with him. Maximilien made the 
 
 1 See the speech of Billaud, of the 9th Thermidor. 
 
300 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 rough draft of the act of accusation, and gave it to Saint- 
 Just, who put it into shape with the dexerity of hate, 
 and the terrible implacability of conviction. Then, 
 pale, overwhelmed, and careworn, Robespierre with- 
 drew, in the March morning, to his little room in 
 Duplay's house, where he remained shut up while 
 Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Lacroix, and Philip- 
 peaux were arrested. 1 
 
 There are dark hours in a lifetime when mis- 
 fortunes come all at once. While Camille's arrest was 
 being deliberated upon at the Tuileries, the unhappy 
 man received the following letter from his father — poor 
 Madame Desmoulins was no more ! — 
 
 ' My dear Son, — I have lost the half of myself. Your 
 mother is no more. I have always hoped for her recovery, 
 which has prevented me from telling you of her illness. She 
 died to-day, at noon. She is worthy of all our regrets ; she 
 loved you tenderly. I embrace your wife, my dear daughter- 
 in-law, very affectionately and sorrowfully, and little Horace. 
 I will write more to-morrow. I am always your best friend, 
 
 ' Desmoulins.' 
 
 Camille's grief was profound ; his eyes were still 
 red with tears when the patrol, charged with the duty 
 of arresting him and Danton, took possession of the 
 approaches to the Cour dti Commerce. The first words 
 that Camille uttered when he heard the dull sound 
 of the butt-ends of the muskets on the pavement were : 
 ' They have come to arrest me.' Lucile listened to him, 
 and looked at him bewildered. She felt as if she 
 
 1 The official Report of the arrests is signed by Billaud de Varenties, 
 Lebas, Barere, Carnot, Prieur, Louis (du Bas-Rhin), Vadier, Collot 
 d'Herbois, Vouland, Jagot, Dubarru, Saint-Just, Amar, La Vicomterie, 
 M. Bayle, Elie. Lacoste, Robespierre, and Couthon. 
 
Camille is arrested. 301 
 
 should go mad. Camille was calmer than might have 
 been expected. He dressed himself, embraced his 
 child, took from his library Young's ' Night Thoughts 1 
 and Hervey's ' Meditations among the Tombs,' and 
 then pressing to his heart his weeping wife, whom he 
 adored, their lips met for the last time in an agonising 
 kiss made bitter by burning tears. 
 
 Lucile, maddened, distracted, clung to him ; nothing 
 but a swoon could have separated her from her 
 Camille. Desmoulins and his friends were carried off 
 to the prison of the Luxembourg. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins seemed to have lost all hope 
 when he entered the Luxembourg. It has been said 
 that he felt himself condemned beforehand. His 
 letters, his admirable letters, the most touching and 
 sorrowful that love could -dictate to a human hand, 
 are full of dreadful presentiments and sad reminis- 
 cences. He sees from his prison 'window the garden 
 of the Luxembourg, where he had passed ' eight years 
 with Lucile.' ' A glimpse of the Luxembourg brings 
 back to me a crowd of remembrances of our love.' 
 How long ago that seems ! And he dreams of his 
 wife, of his child, of Madame Duplessis. He is near 
 them ' in thought, in imagination, almost by touch.' 
 ' Alas ! no, Lucile is far away, little Horace has been 
 torn away from him.' ' I throw myself on my knees, 
 I stretch out my arms to embrace thee ; I shall never 
 find my poor Loulou again. ..." and a tear, dropped 
 on the paper, cuts short this mournful sentence. 
 
 He tried, however, to encourage his friends. Why 
 need he fear ? ' My eight republican books will 
 prove my justification. They are a pillow upon which 
 my conscience can rest while awaiting the sentence 
 of the tribunal and of posterity.' Posterity ! Camille 
 
302 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 was right ; posterity has not failed to absolve him, for- 
 getting his sarcasms, remembering only his tears. 
 
 Camille was soon attacked by fever. He wrote 
 to Robespierre. He could neither sleep nor eat He 
 had appetite for nothing except the soup that Lucile 
 sent to him. ' Send me,' said he, ' a lock of your 
 hair and your portrait.' When he slept for an instant, 
 how rejoiced he was, for he dreamed of her ! ' One 
 is free in sleep. Heaven has had pity on me. For 
 a moment I saw you in my dream ; I embraced 
 alternately you, Horace, and Daronne' (his mother- 
 in-law) * who was with you ; but our little one had 
 lost an eye by a disease which had attacked it, and 
 "the sorrow of this accident awoke me. I found my- 
 self in my prison. Day was breaking. ... I burst 
 into tears, or rather I sobbed, crying out in my tomb : 
 " Lucile ! Lucile ! " Oh, my dear Lucile, where are 
 you ? ' 
 
 This was the incessant cry of the unhappy man, 
 to whom love and sorrow dictated these heart- 
 rending words, which thrill one like a Shakespearian 
 drama. 
 
 ' Yesterday,' writes Camille, ' when the citizen who brought 
 you my letter came back, " Well, you have seen her ? " I said 
 to him, as I used to say to the Abbe" Landreville ' (the confi- 
 dant in Lucile's and Camille's love affairs), ' and I caught 
 myself looking at him as if something of you lingered about 
 him or his clothes.' 
 
 ' I have discovered a chink in the wall of my room,' he 
 continues, ' to which I put my ear, and I heard the voice of 
 one who was ill and suffering. He asked me my name, and 
 I told him. " My God ! " he cried on hearing this name, 
 falling back upon his bed from which he had risen, and I 
 heard distinctly Fabre d'Eglantine's voice. "Yes, I am 
 Fabre," he answered me ; " but you here ! has the counter- 
 
Camillas Letters to Lucile. 303 
 
 revolution come then ? " We dared not speak to each other, 
 however, lest hatred should envy us this poor consolation, 
 and if it became known, we should be separated and more 
 closely imprisoned, for he has a fireplace in his room, and mine 
 would be a handsome room if a dungeon could be so. 
 
 ' I see the fate that awaits me,' writes Camille, after the first 
 examination. ' Good-bye, my Lolotte, my dear Loup ; say 
 farewell to my father. You see in my fate an example of the 
 barbarity and ingratitude of men. My last moments will not 
 dishonour you. You see my fears were well founded, and my 
 presentiments true. I married a wife heavenly in her virtues ; 
 I have been a good husband, a good son, I should have been a 
 good father. I carry with me the esteem and regrets of all true 
 Republicans, of all men of virtue and who love liberty. I die at 
 the age of thirty-four years, but it is marvellous that I have 
 walked for five years along the precipices of the Revolution 
 without falling over them, and that I am still living ; and I rest 
 my head calmly upon the pillow of my writings, which, too 
 numerous as they may be, all breathe the same philanthropy, 
 the same desire to make my fellow-citizens happy and free. 
 The axe cannot touch them. 
 
 ' I see that power intoxicates the greater part of mankind, 
 and all say, like Dionysius of Syracuse, " Tyranny is a fine 
 epitaph." But be comforted, disconsolate widow ! the epitaph 
 of your poor Camille is still more glorious ; it is that of Brutus 
 and Cato, the tyrannicides. Oh, my dear Lucile ! I was born 
 to write poetry, to defend the unfortunate, to make you 
 happy; to form a little Otaheite of our own, with yOu and 
 your mother, my father, and some of our friends, who are 
 after our own hearts. I have dreamed of a Republic such as 
 all the world would have adored. I could never have believed 
 that men could be so ferocious and so unjust. How could 
 anyone think that a few jests in my writings against the 
 colleagues who provoked me would have effaced the memories 
 of my services ! I do not deceive myself in believing that I 
 die a victim to these jests and to my friendship for Danton. I 
 thank my assassins that they kill me with him and Philipp- 
 eaux ; and since my colleagues have been cowardly enough 
 to abandon us, and have lent an ear to calumnies that I do 
 
304 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 not know, but I dare affirm are of the grossest nature, I say 
 that we die victims to our courage in denouncing traitors, and 
 to our love of truth. 
 
 ' We carry with us this knowledge, that in us die the last of 
 the Republicans. Pardon me, my dear one, my true life, that 
 I lost when we were separated, for occupying myself with 
 memory. I had far better busy myself in making thee forget. 
 My Lucile, my dear Louploup, my darling, I conjure you, do 
 not call upon me ; your cries will rend my heart even at the 
 bottom of my grave. Care for your little one ; live for my 
 Horace ; speak to him of me. Tell him, hereafter, what he 
 cannot as yet understand, that I should have loved him well. 
 Notwithstanding my punishment, I believe that there is a 
 God. My blood will wash out my faults, my human weak- 
 nesses ; and for the good I have done, for my virtues, my love 
 of liberty, God will reward me. I shall see you again one day. 
 O Lucile ! Annette ! Feeling as I do, is death so great a 
 misfortune, since it delivers me from the sight of so many 
 crimes ? Good-bye, Loulou, my life, my soul, my divinity 
 on earth ! I leave thee to good friends — all the sensible and 
 virtuous men who remain. Good-bye, Lucile ! my Lucile ! my 
 dear Lucile ! Good-bye, Horace, Annette, Adele ! Adieu, my 
 father ! The shores of life recede from me ! I see you still, 
 my Lucile, my beloved! I see her, my Lucile! my bound 
 hands embrace you, and my head as it falls rests its dying 
 eyes upon you ! ' 
 
 Was no voice raised in favour of Camille ? Did 
 no help come ? Were his old friends dumb, his rela- 
 tives inacjtive ? No. Legendre raised his voice in the 
 Convention in favour of Danton and his friends. He 
 demanded that the arrested deputies should be brought 
 to the bar of the Convention. ' They ought to be 
 accused or acquitted by you,' he said. But it was not 
 to the bar of the Convention, but to the benches of 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal, that Robespierre, Saint- 
 Just, Billaud and Couthon resolved to drag the ' indul- 
 gents\ Legendre's speech was drowned by murmurs. 
 
Saint- J mi's Speech. 305 
 
 Legendre had had the courage to say, ' I believe 
 Danton to be as innocent as I am.' He was obliged 
 to retract these words, and to make an apology during 
 the same sitting. Legendre's courage did not last 
 long.. ' Legendre,' said Robespierre, ' has spoken of 
 Danton because he thinks a privilege attaches to this 
 name. No ; we will have no more privileges ; and 
 no more idols ! ' No more idols ! The words were 
 noisily applauded. Legendre trembled when he heard 
 Robespierre add, ' I say that he who trembles at this 
 moment is guilty.' He turned pale and stammered ; a 
 little later, and he will call his friends ' the guilty ones.' 
 And then Saint-Just rose to speak : it seemed as 
 if an angel of death had appeared upon the rostrum 
 and was uttering words of doom. His first words 
 were terrible, and he went straight to the point : ' The 
 Republic is the people and not the renown of a few 
 men ! ' He spoke with fierce pride of the sacred love 
 of country which sacrifices everything, hurls down 
 Manlius, drags Regulus to Carthage, sees Curtius 
 precipitate himself into the gulf, unmoved, and of that 
 doctrine which subjugates morality and right to a sinis- 
 ter theory. He denounced, in succession, Herault, 
 whom he called a conspirator ; Danton, whom he 
 charged with cowardice ; Camille, whom he accused of 
 shameful vices ; and Fabre d' Eglantine, whom he skil- 
 fully represented as the head of the faction. Why ? 
 Because Fabre had been accused of forgery; and it 
 was necessary to stigmatise these men, whom they 
 were not contented with putting to death, but must 
 also dishonour. Saint- Just addressed his arrested col- 
 leagues, as if they had been present. ' False friend,' 
 he said of Danton, ' only two days ago you spoke 
 against Desmoulins, your tool, whom you had ruined ! ' 
 
 x 
 
306 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 He said of Camille that he was first ' a dupe and 
 afterwards an accomplice.' Then that he 'passed 
 Camille by with contempt,' he was ' wanting in character.' 
 He knew quite well that he was not striking at Camille, 
 but at Danton. ' Poor Camille ! ' says Michelet with 
 deep emotion, ' what was he ? A charming flower 
 which grew upon Danton ; one could not be touched 
 without the others being uprooted.' 
 
 I know nothing to compare with this speech of 
 Saint-Just. It is like a murderous weapon of finely 
 tempered steel. All of which he accused the Dan- 
 tonists, of conspiring with Dumouriez, of complicity 
 with Orleans, of royalism and corruption, was false, 
 but it was put forward with such cleverness and such 
 unmoved conviction ! This man believed he was 
 doing a duty. ' Fatal blindness ! ' cries M. Ernest 
 Hamel, an historian who is friendly to Robespierre and 
 Saint-Just. ' The error of a generous and stoical mind, 
 which saw crimes where there was doubtless much 
 frivolity and perhaps a little corruption.' l With all 
 due respect for M. Hamel, can we accept this peculiar 
 stoicism which immolates men because, looking at it 
 from Saint- Just's point of view, we consider them 
 frivolous, and ' perhaps ' a little corrupt ? 
 
 It was in the name of I do not know what super- 
 human virtue, unattained by mortals who possess that 
 weakness — a heart, that Saint-Just demanded the 
 death of the Dantonists at the hands of the Convention. 
 The Convention received Saint-Just's speech with 
 unanimous and repeated applause. The members 
 trembled before him, and Couthon, praising their 
 docility, cried, 'The Convention moves, like armies, 
 at quick march.' 
 
 1 E. Hamel, < Histoire de Saint-Just,' vol. ii. p. 164. 
 
Ladle's vain efforts. 307 
 
 Less than four months afterwards it was against 
 Couthon and his friends that the word ' quick march ' 
 was given. Lucile traversed Paris, trying to reach 
 Robespierre's ear, that she might move him to pity. 
 She tried to induce Madame Danton to go with her to 
 Duplay's house. Robespierre was invisible. She then 
 wrote. Her letter is that of a madwoman, but it is 
 touching. M. Ed. Fleury has given it in full : — ' Camille 
 saw the growth of your pride. . . . But he recoiled from 
 the idea of accusing his college friend, the companion 
 of his labours. That hand which has often pressed 
 yours, forsook the pen before its time, because it could 
 no longer hold it to trace your praises. And you have 
 sent him to death ! You have then understood his 
 silence!' She wandered round the Luxembourg try- 
 ing to see Camille, and to speak with him from afar 
 by signs. She endeavoured to save him, and by the 
 attempt lost her own life — a touching image of woman- 
 hood is this heroine of conjugal love, who determined 
 to follow her husband even to death ! 
 
 The charges, or rather the pretended charges, 
 against the accused, were ready. 'We must divide 
 the work between us,' Herman wrote to Fouquier ; 
 ' it belongs of right to the public prosecutor.' The 
 most petty informations, the most unworthy reports, 
 the meanest accusations, were heaped together with 
 > perfidious skill. They took into account against 
 General Westermann the letter of a Parisian soldier 
 fighting in La Vendee, the son of Paton the tailor, who 
 accused his chief of having led the soldiers badly. 
 This letter, dated from Sables, August 27, 1793, with 
 its astonishing orthography, witnesses against Wester- 
 mann, accusing him of being a Royalist. ' If 
 General Westermann had been a brave man, we should 
 
 X3 
 
308 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 not have lost so many citizens at Chatillon.' And it 
 was actually at the battle of Chatillon that Wester- 
 mann, in order to encourage his soldiers, cried out to 
 them, pointing to his breast, ' Comrades, kill me, or 
 follow me to battle ! ' This Paton forgot. He hated 
 his commander. And, further on, Paton says : ' I am 
 very tired of fighting in La Vendee. The generals 
 would like the war to lasf for ever.' What was 
 Westermann's crime ? He had repressed the excesses 
 with which his troops revenged those of the Ven- 
 deans with inflexible severity. He declared that those 
 who pillaged were savages. ' We burned everything 
 as we passed,' says the letter before quoted, ' and we 
 took the cattle and the corn, because the law ordered 
 us ; and then we were told that we were brigands, 
 pillagers, and incendiaries.' And such a deposition as 
 this, the ridiculous complaint of a cowardly discon- 
 tented soldier, tired of fighting, is affixed to the charges 
 against the General of La Vendee, accepted and 
 signed by the public prosecutor ! 
 
 Anonymous reports arose against the brothers 
 Frey, ' who were born Jews under the name of 
 Tropuscka ; they are Moravians, and ennobled under 
 the name of Schonfeld.' 
 
 ' There are two brothers here, and eight in the service of 
 Austria. The citizen, their sister, was baptised three years 
 ago. There are also two sisters in Vienna, of whom one only 
 has been baptised, and is kept by a German baron. The 
 eldest Frey, who* is in Paris, is married ; his wife is in Vienna 
 with her two daughters and a son of sixteen, who has been 
 placed in the revolutionary army, where he passed for Frey's 
 nephew. They are not known to have any money, but are 
 in debt in Germany, &c.' These facts are certified to by 
 Frederich Dietrichsten, a prisoner in La Force, before G. 
 
Contemptible Charges. 309 
 
 Haussman, who signs the paper, and by C. Wartz, a physician 
 living in the Rue Saint-Andrd-des-Arts, at Mail's house, a 
 vinegar-maker. 1 
 
 In another report about the Freys, it was pretended that 
 they had been sent as spies to France by Joseph II., the 
 emperor ' being aware that the children of Israel surpass all 
 other nations at this kind of work.' 'They are called the 
 " gentlemen." They made their appearance, it is said, at 
 Strasbourg. They kept open house and crept into the popu- 
 lar societies. The elder Frey insinuated himself into the 
 Orleans Club of the Palais Royal. In one word, these so- 
 called Freys are egotists, immoral persons, full of tricks and 
 intrigues, who, under the mask of patriotism, gratify their 
 passions by serving the enemies of the Republic who pay 
 them.' 
 
 The ex-capuchin Chabot had married a sister of 
 these Freys, and this was an unpardonable crime in 
 the eyes of certain suspicious patriots. 
 
 The following documents received by Fouquier- 
 Tinville reveal an odious and deplorable inquisitorial 
 system : — 
 
 1 Citizen Public Prosecutor, 
 
 ' In compliance with the decision of the National 
 Society of the Electoral Club, I send you in its name the 
 enclosed papers, and beg you to send back the rough draft 
 of the petition when you have made use of it, if you should 
 think fit to do so. 
 
 ' Health and fraternity. 
 
 'Huet, Secretary, 
 
 M?aris : this octidi Germinal : second year of the 
 
 French Republic, one and indivisible.' 
 
 And the resolution is added to this letter of Secre- 
 tary Huet :— 
 
 1 National Archives, C. W., 342. No. 648. 
 
310 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 ' On the twenty-fourth day of the second month of the 
 second year of the Republic, the Electoral Club, seeing :— 
 
 ' ist. That no compact can ever be made between the good 
 and the bad, between free men and slaves, between the 
 defenders of tyranny and the conquerors of liberty, between 
 the regenerators of France and savages : — 
 
 ' 2nd. That the tyrants themselves, under whom the nation 
 has grovelled during so many centuries, only reached the 
 height of their crimes and the maximum of the execration of 
 the people when they married foreign wives : — 
 
 • 3rd. That among all the -women who shared their crimes, 
 the Austrian women carried off the palm of evil, even from 
 the Medicis : — 
 
 '4th. That every man who wears foreign stuffs is a 
 counter-revolutionist ; who, despising public opinion, dares to 
 appear in the livery of our enemies, reducing our beloved 
 artisans to poverty : — 
 
 ' 5 th. That at a time when the regeneration of morals has 
 stigmatised celibacy among men, at a time when the immola- 
 tion of so many patriots has left to the care of their brethren, 
 .for whose liberty they died, so many virtuous wives and 
 daughters ; it is an immoral act, it is wasting the most 
 precious treasures, to despise the virtues, the tenderness, and 
 above all the misfortunes, of these Frenchwomen, whom the 
 interests of the public reduce to celibacy ; and that he who 
 seeks a foreigner, and above all an Austrian, is the enemy of 
 these Frenchwomen, an tmigrt in heart, and one who deserves 
 to be struck out of the list of Frenchmen, and off the roll of 
 free men: — 
 
 ' 6th. That he who thus despises public opinion, and takes 
 to himself a foreign wife, subjects beforehand his patriotism 
 to her charms, and cannot hope from such an impure stock 
 for any but a mongrel breed, unworthy to be enrolled 
 among the children of the country; and, finally, that he 
 degrades himself by thus adopting the manners of savages : — 
 
 '7th. That. as. public opinion has. pronounced that every 
 man charged with high functions and missions who takes a 
 rich wife is — ist, an avaricious man who aspires to riches, and 
 is unworthy to defend the cause of the unfortunate; 2nd, a 
 
Preposterous Doctrines. 311 
 
 man suspected of venality, and who marries that he may 
 hide under the pretence of a dowry the fruits of his treason ; 
 it is, therefore, a crime to play with the decrees of public 
 opinion, and to brave the execution of them. 
 
 ' 8th. That the crime is greater in those whose functions 
 are more eminent ; that venality destroys a great number of 
 indigent people ; and is also worse when the culprit is a re- 
 presentative. . . . 
 
 ' Compelled to make known to all true representatives the 
 voice of public opinion resounding (constantly ') from the 
 celebrated Montague, compelled to honour morality in the 
 face of the universe and to honour virtue (only 2 ), the society 
 declares that, in virtue of the eternal laws of reason which 
 precede and dictate their decrees, the deputy Chabot (having 
 allied himself with savages, and being united to the blood of 
 our enemies 2 ) has lost the esteem and confidence of patriots, 
 by having married a foreign woman who is rich and an 
 Austrian. 
 
 ' The present resolution shall be carried by two commis- 
 saries to the Convention, to the Jacobins, and also sent to 
 the sections, to the departments, to the commune, and to all 
 patriotic societies, and shall be posted up. 
 
 Then, under the presidency of Grandvallet, the 
 society ordered these minutes to be sent to the 
 public prosecutor, in the name of the Electoral Club. 
 
 It was not altogether unreasonable that a man 
 who ' united himself with a slave,' an Austrian, at the 
 moment when France was invaded, should inspire 
 horror. Public feeling, which acts by instinct, cannot 
 comprehend certain alliances at certain times. 
 
 There are terrible epochs when the blood of diffe- 
 rent races cannot mix except on the battle-field. But, 
 because a man is guilty of a weakness, is that a reason 
 for accusing him of infamy, as the National Society 
 
 1 Added. s Scratched out. 
 
3 1 2 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 of the Electoral Club accused Chabot, on septidi of 
 the third decade of Brumaire, in the second, year, 
 under the presidency of citizen Rose ? 1 Let us also 
 remark, in passing, the strange difference that existed 
 between the extreme opinions of 1794 and those of 
 1 87 1. In 1794 a horror of foreigners was prevalent. 
 Patriotism is firm, resolute, deeply rooted, invincible 
 
 1 Extract from the deliberations of the National Society of the Elec- 
 toral Club, at a sitting in the ex-bishopric : — 
 
 Presidency of Citizen Rose. 
 
 From the minutes of the sitting of septidi of the third decade of 
 Brumaire. What follows has been literally extracted : — 
 
 ' A member denounced the great immorality of Chabot, deputy to the 
 Convention, and the way in which he had profaned his character as a 
 deputy by giving bail, with Bazire and Thuriot, for a great criminal, and 
 in giving his vote for establishing in the Convention a " right side," which 
 was always opposed to the Montagne. 
 
 ' A report of what had passed on this subject was made to the Conven- 
 tion and to the Society of the Jacobins, from both of which societies these 
 three deputies have been expelled. 
 
 ' The society decides to present a petition to the Convention to pray 
 that it may be declared infamous for a free man, after the epoch of 1789, 
 to be married to, or marry, a foreigner, until other nations shall have 
 become as free as the French nation. 
 
 'And that every deputy who shall prefer his own interests to the 
 public good shall be declared unworthy to represent the nation. 
 
 ' (Signed) Eynaud, Acting Secretary. 
 ' A true copy : 
 
 ' Huet, Secretary.' 
 
 This Chabot, though little deserving of sympathy on the whole, took a 
 personal share in the acts of June 19, 1792 ; but he did jnore on the 9th 
 and 10th of August following. After having traversed the Faubourgs, he 
 appeared, accompanied by a sapper of the Marseillais, before the Com- 
 mittee, and said with deep agitation, ' The people do not appear to be 
 greatly excited ; if at nine o'clock the sections have not risen, this brave 
 man you see here ' (pointing to the sapper) ' shall cut off my head, my 
 bleeding body shall be dragged through the streets of Paris, and all the 
 friends of liberty will cry out, " Behold the work of the tyrant."'—' Memorial 
 or Historical Journal, Impartial and Anecdotical, of the French Revolu- 
 tion,' by P. C. Lecomte, 3 vols, year IX. (1801). 
 
Denunciations. 313 
 
 and profound in proportion as it is narrow. In 1871 
 cosmopolitanism, the idea of an international question, 
 invaded and enfeebled men's hearts. 
 
 An anonymous denouncer asserted ' that Lacroix 
 and Danton, while in Brussels, sent a carriage into 
 France packed with table linen, belonging to the Gover- 
 ness of the Low Countries, and which was worth a 
 considerable sum, about two or three hundred thousand 
 livres. This linen ' — so said this unsigned note — ' was 
 registered at the commune of Bethune, and hence it 
 was discovered that the two deputies had appropriated 
 the linen. This fact is well known to two represen- 
 tatives of the people, the citizens Le Bas and Du- 
 quesnoy.' So be it ; but was enquiry made of Le Bas 
 and Duquesnoy into the truth of this denunciation ? 
 No, certainly not ; neither Le Bas nor Duquesnoy, 
 the future victim of Prairial, in the third year, can 
 be cited as witnesses. Lacroix demanded that Pache, 
 mayor of Paris, Legendre, Callou, Jagot, Robert Lin- 
 det, Gossuin, Merlin (of Douai), Guitton-Morvaux, 
 Rose, 'who kept the tavern of la Grange-Bateliere,' 
 should be heard in his favour. This just request was 
 not granted. Never was a trial more infamously con- 
 ducted. 
 
 Among the papers more particularly relating to 
 Camille Desmoulins is the following list of witnesses 
 to be subpoenaed, in the handwriting of Fouquier- 
 Tinville : 
 
 PaniS, 
 
 Bouchier Saint-SaUveur, 
 
 Robespierre (scratched out). 
 
 Robespierre (scratched out again). 
 
 None of these witnesses were subpoenaed. As to 
 the accusation, brought against Danton and Lacroix, of 
 
3 f4 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 having stolen a carriage full of table linen ; they were 
 obliged to defend themselves before the tribunal, with- 
 out being allowed to bring forward witnesses in their 
 favour. ' I bought six hundred livres' worth of 
 table linen in Belgium ; it was a good bargain,' said 
 Lacroix. And said Danton : ' It will be seen from 
 the minutes that there was nothing of mine in this 
 carriage, which it is pretended was full of plate, except 
 my clothes.' 1 
 
 Fouquier and Herman endeavoured to collect 
 crushing testimony against the accused. There are 
 manifest proofs in documents, which may be called 
 bloodthirsty, of the animosity which they displayed 
 against Danton and his friends. Fouquier made a 
 long list of criminating documents which were to be 
 arranged and grouped in such a manner as to form, 
 as it were, a fasces of instruments of death. They 
 gathered together all that Danton had said, that 
 Desmoulins had written, that Herault had thought, in 
 the past. The list is long; the public prosecutor 
 demands : — 
 
 'The extract from the deliberations of the Electoral 
 
 Assembly of the department of Paris, in which Danton was 
 
 named administrator of the department. 
 
 ' What was said in the journals of the same date, 
 
 ' The letter of Laz-Cazas {sic) which reports in detail a 
 
 sitting of the Committee ; such details could not have been 
 
 given by anyone but Herault. 
 
 ' Documents to be sought for. 
 ' The journals of October and November 1792, in which 
 Danton's opinions may be found relative to — 
 ■' Marat, 
 ' Roland, 
 
 1 Notes (destroyed) of Topino-Lebrun, Archives of the Prefecture of 
 Police. 
 
Fouquier's Indictment. 315 
 
 ' The war with England. 
 
 * (In the margin, Les Revolutions de Paris) 
 
 ' Those journals in which are given the details -of the 
 sitting of the Committee of General Defence at which Danton 
 was present with Petion, Brissot, &c. 
 
 ' The journals which announce the retirement of Danton 
 to Arcis-sur-Aube at different times, and particularly after the 
 affair of the Champ de Mars. 
 
 ' The journals which mention the supper which took place 
 , at Talma's house, when Dumouriez went to Paris in the 
 January of 1793, and the appearance of Dumouriez at the 
 different theatres with Danton. 
 
 ' Look for (under the seals at Debenne's) 
 
 ' Details of May 3 1 and June 2, as to what HeVault, La- 
 croix, and Danton said relative to Henriot. 
 
 ' The numbers of the " Vieux Cordelier." 
 
 ' Philippeaux's letter to the Committee of Public Safety, 
 and his other pamphlets. 
 
 ' The portrait of Marat, by Fabre. 
 
 ' Camille Desmoulins' speech as counsel for Dillon. 
 
 ' Levasseur's pamphlet entitled " Philippeaux painted by 
 himself." 
 
 ' Philippeaux's catechism.' 
 
 It will be seen by this document how clever 
 Fouquier was in grouping together the most dissimilar 
 counts in an indictment, and in giving a culpable air to 
 actions and words in which the accused had taken no 
 part. To give but one instance — Herault de Sechelles 
 is made responsible for this letter of Las-Casas ; — he 
 was unquestionably ignorant of its existence. It is 
 interesting, as illustrative of the state of thought at 
 this time, and it will be found at the end of the 
 volume, among the supplementary documents. The 
 thorough bad faith of the judges, who regarded these 
 men brought before them for judgment as guilty in 
 advance, comes out, plainly, from a study of this 
 trial. 
 
3 1 6 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 It would have been useless to appeal to their 
 conscience, to sentiments of honour and justice, of 
 which" they were ignorant. Deaf to the voice of justice, 
 Fouquier, Herman, and their followers aimed at 
 nothing but the conviction of those whom the Com- 
 mittees looked upon as enemies. A voice of authority 
 and integrity was, however, to make itself audible to 
 Fouquier-Tinville. Camille Desmoulins' father, that 
 respected servant of the law — whom we have seen, jn* 
 his love of justice and meekness, conjuring his son to 
 moderate his revolutionary ardour — came forth from 
 his silence and retirement to petition those who were 
 seeking the life of his son. In his touching and noble 
 letter he does not demean himself to supplicate or to 
 flatter, but, on the contrary, he preserves the calm and 
 dignified attitude of a man who asks for justice, not 
 favour. Having to beseech Fouquier, he does not call 
 him ' his dear relation,' as Fouquier had called Camille. 
 A magistrate, he speaks to a magistrate, gravely, but 
 with a broken heart. This noble document has been 
 hidden until now among the papers of the tribunal, 
 but it will serve henceforth to complete the austere 
 and venerable picture of the father of Camille Des- 
 moulins : 
 
 ' To Citizen Fouquier de Thiwville, Public Prosecutor 
 
 1 R^union-sur-Oise, formerly Guise, 
 15th Germinal, 2nd year of the Republic. 
 
 • Citizen and fellow-countryman, — Camille Desmoulins 
 (my son), I speak from sincere conviction, is a true Repub- 
 lican,, a Republican in feeling, in principles, and, so to speak, 
 by instinct. He was Republican in heart and in choice 
 before July 14, 1789, and he has been so in reality and deed 
 ever since. His perfect disinterestedness and love of truth, 
 
A Letter from Camille's Father. 3 1 7 
 
 two distinguishing virtues of his, which I have instilled into 
 him from his cradle, and which he has invariably put in 
 practice, have kept him on a level with the loftiest aspirations 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 ' Is it likely, is it not even absurd to suppose that he has 
 changed his opinion, that he has renounced his character, his 
 love for liberty, for the sovereignty of the people, his favourite 
 and beloved design, at the moment when it has succeeded so 
 brilliantly, at the moment when he had opposed and de- 
 feated the cabal of the Brissots ; at the moment when he had 
 unmasked Hebert and his adherents, the authors of a deep 
 conspiracy ; at the moment when he believed the Revolution 
 accomplished, or about to be so, and his Republic established 
 by our victories and triumphs over our enemies without and 
 within ? 
 
 'Are not these improbabilities sufficient to remove from 
 my son even the shadow of suspicion ? And yet he lies 
 under the weight of an accusation as grave as I believe it to 
 be calumnious. 
 
 ' Confined to my study by my infirmities, I was the last, 
 owing to the care that was taken to hide it from me, to hear of 
 this event, which is calculated to alarm every true Republican. 
 
 ' Citizen, I ask of you but one thing, in the name of justice 
 and of our country — for the true Republican thinks of nought 
 besides — to investigate and to cause the examining jury 
 to investigate the conduct of my son, and that of his de- 
 nouncer, whomsoever he may be ; it will be . soon known 
 which is the true Republican. The confidence I have in my 
 son's innocence makes me believe that this accusation will 
 prove a fresh triumph, as well for the Republic as for him. 
 
 * ' Health and fraternity from your compatriot and fellow- 
 citizen Desmoulins, who until now has held himself honoured 
 in being the father of the foremost and most unflinching of 
 Republicans. 1 
 
 ' Desmoulins.' 
 
 1 Unpublished letter. 
 
 I quote as a cruel antithesis to this letter one addressed two years 
 before to Camille by the public prosecutor Fouquier, who, less dignified 
 than M. Desmoulins the father, lays a stress upon these words, ' My dear 
 relation.' Camille was, in fact, his distant cousin ;— 
 
3 1 8 Camille Desmotdins and his Wife. 
 
 Fouquier did not receive this letter, doubtless, 
 until it was too late, but it certainly did not disturb 
 the serenity of the purveyor of the iniquitous severities 
 of the law. Camille Desmoulins was already dead 
 when the letter of the father, asking for the life of his 
 son, arrived. Camille, who was imprisoned in the 
 Luxembourg, underwent his first examination on the 
 i -2th Germinal ; we give it here in its entirety : — 
 
 ' To-day, being the 12th day of Germinal, the 2nd year 
 of the French Republic, one and indivisible, at 1 1 o'clock in 
 the morning, We, Francois-Joseph Denizot, one of the judges 
 of the revolutionary tribunal established in Paris by the law 
 of March io, 1793, without recourse to the Court of Appeal, 
 and in virtue of the powers granted to the tribunal by the 
 law of April 5 of the same year, assisted by F. Girard, to 
 whom we have administered the oath as deputy-registrar of 
 the tribunal in one of the halls of the auditory of the palace 
 [erased in the printing] in the presence of Gilbert Lieudon, 
 deputy public prosecutor ; have transferred [have had 
 
 ' August 20, 1792. 
 ' Until the ever-memorable day of the tenth of this month, my dear 
 cousin, the title of patriot was not only a reason for exclusion from every 
 office, but even furnished a motive for persecution; you are an example in 
 your own person. The time has at length arrived, it is to be hoped, 
 when true patriotism will triumph over and conquer the aristocracy ; it 
 would be indeed wrong to doubt this, after the election of the patriotic 
 Ministers just given to us by the National Assembly. I know them all 
 by reputation, but' I am not so happy as to be known to them. You alone 
 can be useful to me through your acquaintance and connection with 
 them. My patriotism is known to you, as well as my capacity in legal 
 business. I flatter myself that you will make interest for me with the 
 Minister of Justice to procure me a situation in his office or elsewhere. 
 You know I am the father of a large family, and not well off. My eldest 
 son, who has fled to the frontiers, has been a great expense to me, and is 
 so still. I count upon your old friendship and your willingness to oblige. 
 I recall to your remembrance Deviefville, our common relation, whose 
 position is more distressing than I can describe to you. 
 ' I remain, my dear cousin, 
 
 ' Your most humble and obedient servant, 
 
 ' Fouquier, lawyer.' . i 
 
The Interrogation. 3 1 9 
 
 brought from prison scratched out] to the prison formerly 
 called the Luxembourg, and caused the prisoners to be 
 brought into a private room, where we have asked them 
 their names, ages, professions, country, and place of residence. 
 
 ' The undermentioned replied : 
 
 ' Q. What was his name ? 
 
 'A. Benolt-Camille Desmoulins, aged thirty-four years, 
 born at Guise, department of Aine, lawyer and a deputy to 
 the National Convention, living in Paris, Rue du Theatre 
 Francais. 
 
 ' Q. Had he conspired against the French nation by 
 wishing to restore the monarchy, by destroying national re- 
 presentation and the Republican government ? 
 
 'A. No. 
 
 ' Q. Had he counsel ? 
 
 •A. No. 
 
 ' We nominate, therefore, Chauveau de Lagarde. 
 
 ' Examination read to accused, who affirmed it and signed 
 with us. 
 
 'Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 'F. GlRARD. 
 
 ' LlEUDON. 
 ' DENIZOT. 
 'A. G. FOUQUIER.' 1 
 
 Camille had been interrogated first. After him 
 " Danton, Lacroix, and Herault underwent the same 
 process. To the question, ' Have you conspired 
 against the Republic?' Herault replied that 'such 
 horrible thoughts ' had never entered his ' mind or 
 his heart.' The attitude of the Dantonists was 
 admirable. From the moment of their entrance 
 into the Luxembourg until the hour they left the Con- 
 ciergerie they were firm and dignified. Above all, 
 Danton. ' I have in my character a good deal of the 
 gaiety of a Frenchman,' he had said, on March 16, at 
 
 1 Trial of the Dantonists, National Archives. 
 
320 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 the Convention in his last speech but one. 1 This 
 gaiety did not forsake him on entering the court of 
 the prison, where he found Herault de Seychelles 
 playing at nine-pins. 
 
 Danton said to the prisoners : ' When men do 
 stupid things, we must know how to laugh at them. 
 But if reason does not come back to this nether earth, 
 what we have seen is as nothing to what we shall see.' 
 He perceived Thomas Paine, the defender of the 
 Revolution against Burke, whom the votes of the 
 electors of the Pas-de-Calais had made a deputy to 
 the Convention, and the political tempest had made a 
 prisoner. 
 
 ' What you have done for the happiness and the 
 liberty of your country,' said Danton to him, ' I have 
 vainly tried to do for mine ! I have been less fortu- 
 nate ! ' What a contrast between these two men, thus 
 meeting in the court of a prison — Thomas Paine, as 
 we see him in Arano's beautiful engraving, cunning 
 and supercilious, at once a cynic and an enthusiast, 
 
 1 This is, in my opinion, the most characteristic of Danton's speeches. 
 It is, however, not one of his most important harangues. After the 
 reading of a petition from an orator of one of the sections, praying to be 
 allowed to sing the praises of the Convention to the accompaniment of an 
 organ at the bar of the Assembly, Danton recalled the Convention not to 
 decency, as Marat had once done, but to good sense : — ' The hall and the 
 bar of the Convention,' said he, ' are intended for the solemn and serious 
 utterance of the will of the citizens ; no one can be allowed to change 
 them into a mountebank's platform. I have in my character a good deal 
 of the gaiety of a Frenchman, and I hope to preserve it. I think, for 
 instance, we ought to give our enemies a ball ; but here we should rigidly, 
 and with dignity and composure, occupy ourselves with the greater inte- 
 rests of the country, discuss them, sound the " charge " upon all tyrants, 
 point out and strike down all traitors, and beat to arms against all im- 
 postors. I do full justice to the civic loyalty of the petitioners, but 1 
 demand that henceforth nothing shall be heard at the bar of the Assembly 
 but reason in prose.' This was like a smile under the axe. Three days 
 after, March 19, Danton delivered his last speech, which referred to the 
 accusation against Boiichotte. ' 
 
The Prisoners. 3 2 1 
 
 with a long thick nose, slightly inclining towards a 
 mouth of remarkable thinness, a pointed and grace- 
 fully modelled chin, and a countenance indicative of 
 both feeling and intellect. His costume is an elegant 
 imitation of Franklin's, and his hair is powdered. He 
 is a vigorous man somewhat past fifty. At his side 
 stands Dan ton, upright, bold, almost defiant, and, reply- 
 ing to this formalist like a true son of Rabelais, ' I am 
 to be sent to the scaffold. Well, I shall go merrily ! ' 
 
 The prisoners were at first confined au secret, but 
 when the indictment had been made known to them, 
 they were conducted to the Conciergerie. Lacroix and 
 Danton went smiling, Philippeaux looked proud and 
 unmoved, but Camille was sorrowful. ' On just such 
 a day as this,' said Danton, on arriving at the Concier- 
 gerie, ' I got the Revolutionary Tribunal established ; 
 I beg pardon for it from God and from men ! But 
 then, it was not out of inhumanity ! I meant to pre- 
 vent fresh massacres like those of September ! ' He 
 spoke aloud in his prison, so that the others might 
 hear. ' I leave everything in a muddle,' he repeated ; 
 and he added : 'It is better to be a poor fisherman 
 than to govern men ! ' 
 
 On the 13th Germinal, the accused — condemned 
 beforehand — appeared at the tribunal. In order to 
 degrade Danton, he was coupled with a robber, 
 d'Espagnac. The ' fauteuil' was given to Fabre 
 d'Eglantine. The jury had been taken from among 
 the solides : they were Renaudin, the musical-instru- 
 ment-maker, whom Camille in vain challenged ; 
 Trinchard ; Leroy, nicknamed Dix-Aodt, Desbois- 
 seaux, Lumiere, Souberbielle ; Topino Lebrun, who 
 afterwards testified, in history, against the infamy of 
 
 Y 
 
322 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 such a trial. Whatever M. Ernest Hamel may say 
 in his conscientious ' Histoire de Robespierre,' it is 
 perfectly true that Souberbielle said to one of the jury 
 whom he saw weeping at the idea of condemning 
 Danton, 'Which is more useful to the Republic, 
 Danton or Robespierre ? ' ' Robespierre.' ' Very well ; 
 then Danton must be guillotined.' M. Moreau- 
 Chaslon has related the anecdote on the authority 
 of Dr. Dubois (of Amiens), who had it from Souber- 
 bielle himself. 
 
 The judges were Herman, president, with Masson- 
 Denizot, Foucault and Bravet as assessors. Fouquier- 
 Tinville and Fleuriot-Lescot, his deputy, were also 
 present. 
 
 ' I am thirty-three, the age of the sans-culotte Jesus ; 
 a critical age for every patriot,' replied Camille, on 
 being interrogated. 
 
 ' My name is Georges-Jacques Danton, law-adviser 
 to the former Council, and afterwards a revolutionist 
 and representative of the people,' replied Danton. 
 ' My dwelling ? Soon to be nowhere ; after that, in 
 the Pantheon of history. Formerly street and section 
 Marat.' 
 
 Herault de Sechelles, Chabot, Bazire, Delaunay 
 (d' Angers), Lacroix, Fahre, Philippeaux — all of them de- 
 puties — Westermann, 1 the Abbe Sahuguet d'Espagnac, 
 Junius Frey and Emmanuel Frey — Chabst's brothers- 
 in-law — Jacques Luillier, attorney-general of the depart- 
 ment of Paris (the only one who was acquitted), 
 Deiderichen, solicitor to the court of the king of 
 Denmark, and Andre Guzman, a Spaniard; all an- 
 
 1 Westermann's answer was sublime : « I demand to be presented 
 naked to the people,' he said. < I have received seven wounds, all in the 
 front ; I have received but one in the back— it is this indictment ! 
 
The Trial. 323 
 
 swered in their turn. The oldest of these men was 
 forty-one; the youngest, Claude Bazire, who died 
 because he would not desert Chabot, was twenty-nine. 
 By coupling the Austrians, the Spaniard, and the 
 Dane with the Dantonists, and mixing up the matter 
 of the suppression or falsification of the decree of the 
 1 7th Vend&miaire concerning the Compagnie des Indes, 
 which referred to Fabre, with the accusation touching 
 Danton, it was intended, I repeat, to discredit the whole 
 ' batch' in public opinion. Danton was quick to feel this, 
 and protested against being confounded with scoundrels. 
 Moreover, he boldly confronted the Public Accuser, 
 and his powerful voice drowned the tinkling of the 
 president's bell. ' Do you not hear my bell ? ' cried 
 Herman. ' A man defending his life despises a bell 
 and cries aloud,' replied Danton. This famous trial 
 lives and breathes in the notes of Topino-Lebrun, 
 which will be found at the end of this volume, and 
 which utterly discredit Coffinal's version of it. 
 
 While they were judging, or rather sacrificing, the 
 Dantonists, the mob, anxious, uneasy, yelling, making 
 a tail, as we call it, from the door of the old Court of 
 Appeal (it was the hall in which the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal held its sittings, and it was burned in May 
 1 871), filled the whole of the hall now-a-days called 
 the Pas-Perdus, and the Cour du Harlay, skirted 
 the walls of' the Palais de Justice, stretched as far 
 as the quay, thronged the Place Dauphine, made a 
 bend at the Pont-Neuf, and reached to the Mint. 
 This surging sea of human beings literally throbbed 
 at every incident of which the hall of the formidable 
 tribunal was the scene, Danton's every word was 
 repeated as if by electricity, passed on from mouth 
 to mouth, and instantaneously reached the Mint, 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 thanks to this human telegraph. The thunder of 
 Danton's voice was like the match to a train of 
 gunpowder. 1 Michelet has related, and attested by 
 witnesses, that the windows of the revolutionary 
 tribunal being open, the sound of Danton's voice 
 could be heard on the other side of the Seine. 
 
 And what said Danton ? Never did man defend 
 a menaced life with so much courage and yet so much 
 disdain. Confronted with the guillotine, the tribune, 
 for a moment jaded and downcast, once more became 
 a Titan. David's pupil, the painter and juryman, 
 Topino-Lebrun, who was afterwards executed, has 
 transmitted to us, in his notes, the correct version 
 of Danton's last speech. 2 While Danton spoke, 
 Topino-Lebrun wrote. The juror's notes, unique 
 in history, were burnt in the month of May 1871, 
 
 1 These authentic and accurate details were given to the late M. 
 Labat, senior, the director of the archives of the Prefecture of Police, 
 who transmitted them to us through one Collet, employed, in 1793, at the 
 H6tel de Ville (stores office). The same man, on going to the town hall 
 to his usual post on the loth Thermidor, perceived a large crowd in front of 
 the Hotel de Ville. A sentinel asked him, ' Where are you going ? ' 'To 
 my office,' replied the official. ' But do you not see what is passing ? ' 
 some one said to him. ' What ? ' ' What is passing or who is pass- 
 ing, which ever you like.' Collet looked ; between two ranks of soldiers 
 were marching the officials at the H6tel de Ville. The scaffold was then 
 not far off for them. 
 
 2 Francois-Jean- Baptiste Topino-Lebrun, born at Marseilles in 1769, 
 was sent to Rome to study painting Here he met with David, who 
 took him back to France as his pupil. More than once in his functions 
 as a juror, instead of dattbing with the red, according to his master's 
 saying, he was merciful and acquitted ; his Republican convictions were 
 profound. He was implicated in Babeuf's affair, but acknowledged to be 
 innocent ; later, however, in 1800, he was arrested as an accomplice of 
 Arena, in that affair in which the police of Fouche" played a prominent 
 pan, and was condemned and executed with J. Arena, Cerucchi, and 
 Demerville. He asked to die with his face unveiled. It may be safely 
 stated that Topino-Lebrun was innocent. Of his pictures there are 
 very few. At the exhibition of 1797 he exhibited a Death of Cai'us 
 Gracchus, which the Directoire gave to the town of Marseilles. 
 
Dan tons Defence. 325 
 
 in the Palais de Justice, with many other valuable 
 documents of a similar kind. Fortunately, owing to 
 the kindness of the late M. Labat, I had already 
 taken a copy of these notes. I had then no notion 
 that they would be destroyed and that I should 
 have preserved them to history. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the sublimity of Danton's 
 defence. The notes' of Topino-Lebrun faithfully give 
 us its incoherence, its singularity, its surprising min- 
 gling of heroism and magnificent buffoonery. Fancy 
 one of Shakespeare's characters blending tragedy with 
 comedy, and casting his sarcasms in the teeth of his 
 accusers, and you have Danton. He jested, he brought 
 forward proofs of his innocence, he thundered, he 
 sneered ; he was crushing ; he was superhuman in his 
 audacity and profoundly human in the words, all on 
 fire with pity and gentle hardihood, that found their 
 source in his inmost feelings, in his breast, in his heart. 
 With what dignity did he spurn the shameful accusa- 
 tions heaped upon him ! How high he held his head 
 before insult ! How he seemed to dilate and grow 
 before his abashed enemies, who indeed were able 
 to kill his body, but could not tarnish his fame ! 
 
 ' I sold to the enemy ! ' he cried. ' A man of my 
 stamp is priceless. Where is the proof? .... Let 
 him who accuses me, according to the Convention, 
 give the proof, the semi-proofs, the signs of my 
 venality ! ' 
 
 And when he was opposed by the pretended 
 testimony of an anonymous patriot. 'Where is this 
 patriot ? Let him come hither ! I challenge contra- 
 diction ! Let him come forward ! ' 
 
 Then, turning round, like a wounded lion, he faced 
 those of his opponents whom he knew and whose 
 
326 Camille Desmoulins and hts Wife. 
 
 hatred had betrayed itself. ' Billaud-Varennes,' he 
 said, 'cannot forgive me because he was once my 
 secretary!' He dwelt, with the pride of a soldier 
 after the fight, on the active part he had taken in the 
 deeds of August 10 ; he showed in figures the sums 
 entrusted to him for his mission, to Belgium, and fully 
 accounted for the expenditure. His hands were clean. 
 
 ' I had 400,000 livres ; 200,000 livres for secret service ; 
 I spent them in the presence of Marat and Robespierre. I 
 gave 6,000 livres to Billaud for the army. I have accounted 
 for 1 30,000 out of the other 200,000 ; and as for the rest, I 
 handed it to Fabre, empowering him to pay the commissioners 
 sent to the departments. He was cashier, and I only em- 
 ployed him because Billaud-Varennes had refused. I still 
 believe Fabre to be a trustworthy citizen.' 
 
 Certainly Danton defended himself there in a 
 manly and convincing manner ; but his heart prompted 
 the truest and most mighty eloquence, when, over- 
 flowing with the love of his country and the Republic, 
 he besought his enemies to forget their resentment, 
 as he forgot his anger, to think of nothing but France 
 and the dangers still threatening her. ' Let patriots 
 rally round each other, and then, if we can subjugate 
 ourselves, we shall triumph over Europe.' ' I would 
 embrace my enemy,' he added, with that Shakespearian 
 vehemence of his ; 'I would embrace him for the sake 
 of the country, for which I would willingly give my 
 body to be devoured ! ' 
 
 In the presence of death there came to him a clear 
 perception of the morality even of that sanguinary 
 Revolution in which ' brethren turned enemies ' would 
 destroy each other. Each he held to be useful in his 
 turn, even the fiercest. 'Marat, with his volcanic 
 
D anion's Defence. 327 
 
 temperament ; Robespierre, tenacious and firm.' ' And 
 I,' he added, ' / was useful in my way ! ' 
 
 Then, at last, disgusted and disheartened by the 
 attitude of the tribunal ; ' I am refused any witnesses,' 
 he said, shrugging his shoulders, ' so I will defend 
 myself no longer ! ' ' I beg to apologize,' he added, as 
 he sat down again, ' if I have spoken with too much 
 warmth. It is. my nature.' 
 
 And with one last cry of haughty prophecy : ' Be- 
 fore three months are past,' he said, ' the people will 
 tear my enemies to pieces.' * 
 
 It is easy to conceive that sayings such as these, 
 repeated, as we have seen, by the anxious crowd, who 
 began to manifest its sympathy with the accused 
 (nothing works up the masses so much as physical 
 courage, and a lofty attitude in the presence of death) ; 
 it is easy to conceive that such a defence seemed 
 dangerous to the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
 They turned pale as they sat. 
 
 In the papers relating to this trial (c. iv. 342), in 
 the National Archives, are to be found proofs of the 
 confusion into which both Herman, the president, 
 and Fouquier-Tinville, the prosecutor, were thrown. 
 They passed slips of paper to each other, covered 
 with hasty writing, and which, having remained among 
 the documents, testify to their uneasiness at Danton's 
 attitude, when, with head erect and mighty voice, the 
 accused became the accuser. 
 
 ' To Fouquier? wrote Herman. ' In half an hour 
 I shall suspend Danton's defence ; we must enter, into 
 greater detail.' 
 
 Fouquier to Herman : ' / have a question to put 
 
 1 We give in the ' Pieces Justificatives ' all we have been able to pre- 
 serve of Topino-Lebrun's valuable notes. 
 
328 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 to Danton with respect to Belgium, when you have 
 finished yours! ' We must,' says another note, ' only 
 broach the question of the business in Belgium with 
 Lacroix and Danton, and when we have gone so far 
 (a dash) we must get on.' 
 
 We must get on ! By this one saying the true 
 aspect of the trial is placed before us. In fact, it did 
 not get on. On the 1 3th Germinal (3rd April) Herman, 
 taking fright at the vigour of the accused, had abruptly, 
 adjourned the court, and Fouquier went to enquire of 
 the Committee if it were necessary to hear the witnesses 
 whom the accused demanded should be subpoenaed. 
 The answer was in the negative. On the 14th Germi- 
 nal, Danton electrified his judges, and Desmoulins 
 moved the bystanders to pity. On the 15th, the 
 accused, being denied their witnesses, energetically 
 protested against -this violation of right, and Fouquier 
 addressed himself to the Convention to obtain its 
 help against their ' indecortim.' On the 16th, the 
 Dantonists, already destined to the scaffold, were 
 refused permission to speak. It was necessary to 
 impose silence upon those formidable lips, before they 
 could be sealed by death. 
 
 ' Provided they let us speak freely,' Danton had 
 said, ' I am sure of confounding my accusers ; and if 
 the French nation is what it ought to be, I shall be 
 obliged to ask mercy for them ! ' 
 
 Who knows if this magnanimous dream of Danton's 
 (the saying, it is well known, is Royer-Collard's) would 
 not have been realised, if Fouquier and Herman had 
 not suddenly called to their aid the most iniquitous 
 of decrees ? 
 
 When, later, Fouquier-Tinville had himself to 
 appear- before his judges, the evidence of Nicolas- 
 
Fouquier-Tinville's Schemes. 329 
 
 Joseph Paris, called Fabricius, registrar to the Revo- 
 lutionary Tribunal, revealed the odious machinations 
 of this trial of the Dantonists : 
 
 ' It was in this affair that the deponent (N.-J. Paris) saw 
 the Committee of Public Welfare and General Safety em- 
 ploying the most refined Machiavelism, and Fouquier as well 
 as Dumas lent themselves basely and willingly to the per- 
 fidious projects of these two Committees, who wanted to 
 sacrifice the most enlightened citizens and the stoutest 
 defenders of our liberty, that they might more surely establish 
 their own tyranny and the barbarous system they have carried 
 on since. This is what the deponent saw and heard in the course 
 of that affair, for ever memorable by the crimes then com- 
 mitted, and a lasting misfortune for the country. At eleven 
 o'clock the accused were brought into court. After the reading 
 of the indictment, Westermann and Sulier were sent for, and 
 tacked on to Danton, Camille and Philippeaux, as the latter 
 had been to d'Eglantine, Chabot and Despagnac, in such a 
 way that, in this matter, three groups of persons were in- 
 cluded who had never seen or known each other ; a refine- 
 ment of perfidy often made use of by the Committees and 
 still oftener by Fouquier, confounding men of the highest 
 probity, the most intrepid defenders of our liberty, with mean 
 scoundrels and declared enemies of the Revolution. At this 
 sitting Camille Desmoulins challenged the juror Renaudin, 
 giving his reasons for the challenge, which seemed to be well 
 founded. Fouquier ought to have prayed the tribunal to 
 decree according to the challenge, but they wanted a juror 
 like Renaudin too much, and they took good care not to 
 accede to the challenge ; they did not even take it into con- 
 sideration. The accused seeing a marked partiality on the 
 part of the tribunal, which was surrounded by members of the 
 Committee of General Safety, who were behind the judges 
 and the jury, demanded that several deputies, to the number 
 of sixteen, should be heard as witnesses. Danton also prayed 
 that the tribunal should write to the Convention, to demand 
 that a committee, composed of its members, should be nomi- 
 nated to receive the protest that he, Camille, and Philippeaux 
 
33° Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 wished to make against the system of dictation exercised by 
 the Committee of Public Welfare. These demands were not 
 acceded to ; they were rejected by the president and by 
 Fouquier and his worthy friend Fleuriot, who filled, conjointly 
 with Fouquier, the post of public prosecutor; and as the 
 tribunal had no valid reason for opposing a demand that 
 could not be refused without injustice, the president broke up 
 the sitting. 
 
 ' The next day the hearing began very late ; some ques- 
 tions were put to one of the accused. Danton asked leave to 
 speak that he might reply to the accusations brought against 
 him ; it was refused at first, under pretext that he should 
 speak in his turn ; he insisted ; at length leave could not be 
 denied him any longer ; he took the indictment, and as every 
 count was unsupported either by proof or by documents, and 
 even devoid of any probability, it was not difficult for him 
 to justify himself. A great part of the audience applauded 
 his justification ; this was not what the tribunal wished. 
 The president withdrew his permission under the pretext that 
 he was tired and that each prisoner must be heard in his turn. 
 Danton would not be silent until the president had promised 
 that he should be permitted to speak the next day in refu- 
 tation of the other counts of the indictment which he had not 
 been allowed time to touch upon ; and then the sitting was 
 brought to a close. 
 
 ' The next day the hearing again began very late, so that 
 the time might be taken up and none left for the dreaded 
 truth to come to light. Before the end of the three days, 
 after which it was proposed to tell the jury that they were 
 sufficiently informed as to what had happened, the accused 
 having entered, Danton demanded leave to continue his 
 justification ; this was refused him on the pretext that the 
 other accused must be interrogated concerning the acts im- 
 puted to them. Danton, Camille, Philippeaux and others 
 again demanded the presence of some deputies who were 
 their colleagues, and that the tribunal should write to the 
 Convention in order that a commission might be nominated 
 to receive their protest, and appeal to the people against 
 the refusal to hear those witnesses. It was at this juncture 
 
T he Deposition of Nicolas Paris. 331 
 
 that Fouquier, instead of acceding to the just and well-founded 
 claims of the accused, wrote a letter to the Committee of 
 Public Welfare, in which he described the accused as in a 
 state of revolt and demanded a decree. It was a decree of 
 outlawry that Fouquier demanded, as will be seen by the 
 sequel ; he wanted it badly, as for an instant virtue and 
 innocence had made crime turn pale. Even Fouquier and 
 his worthy associate Fleuriot, atrocious as they were, the 
 judges and the jury, were thunderstruck before such men, and 
 for one moment deponent thought they would not have the 
 daring to sacrifice them.' He did not then know.the odious 
 means employed to this end, and that a conspiracy was being 
 fabricated at the Luxembourg, by the aid of which, and 
 Fouquier-Tinville's letter, the scruples of the National Con- 
 vention were overcome and a decree of outlawry was obtained. 
 This fatal decree arrived, it was brought by Amar and 
 Vouland. Deponent was in the Hall of Witnesses when 
 they arrived ; they were pale ; anger and terror were painted 
 on their countenances, so much did they seem to fear their 
 victims would escape death ; they greeted deponent, who, 
 wishing to know what there was fresh, accosted them. Vou- 
 land said to him : " We have them, the scoundrels ; they were 
 conspiring at the Luxembourg." They sent for Fouquier, 
 who was in the court. He appeared at once. On seeing 
 him, Amar said to him :. " Here is what you want!' It 
 was the decree of outlawry. Vouland said : " Here is something 
 to put you at ease'' Fouquier replied with a smile : " We wanted 
 it badly enough." He re-entered the court with an air of 
 satisfaction, and read aloud the decree and the declaration of 
 the iniquitous Laflotte, which everyone knows ; the accused 
 recoiled with horror at the recital of such a falsehood. The 
 unhappy Camille, hearing his wife's name, gave vent to cries 
 of distress, and said : " The wretches, not satisfied with assas- 
 sinating me, they will kill my wife too ! " During this scene, 
 distressing to honest and feeling hearts, the members of the 
 Committee of General Safety, placed below the benches and 
 behind Fouquier and the judges, were rejoicing with barbarous 
 glee at the despair of the unfortunate men whose death they 
 were compassing. Danton saw them and pointing them out 
 
33 2 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 to his companions in misfortune, said : " Look at those base 
 assassins, they will hunt us to death? The accused demanded 
 leave to show the absurdity and improbability of this con- 
 spiracy ; they were answered by the breaking up of the 
 sitting. During the three days which had elapsed since the 
 commencement of this affair, the members of the Committee 
 of General Safety, and particularly Amar, Vouland, Vadier, 
 and David, had not left the court. They came and went, 
 fidgetted about, spoke to the judges, the jury and the 
 witnesses, told all comers that the accused, Danton particu- 
 larly, were wicked men, conspirators. Dumas, Artur and 
 Nicolas did the same. The members of the Committee of 
 General Safety corresponded from thence with the Committee 
 of Public Welfare. The next day was the fourth day ; the 
 members of the Committee of General Safety were at the 
 tribunal before nine o'clock. They went to Fouquier's private 
 room, and when the jurors were assembled, deponent saw 
 Herman, the president, with Fouquier, come out of the jury 
 room. At this time Amar, Vouland, Vadier, David, and 
 other deputies known to deponent as members of the Com- 
 mittee of General Safety, were in the refreshment room 
 (remained^) next to the jurors' room, from which what took 
 place in the latter was audible. Deponent is ignorant of 
 what passed between Herman, Fouquier and the jury; but 
 Topino-Lebrun, one of them, told him that Herman and 
 Fouquier had persuaded them to declare that they were 
 satisfied with the evidence, and that, in order to bring them 
 to that determination, they had painted the accused in 
 villanous colours, as conspirators, and had displayed a letter 
 which they said came from abroad and which was addressed 
 to Danton. The court opened, and the jury declared them- 
 selves satisfied with the evidence. 
 
 ' From that moment the accused appeared no more in the 
 court. They were shut up separately in the prison and sent 
 to the scaffold on the same day by Fouquier. 2 While the jury 
 
 1 Erased in the minutes. 
 
 3 Written in the margin. Nevertheless several witnesses were sum- 
 moned at Fouquier's request; only one was heard on the first day, and he 
 spoke in exculpation of the accused. 
 
The Deposition of Nicolas Pdris. 333 
 
 was deliberating, the deponent was in the registrar's office 
 below. He heard a noise in the direction of the staircase 
 which led to the jury-room ; on going to the entrance of the 
 office, he saw the jurymen coming out, with Trinchard at their 
 head. With the exception of a few, they looked like mad- 
 men ; rage and anger were pictured in their countenances. 
 As Trinchard approached with a furious air, and using the 
 most violent gestures, he said : " The rascals shall perish!' 
 Not wishing to witness such horrors any longer, deponent with- 
 drew, groaning over the misfortunes which were overwhelming 
 the Republic and those still greater which such tyranny pre- 
 saged. The next day he went to the tribunal with the firm 
 resolution that it should be for the last time, being determined 
 to give in his resignation. Fouquier having asked at the 
 registrar's office for a copy of the list of the jury, deponent 
 took it to him, wishing to know what use he was going to 
 make of it. He was in the refreshment room ; he took his 
 pencil and by the side of several names he made a + on the 
 margin. Deponent perceived that he marked with ah f 
 one who had been concerned in the business of the day 
 before. He made a remark to that effect. Fouquier replied : 
 "He is fond of reasoning, and we don't want people who 
 reason; we want this business done with" Deponent could 
 not restrain a movement which showed he did not approve ; 
 he observed it, and looking fixedly at deponent, he said : 
 " Moreover, it is what the Committee of Public Safety 
 wills." ' > 
 
 What more dramatic than such a recital as this, so 
 terrible in its candour ? Fabricius relates this tragic 
 episode as no other could. In the autograph MS. of 
 this deposition, it is easy to read the word weak 
 (' foible ') effaeed, which explains the letter f that 
 Fouquier-Tinville used. The public prosecutor was, 
 
 1 National Archives (Fouquier-Tinville's trial, deposition of Paris, 
 alias Fabricius, VentSse, year III. portfolio W, 501). Fabricius was 
 arrested the day after that on which Fouquier looked at him so fixedly. 
 The decree of the 22nd Thermidor gave him his liberty and his post at 
 the tribunal. 
 
334 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 otherwise, as has been seen, fully satisfied, and he 
 had not been kept waiting for the demand he addressed 
 to the Convention. 
 
 ' We foresee that the only way to make them keep 
 silence,' he had written, ' would be by a decree.' 
 
 The decree was made on the 15th Germinal after 
 a report of Saint- Just, to which was added the reading, 
 demanded by Billaud-Varennes, of the denunciation 
 of the spy, Alexandre Laflotte, who accused Arthur 
 Dillon of having joined with Lucile Desmoulins to 
 effect the escape of the accused. 
 
 Saint-Just found sophisms with which to crush 
 his enemies, condemned from the first. He turned 
 even their indignation into a crime. ' What innocent 
 man,' he said, 'has ever rebelled against the law? 
 We want no other proofs of their criminal attempts 
 than this audacity.' We must quote, besides, the 
 most striking passages of this report which Vouland 
 and Amar brought in with such good will. The frag- 
 ments of phrases that are printed in italics are under- 
 lined in red pencil (by Fouquier, no doubt) in the 
 original : 
 
 Extract from the minutes of the National Convention, the 
 fifteenth day of Germinal, the year II. of the French Republic, 
 one and indivisible. 
 
 Report made in the name of the Committees of 
 Public Welfare and General Safety. 
 
 ' The public prosecutor at the Revolutionary Tribunal has 
 informed us that the revolt of the culprits has caused the 
 deliberations of justice to be suspended, until the National 
 Convention shall have deliberated. 
 
Saint-Bust's Report. 335 
 
 ' You have escaped dangers, the greatest that have ever 
 threatened liberty ; now all the accomplices are discovered, 
 and these criminals at the very feet of justice, intimidated by 
 the law, divulge their secrets. Their despair, their fury, all 
 announce that their apparent good faith was the most hypo- 
 critical snare ever laid for the Revolution. What innocent 
 man ever rebelled against the laws ? We want no other 
 proofs of their criminal attempts than this audacity. What ! 
 the men whom we have accused of having been the accom- 
 plices of Dumouriez and d'Orl^ans, the men who have but 
 made a revolution in favour of a new dynasty, the men who 
 have conspired for the misfortune and the slavery of the 
 people, put the finishing touch to their infamy! 
 
 ' If there are men who are true friends of liberty, if the 
 energy which belongs to those who have undertaken to deliver 
 their country is in their hearts, they will see that there are no 
 more hidden conspirators in Paris, but that these are barefaced 
 conspirators, who, counting upon the aristocracy with which 
 they have been acting for several years, call down the vengeance 
 of crime upon the people. No ! liberty will not recoil before 
 her enemies, and the coalition is discovered. Dillon, who 
 ordered his army to march upon Paris, has declared that the 
 wife of Desmoulins had received money in order to promote 
 a rising for the assassination of patriots and of the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal. 
 
 ' We thank you for having put us in the place of honour. 
 Like you, we will shield our country with our bodies. Death 
 is nothing provided the Revolution triumphs ; the day of glory 
 was that on which the Roman Senate fought against Catiline. 
 Such a day would consolidate the public liberty for ever. 
 
 ' Your Committees answer to you for heroic watchfulness. 
 Who can refuse you his veneration in this terrible moment 
 when you are combating for the last time the faction which 
 was indulgent to your enemies, and which now regains all its 
 fury to fight against liberty ? 
 
 ' Your Committees hold life cheap ; they set a high price 
 on honour. People ! You shall triumph. But may this ex- 
 perience make you love the Revolution for the perils to 
 which she exposes your friends ! It was unexampled that 
 
336 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 your justice should be insulted, and if it has ever been so, it was 
 only by insensate Emigre's in prophesying tyranny. These 
 new conspirators have offended the public conscience. What 
 more do we want to complete our conviction of their crimes ? 
 Unhappy men ! They confess their crimes by resisting the 
 laws. It is only criminals whom stern equity terrifies. How 
 dangerous were all those who hid their plots and their 
 audacity under the mask of simplicity. At this moment 
 there is a conspiracy in the prisons in their favour. At 
 this moment the aristocrats are bestirring themselves ; the 
 letters that are about to be read to you will show you your 
 danger. 
 
 ' Is it by a privilege that the accused are insolent ? Let 
 us then recall the tyrants Custine and Brissot from the grave ; 
 for they had not, at least, the terrible privilege of insulting 
 their judges. 
 
 ' In the country's peril, in the post of majesty in which 
 the people has placed you, mark the distance which separates 
 you from the culprits. It is with these views that your 
 Committees propose to you the subjoined decree (side A). 
 
 ' And upon the motion of a member, the National Con- 
 vention decrees that the report of the Committee of Public 
 Welfare, the official report of the administrators of the de- 
 partment of police of the township of Paris, shall be sent to 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal with an injunction to the president 
 to read them aloud during the sitting. 
 
 ' Decrees further that the report and the papers be printed 
 and inserted in the records. 
 
 ' Signed by the inspector, AUGER. 
 
 ' Compared with the original by us, Secretaries to the 
 Convention, at Paris, the 15th Germinal, year II. of the 
 French Republic. 
 
 'Peyssard, Legris, Berard, M.-A. Baudot. 
 
 ' Initialled by the members of the Commission with 
 ' A.-Q. Fouquier, Lecointre, Beauprey, Guefroy.' ' 
 
 1 National Archives, C. W. 500. The decree A was to the following 
 effect :— 
 
The Decree of Outlawry. 337 
 
 It is worthy of remark, although a painful fact, 
 that this decree of outlawry, presented by Saint- 
 Just, was adopted by the Convention unanimously ! 
 Unanimously these men, of opposite temperament and 
 different opinions, declared that all the desired means 
 were to be used in order to prevent the ' thwarting 
 of the course of justice.' Not one voice was raised in 
 protest against this outlawry ; not even that of the 
 Dantonist Legendre, who might this time have placed 
 his powerful lungs at the service of his friends. 
 What ! among the moddrk who, later, were to overturn 
 Maximilien Robespierre — among those who would one 
 day rise up against these bloodthirsty men, was there 
 not one to protest in favour of Camille, guilty of 
 compassion and condemned for his clemency ? Among 
 those who knew well that Danton would have saved 
 the Republic, and made it take root in the country, 
 was not one to be met who would repel the stupid 
 
 Extract from the minutes of the National Convention, the fifteenth 
 day of Germinal; in the second year of the French Republic, One and 
 Indivisible. 
 
 The National Convention decrees that the Revolutionary Tribunal 
 shall proceed with the instruction relating to the conspiracy of Lacroix, 
 Danton, Chabot, and others. 
 
 The President shall make use of every means which the law permits to 
 make his authority and that of the Revolutionary Tribunal respected, and 
 to repress any attempt on the part of the accused to trouble public tran- 
 quillity and to hinder the course of justice. 
 
 It is decreed that all persons accused of conspiracy who shall resist or 
 insult the national justice shall be outlawed and receive judgment on the 
 spot. 
 
 (Signed by the Inspector) Auger. 
 
 Compared with the original by us, Secretaries to the National Con- 
 vention, Paris, the fifteenth Germinal, the second year of the^ French 
 -Republic, One and Indivisible. 
 
 Berard, M. A. Baudot, Legris, Secretaries. 
 
 Initialled by the members of the Commission, 
 
 A.-Q. Fouquier, L. Le Cointre, Beauprey. 
 z 
 
338 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 accusation of royalism launched at the man of the 
 10th August ? What a miserable spectacle ! And 
 how sights such as these make us despise the baseness 
 of these cowardly and trembling assemblies, always 
 ready to attack, to banish, to sacrifice others, in order 
 to escape the danger which they thought was hanging 
 over themselves ! There are unfathomable vilenesses 
 in human nature ; and those, indeed, are unhealthy times 
 in which fear — hideous fear — reduces culprits and 
 cowards to the same level. We shall return presently 
 to the denunciation of La Flotte which was to bring 
 the unfortunate Lucile to the scaffold. La Flotte 
 accused Arthur Dillon of having planned with the Con- 
 ventionalist Simon to excite a rising in the faubourgs, 
 whilst Lucile Desmoulins was to endeavour to move 
 the people to pity. The unhappy Camille had learned, 
 at the moment when his own life was threatened, that 
 he was to be doubly stricken through this beloved being, 
 whose only guilt was the bearing of his name. Lucile 
 arrested ! Lucile too in danger ! What poignant 
 grief must have wrung the husband's heart ! It was, 
 in truth, the last drop in the cup. Camille's fury 
 and that of the other prisoners thenceforth knew no 
 bounds. Herman, the president, fortified by the decree 
 of the Convention, did not care much, as we have seen 
 by the deposition of the registrar Fabricius, about their 
 redoubled rage and despair. 
 
 He proceeded to order the prisoners to be removed 
 from the court. This was equivalent to outlawry. 
 
 ' But,' exclaimed Danton, at this virtual condemn- 
 ation, 'no documents have been produced against us. 
 No witnesses have yet been heard.' 
 
 ' It is infamous ! ' said Lacroix. ' We are judged 
 without being heard,' said another. ' The brigands ! 
 
The Dantonists Outlawed. 339 
 
 the assassins ! ' ' All deliberation is useless ! ' ' This is 
 not judging ; it is killing ! ' ' Let us be led at once to 
 the scaffold ! ' 
 
 Thus did the cries of these unhappy men mingle 
 in a confused sound of complaint and insult ; but the 
 judges remained impassible. The President ordered 
 the gendarmes to remove the prisoners. Then ensued 
 a terrible scene. Danton cast a contemptuous look at 
 his judges, as a last defiance, but Camille clung to his 
 seat, and refused to walk out. Three men laid hold of 
 him, tore him from his place, and literally carried him 
 out. Desmoulins' last cry was an invective. 
 
 These terrible scenes had not failed to make an 
 impression as profound as it was strong upon the 
 minds of the jury. Whilst they were deliberating, 
 there was a momentary rumour in the tribunal that 
 ' the majority would vote for the innocence of the 
 accused.' Afterwards Lecointre declared that at that 
 very moment, Amar, Voulland and Vadier passed 
 through the refreshment- room, going in company with 
 Fouquier, in search of Herman, the president, to per- 
 suade him to ' use all possible means to obtain sentence 
 of death.' Fouquier replied, in his examination, 1 that 
 he had ' not even any remembrance that citizens Amar 
 and Voulland had transmitted him the decree of the 
 15 th Germinal, and, as for the citizen Vadier, he had 
 not known until long after that he had been in the 
 tribunal.' ' He did not come,' added Fouquier, ' to my 
 private room, nor did I see him in the court.' Vadier 
 was there, however. 
 
 In short, the terrible questions were to be submitted 
 to the jury ; and Trinchard, who was their chief, and who 
 
 1 See the papers in his trial at the National Archives. 
 2 3 
 
34-0 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 bestirred himself so zealousy to obtain a condemnation 
 had not long. to. wait. 
 
 The following are, word for word, the question? 
 submitted to the jury : 
 
 Questions. 
 
 •Citizen Jurors, — 
 
 ' There has existed a conspiracy tending (sic) to 
 restore the monarchy, to destroy the national representation 
 and the Republican government. 
 
 ' ist. Is Jean-Francois Lacroix, lawyer, deputy of the 
 National Convention, convicted of having taken part in this 
 conspiracy ? 
 
 ' 2nd. Georges- Jacques £>anton, lawyer and deputy. 
 
 ' 3rd. Benott-Camille Desmoulins, lawyer and deputy. 
 
 '4th. Pierre Philippeaux, lawyer and deputy. 
 
 ' 5th. Marie-Joseph Herault de Sdchelles, deputy. 
 
 ' 6th. Francois-Joseph Westermann, deputy. 
 
 ' Are these convicted of having taken part in this con- 
 spiracy ? 
 
 'There has existed a conspiracy tending to defame and 
 vilify the national representation and to destroy the Repub- 
 lican government by bribery. 
 
 ' 7th. Philippe-Francois-Nezaire-Fabre d'Eglantine, author, 
 deputy to the National Convention ; is he convicted of having 
 sold his vote as a representative of the people ? 
 
 '8th. Joseph Delaunai, lawyer, deputy to the National 
 Convention ; is he convicted, &c. ? 
 
 ' 9th. Francois Chabot, ex-Capuchin, deputy to the 
 National Convention ; is he convicted, &c. ? 
 
 ' 10th. Claude Bazire, archivist of the former " States of 
 Burgundy " ; is he convicted of complicity with Chabot and 
 Delaunai, for having concealed the revelations of their criminal 
 manoeuvres which they made to him, or having concealed the 
 proposals made to him ? 
 
 'nth. Marie-Rend Sahugnet Despagnac, ex-abbi, pur- 
 veyor to the armies of the Republic ; is he convicted of having 
 taken part in the conspiracy ? 
 
The Verdict. 34 1 
 
 ' (We pass over the names of the other prisoners.) 
 ' The declaration of the jurors (or jury) is in the affirmative 
 to all these questions ; negative only with regard to Lullier. 
 
 ' HERMAN, President. 
 ■ ' DUCRAY, Recorder's clerk'. 
 
 At the demand of Fouquier, public prosecutor, 
 the tribunal ordered at once that, in consequence of 
 ' the indecorum, the sneers, and the blasphemies of the 
 accused in the presence of the tribunal, the questions be 
 submitted to the jury and the intervening judgment 
 pronounced in the absence of the accused.' 
 
 Herman and Fouquier had indeed deserved well 
 of the Committee of Public Welfare. 
 
342 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Last moments of the Dantonists — The Tumbrils— The Scaffold- 
 Death of Camille and of Danton. 
 
 Prison conspiracies — Lucile accused — Arthur Dillon— Desmoulins' 
 widow and Hubert's widow — Lucile's death. 
 
 The days after the strife — Madame Duplessis — The young Horace— 
 Camille's son and Philippeaux's son— Unpublished letters— Death of 
 Horace Desmoulins — Relics of Camille. 
 
 I. 
 
 It was done ! The Dantonists were to die ! While 
 the jury still deliberated, hesitating, in spite of Fouquier, 
 Herman, and Trinchard, to commit this judicial murder, 
 the printers were setting up the types for the text of 
 the death sentence, so that the public criers might 
 announce it at once to the crowd. The accused, who 
 had been reconducted to the Conciergerie, after being 
 dragged from their benches, awaited there the sentence 
 which they now knew to be inevitable. Danton spoke 
 calmly and proudly to the clerk, Ducray, who soon 
 came to read them the sentence of death. (They were 
 taken one by one to the waiting-room to hear this read.) 
 ' It is useless ; you may take us at once to the guillotine. 
 To your judgment I will not listen.' Not one of the 
 others would listen to the reading of their sentence. 
 What use was it ? ' We are assassinated,' said they 
 all ; ' that is enough.' 
 
 Camille Desmoulins crouched in a corner of the 
 
Camille s Despair. 343 ' 
 
 prison and wept. He thought of his young wife, whom 
 he must leave in the power of his executioners. He re- 
 peated with sobs the sad farewell he had written to his 
 Lucile, on the eve of the trial. 'Horace! Lucile! My 
 Horace ! My beloved ! What will become of them ? ' 
 This was weak, perhaps, but Camille had not shown 
 himself weak during the Reign of Terror, when he 
 demanded clemency for all its victims. Let another 
 reproach him with these tears shed for himself, for his 
 vanished happiness, for his home into which dark 
 death had entered, striking down with one blow both 
 husband and wife, and leaving an infant, orphaned 
 even in its cradle. I can only remember, for my part, 
 the cause of his death. When he wrote the 'Vieux 
 Cordelier,' Camille knew well that he ran the risk of 
 dying on the scaffold erected for waverers. But he 
 knew too that a word of pity would help to overturn the 
 devouring guillotine. This word of pity he had re- 
 peatedly uttered. He whom Lamartine has called ' a 
 sniffer of the wind,' had at any rate scented the storm, 
 and gone to meet the breath of the tempest half way, 
 tired of being blown about like a wisp of straw. His 
 self-sacrifice will be eternally reckoned to Camille. As 
 for his tears, has not posterity wept with him ? Be 
 that as it may, Camille Desmoulins will always live 
 in the imagination of the people, standing on the table 
 of the Palais Royal, or, heart-broken, calling upon his 
 Lucile at the foot of the scaffold. 
 
 Danton, too, had to leave a young wife whom he 
 adored ; but he was of a manlier nature, and, besides, 
 he had learnt to despise the joys of life, having already 
 drained the cup even to its bitter dregs. He stood 
 firm at the approach of death, which could neither 
 disturb his peace nor blanch his cheek. He who said 
 
344 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 in his prison, as Riouffe tells us, that Robespierre, 
 Billaut, Collot d'Herbois, and others were all 'Cain's 
 brethren,' was determined to show his destroyers that 
 a Danton dies as he has lived. His last words and 
 thoughts, during the hours of his life now fleeting so 
 rapidly away, were all tinged with the manly energy 
 and cutting sarcasm which formed a fundamental part 
 of his nature. Sometimes he would reason quite calmly 
 about the judgment that would be passed upon him by 
 future ages. ' I have the consolation of knowing,' said 
 he, ' that the man who goes to his death as the leader 
 of the. faction of indulgence, will find favour in the eyes 
 of posterity. Besides,' he added, ' suppose they per- 
 severe in these severities. When the condemned 
 march to the scaffold laughing, it is time to break the 
 scythe of death.' x As if to prove that laughter, con- 
 tempt of the scaffold, insolent bravado in the very face 
 of death, might be heard even in the executioner's 
 cart, he turned to Desmoulins, and, half sneering at his 
 tears, said : (this saying has been attributed to Lacroix) 
 ' What will you say when Sanson cuts your spinal cord 
 in two ? ' A terrible jest ! It is the jocoseness of a 
 Titan who braves not only death, but suffering ! What 
 insolent defiance of the deadly knife about to fall on 
 him ! What supreme scorn of the sudden death 
 awaiting that body now so full of life and strength! 
 It was Danton, too, who, even on the way to the 
 scaffold, said to Fabre d'Eglantine, who was lamenting 
 over the unfinished comedy in verse, ' L'Orange de 
 Make,' 2 that he, the dramatist, would never be able 
 to complete : * Vos vers ! Bah ! dans une semaine 
 
 1 ' Notes de Courtois ' (de l'Aube). 
 s It has been lost. 
 
The Road to the Scaffold. 345 
 
 vous ferez assez de vers.' 1 Danton's wit is akin to some 
 of Shakspeare's jests. 
 
 Then Danton, resuming his gravity, nobly added : 
 ' We have finished our task ; let us take our rest' 
 
 The hour was approaching. The executioner 
 arrived with his assistants to perform the toilet of the 
 condemned. Camille still struggled. He resisted to 
 the utmost, and just as it had been necessary to carry 
 him to the dock, so .they had to tie him to his seat while 
 the collar of his shirt was cut. We are informed that he 
 asked Danton to place between his bound hands a locket 
 containing Lucile's hair, which he had hitherto worn 
 next his heart. Danton complied ; then gave himself up 
 in his turn to the scissors and cords of the executioner. 
 There was upon his terrible face a smile of contempt. 
 
 Chabot embraced Bazire, and said to him : ' It is for 
 me that you are to die ! Poor Bazire, what have you 
 done ? ' 
 
 There were, in all, fifteen condemned, who were to 
 die together. They filled two tumbrils, which were 
 waiting for them, surrounded by gendarmes, in the 
 court of the Palais de Justice, before that terrible gate 
 which may be seen to this day. The crowd, pressing 
 against the railings, waited, impatient to see Danton 
 again. Camille Desmoulins stepped into the tumbril 
 the last but one. Danton followed him. He placed 
 himself between Camille and Fabre d'Eglantine. 
 Their elbows touched, and Danton's chest served as a 
 
 support to Camille's shoulder. ' The fools ! ' Dan- . 
 
 ton said, as he looked at the crowd. ' They are wait : 
 ing to cry Long live the Republic ! as we pass. In an 
 hour's time the Republic will no longer have a head ! ' 
 
 1 This horrible calembour, which turns on the identity of the words 
 Vers (verses) and vers (worms), is untranslatable. 
 
346 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 The tumbril moved on, and the gendarmes sword 
 in hand spurred their horses. There was a terrible 
 surging in the immense crowd which filled the 
 approaches of the Palais de Justice, lined the quays, 
 and formed a howling and yelling escort for the awful 
 cartload up to the Place de la Revolution. Danton 
 looked at this crowd, this nameless monster, ready for 
 every excess, for any reaction — ready to elevate tyrants 
 to apotheosis, or to drag the just to the shambles. He 
 looked at the masses, the true criminals of the terrible 
 2nd of September, so fresh in his own memory. 
 Among this moving heap of sightseers were some 
 infatuated beings who merrily sang the Marseillaise ; 
 but there were others, fewer and more intelligent, 
 who, as they saw Danton, Camille, Herault, and 
 Philippeaux pass to the scaffold, asked themselves 
 had the counter-revolution begun ? What thoughts 
 must have crowded upon these men, who, as they 
 passed out, pinioned, to die for the people, were 
 insulted by them ? The laughter of the crowd at 
 the ex-Capuchin Chabot may be excused ; but at 
 Danton, who would have led the people to the frontier 
 and have made heroism spring out of rags ! at Desmou- 
 lins, who, at the dawn of the revolution, had shown 
 the crowd the way to the Bastille! What bitter 
 reminiscences passed through the minds of those so 
 soon to be cold in death ! As a drowning man sees, 
 like a lightning flash, at one glance, his earliest memo- 
 ries, his first joys, his old loves, thus Camille lived his 
 past life over again — his walks in the Luxembourg, his 
 dreams of liberty, the scene of his first meeting with 
 Lucile, the feverish happiness of his married life, his 
 domestic joys, his chats at the fireside with Brune or 
 Freron, his long watchings by the cradle where the little 
 
The Road to the Scaffold. 347 
 
 Horace slept! What! had all vanished? Was all 
 annihilated ? Every turn of the wheel of the death- 
 cart brought him nearer to the inevitable end. And, 
 waiting on these fair dreams, was Sanson, below. 
 
 Then, wild with rage and despair, Camille tried to 
 break his bonds, and, tearing his shirt to rags, so that 
 his lean shoulder, neck and chest showed through the 
 tatters, he made a last appeal to the crowd — an appeal 
 more utterly thrown away on that heaving sea than if 
 it had been shouted in the desert, where at least the 
 echoes would not have answered by insults. 'You 
 are deceived, citizens,' he cried, in hoarse tones. ' Citi- 
 zens, your preservers are being sacrificed ! It was I, 
 who, in '89, called you to arms. I raised the first cry 
 of liberty ! My crime, my only crime has been pity ! ' 
 Vain words ! The condemned, like the conquered 
 everywhere, met with nothing but abuse. ' Be quiet,' 
 said Danton to him, ' and let the rabble be ! ' ' 
 
 Evening was at hand. The weather was superb, as 
 it was indeed during the whole of that terrible spring 
 of 1 794, so beautiful, so brilliant, so lovely, that old men 
 
 1 See the account of the death of Camille by Beffroy de Rigny (le 
 cousin Jacques). The author begins by stating his surprise that 
 Camille, who had pistols and daggers to excite the people to revolt, did 
 not find any to defend himself with at the moment of his arrest, or to 
 shoot his judges through the brain when brought before the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal. But he adds : ' Camille made incredible efforts to escape from 
 the hands of these wretches, who were the lowest of the hangers-on of 
 the tyrants, so that he went to the scaffold absolutely naked down to the 
 waist, his shirt being torn in rags. 
 
 '/saw him passing along the space before the Palais to the place of 
 blood, speaking to those near him with a scared look and in wild agita- 
 tion ; his face distorted with the convulsive laughter of a man out of his 
 senses. 
 
 ' Thus perished, at the age of thirty-four, Benoit-Camille Desmoulins, 
 the dupe and the victim of the madness of the eighteenth century,' &c. — 
 Dictionnaire-NSologique des homines et de choses, par le cousin Jacques. 
 Paris, an VIII. t. ii. p. 480. 
 
348 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 said ' such weather had not been seen within the 
 memory of man.' 
 
 The tumbril advanced slowly, pressing back the 
 crowd. The academician Arnault, who saw it pass, 
 has drawn, in his ' Souvenirs d'un Sexag^naire,' an 
 indelible picture of this group of young and courageous 
 men, dragged to the scaffold : Danton's unblanched 
 face wore an expression of contempt and disdain. 
 Herault de Sdchelles, whose face also wore its natural 
 hue, appeared more like a spectator than an actor in 
 the drama that was being played. He looked at the 
 surging sea of faces, ferocious, indifferent, or com- 
 passionate, with the phlegm of a painter who studies 
 the ocean during a tempest. Fabre appeared to be • 
 overwhelmed ; Camille Desmoulins spoke, called out, 
 and appealed continually to the crowd. As they 
 passed a cafe, Danton perceived that David was 
 making a sketch of the martyrs. ' Knave ! ' he called 
 out to him. They passed before Robespierre's house ; 
 the windows were closed as if for a funeral, those 
 windows which four short months afterwards were 
 smeared with blood by the crowd in its delirium. 
 Camille Desmoulins tried to make his terrible curses 
 reach the ears of Maximilien. ' My assassins,' he cried, 
 ' will not long survive me.' Thus was Danton's ejacula- 
 tion at the trial repeated before the house of their 
 enemy. 
 
 A few more turns of the wheels, and then, beyond 
 the immense crowd that filled the Place ds la Rivolu* 
 Hon, the condemned could perceive the hideous 
 machine, which, notwithstanding its rust, glowed in the 
 setting sun. There were gathered together multitudes 
 of human beings, eager to see how the tndulgents 
 would die. In the streets off the Place the taverns 
 
The Scaffold. 349 
 
 -were full of men drinking, who sang and chinked their 
 glasses. 
 
 A ray of the sun reddened the great plaster statue 
 of Liberty, which Madame Roland had saluted in dying, 
 on which pigeons, indifferent to scenes which inflame 
 the passions of men, had peaceably made their nests. 
 The lilac trees were in full bloom on the terraces of 
 the Tuileries. All this beauty of the opening year 
 marked out the tragic scene with greater distinctness. 
 The glory of the April evening made this frightful 
 deed all the blacker. 
 
 The tumbril drew up at the foot of the scaffold. 
 The executioner began his work. Hdrault de S6chelles, 
 still calm and resolute, was the first to descend from 
 the cart. He looked in the direction of the Garde- 
 Meuble, and saw a woman's hand, which from between 
 the half-opened blinds Waved a last farewell to the 
 dying man, as if to say ; ' Thou wert loved ! ' It is 
 known that he tried to embrace Danton, to press his 
 cheek to the cheek of his friend. Sanson's assistants 
 prevented this. Danton shrugged his shoulders. 
 ' Fools,' he said, ' you will not be able to hinder our 
 heads from meeting presently in the basket ! ' He 
 continued to scoff at death. Herault mounted the 
 guillotine, appeared standing on the platform, and 
 while the crowd repeated his name, he was bound to 
 the plank, his head severed from the trunk, and he 
 was no more. 
 
 Lacroix was the next executed. 1 
 
 1 Arnault, in his ' Souvenirs,' is severe upon Herault. In some 
 fragments of the writings of Andre" Chenier are some cutting lines 
 which, we are told by the relative and editor of Andre", M. Gabriel de 
 Chenier, portray Hdrault de Sdchelles. In the third volume of the edition 
 of the 'CEuvres poe"tiques' of Andre" de Chenier (Iambes, xi. p. 291, edit. 
 A. Lemerre, 1874) I find the following : 'Who is the big brown fellow 
 
350 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife.. 
 
 Then came Camille's turn. He recovered under 
 the knife the calmness he had lost on the way 
 thither. 
 
 ' Thus, then,' he said bitterly, as he looked at the 
 clotted and gory arms of -the guillotine, 'the first 
 apostle of Liberty ends ! ' and then drawing attention 
 to the lock of Lucile's fair hair, which he had held 
 clasped tight within his fingers the whole way from 
 the Conciergerie, he said, ' Have this sent to my 
 mother-in-law ! . . . . O my poor wife ! ' They pushed 
 him under the knife, and his head fell. 
 
 Danton was the last to die. Arnault, who saw him 
 standing erect upon the dreadful platform, his feet in 
 the blood of his friends, compared his firm and 
 athletic figure, thrown out against the horizon, to one 
 of Dante's conceptions. The setting sun shone upon his 
 majestic countenance like the reflection from a forge. 
 His head, which had been held up before the tribunal 
 
 (described in four, six, or at the most eight, verses) ? Have I not known 
 him well in former days, with his long hair down his back, soiling the 
 damask-covered chairs, sneering and saying nothing, yet aspiring to be 
 
 called a wit, &c. ? This certainly is H . He is called Cicero among 
 
 the lawyers, " et bel esprit chez les catins ! " ' 
 
 Andre" avenges the wrongs of the Swiss and Collot d'Herbois in his 
 iambics, but becomes defamatory in his verse's when he attacks Hdrault 
 de Sechelles. He is no longer Archilochus, he is Zoilus. All that can be 
 said is that Andre" did not understand Herault ; in point of fact, he mis- 
 understood him. The handsome Sdchelles might have said, when he was 
 dying, as the unfortunate Chenier said some months afterwards : 
 
 ' J'avais pourtant quelque chose Id, /' 
 
 We must add a strange and dramatic incident. On the very day of 
 Hdrault's execution the theatre of the National Opera had a representation 
 of a sans-culottide in five acts : ' The Reunion of the Tenth of August, or 
 the Inauguration of the French Republic,' in which Hdrault is seen in the 
 act of burning the emblems of royalty. Thus, some hours after the execution 
 of the veritable Hdrault, a comedian makes his appearance on the 
 stage, 'got up' perhaps after the portrait of He"rault de Sdchelles by 
 Laneuville. 
 
The Scaffold. 351 
 
 haughtily, like that of one inspired, retained even 
 on the scaffold its expression of power and command. 
 He, too, was thinking of his wife. His courageous 
 lips allowed these words to escape them : ' My beloved, 
 I shall never see thee again ! ' Then, drawing himself 
 up, and recovering his composure at once, he said 
 aloud : ' Come, come, Danton, no weakness !-' He 
 looked the executioner in the face, and said in his 
 sonorous voice : — ' Show my head to the people ; it is 
 worth while ; they do not see the like every day ! ' 
 
 The last words of Danton were equivalent to a 
 command, and the frightened crowd repeated the 
 bold words, which he had uttered so loud that every 
 one heard them. The bloody knife fell for the last 
 time. Danton was no more. ' Kings are struck only 
 on the head,' he had once said. It was on ' the head,' 
 also, that they struck his eloquence, his courage, his 
 boldness, his high spirit, which form the only royalty 
 worth admiring. 
 
 And as with the Girondists, a few instants sufficed 
 , — one half-hour ; perhaps, alas ! less than that — for the 
 sacrifice of the Dantonists. 
 
 The frightful promiscuousness of the punishment 
 flung together trunkless heads and headless trunks in 
 one hideous medley ; also many virtues and many vices ; 
 the eloquence and patriotism of Danton, the wit and 
 irony of Desmoulins, the military bravery of Wester- 
 mann, the probity of Philippeaux, the elegance and 
 profound faith of Herault, and the skill and talent of 
 Eglantine. A clerk registered, two days later, at 
 the tribunal, a bloody heap of incongruous articles 
 brought in by an assistant of the executioner — me- 
 dallions, shoe-buckles, greatcoats, inkstands, paste- 
 board snuffboxes, cravats or neckties, ruffled shirts ; — 
 
352 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 all that Was left of -the young men whose hearts 
 had throbbed so warmly at the great names of 
 Liberty, Fatherland, Freedom, and the Republic! 
 Of all they had possessed, high spirit, courage, 
 hope, error perhaps, but still generous error — of all 
 that had throbbed, struggled, loved, suffered, what 
 remained ? 
 
 Corpses huddled into a trench in the cemetery of 
 the Madeleine, the clothes at the registry office ; as for 
 their memories, they were already given over to the* 
 calumny of their triumphant enemies, and the ingrati- 
 tude of those for whom they had died. 
 
 For, it was for us they fell. Labourers sacrificed in 
 the early days, the days of darkness and bloodshed, they 
 gave their existence for us without reckoning the cost, 
 that they might assure to us a freedom yet to come. 
 Eager to renovate the world, from a political, moral, 
 judicial, legislative point of view — rin.a word, to found 
 a new society, they banded themselves together against 
 the past, and in the face of a furious opposition they 
 organised a formidable struggle. Their life was a 
 combat, and if — as we all hope — we succeed in estab- 
 lishing social peace, after so much sorrow, and so many 
 crises, in this cruelly tormented country, to them our 
 gratitude will be due. They have broken open the. 
 door that future generations may enter. 
 
 ' Undoubtedly their stern work has records which 
 we would fain efface. In those troubled times while 
 they were struggling, they held individuals too cheaply, 
 forgetting the sacredness of human life, and that ideas 
 are not destroyed when the body is slain. They were 
 more revolutionary than republican, and it was time 
 that the Republic should become a government and 
 cease to be a revolution. But of what irresistible 
 
Dantoris Ptirpose. 353 
 
 currents were they not the prey ? Danton knew this 
 well, he felt it fully, and he perished for having tried to 
 establish liberty, in opposition to a superhuman and 
 ' inhuman ideal, of which those whom he called 'the 
 Jansenists of the Republic ' would have made supreme 
 law. He foresaw that such a method of government, 
 antipathetic to the temperament of the French (these 
 are his own words) would infallibly lead to a revolt ; 
 that is to say, to anarchy or reaction, and afterwards 
 to a dictatorship. Behind Robespierre he descried 
 Caesar. 'The revolution,' he said, 'cannot be held to 
 be really made while the people do not know how to 
 profit by it.' 1 Therefore he tried to make the torrent 
 return to the bed whence it had overflowed. Let those 
 only count this a crime in him who do not regard pity, 
 liberty, and justice as virtues. 
 
 ' Danton killed by Robespierre,' writes Courtois, in 
 his ' Notes,' ' is Pyrrhus killed by a woman,' The truth 
 is that Danton killed by Robespierre, is Robespierre 
 giving himself up to the scaffold, and that speedily. 
 Robespierre had good reason to shut himself up in 
 Duplay's house, while the tumbril in which Camille 
 was seated was passing before the door. Only four 
 months later, when he was seeking to save his own 
 life, a voice called out to him, ' The blood of Danton 
 chokes you ! ' Yet, not he more than others, had shed 
 Danton's blood, and he certainly had hesitated to 
 sign the order for the execution of Camille with Dan- 
 ton; but merciless consequences dragged the accusers 
 in the train of the accused ; and as Desmoulins had 
 perished after the Girondists, so Robespierre and his 
 friends were to perish after Danton and his friends. 2 
 
 1 See in the Appendix, Notes of Courtois (de PAube). 
 
 2 The following epigram went the round of Paris after the execution 
 
 A A 
 
354 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Why did they not -unite their efforts to found the 
 Republic? Why did they not abjure their resentments 
 and their prejudices, and so end the reign of hatred ? 
 
 Danton, at least, knew not how to hate. He had a 
 large heart, in that athlete's breast of his. Although 
 he did not weep like Desmoulins, he was quite as 
 tender-hearted. Like Desmoulins, he was loved during 
 his life and after his death. Danton's father and 
 mother-in-law, M. and Madame Gely, who inhabited 
 for some time afterwards the house in which Danton 
 lived, in the Passage du Commerce, told M. Eugene 
 Despois, a young relation of theirs, from whom I have 
 the account, about Danton's domestic life, and how 
 loveable a man he was. This exact information, given 
 by the survivors, is very different from the pretended 
 traditions which make Danton out to be a man of 
 pleasure. The daily life of the tribune was that of 
 an honest citizen, loving his wife, his fireside, and his 
 books, preferring domestic joys to public greatness ; at 
 once compassionate and terrible ; one of those men who 
 may be compared to rivers whose overflowing fertilises, 
 and whose mighty waves carry men onwards to the 
 open sea. 
 
 In speaking of Danton, the venerable Madame 
 Gely, who had always been very pious, never failed to 
 say to the maternal grandfather of M. Despois : ' Ah ! 
 
 of the Dantonists (see ' Memorial of the French Revolution,' by P. C. 
 Lecomte) : — 
 
 ' Lorsqu'arrives au bord du Phlege'ton, 
 Camille Desmoulins, d'Eglantine et Danton 
 Payerent pour passer ce fleuve redoutable. 
 Le nautonier Caron, citoyen equitable, 
 A nos trois passagers voulut remettre en mains 
 L'exce'dant de la taxe imposee aux humains ; 
 Garde, lui dit Danton, la somme toute entiere 
 Je paye pour Couthon, Saint-Just et Robespierre.' 
 
. v Dan fan's Character. 355 
 
 my cousin, I am happy about our poor Danton's fate. 
 M. l'Abbe de Keravenant (the nonjuring priest who 
 married Danton) followed him when he was led to 
 death, and .he took advantage of an instant when 
 Danton looked at him, and made a sign of intelligence, 
 to give him mentally holy absolution.' Danton could 
 hardly, in the eyes of an orthodox person, be said to 
 be fortified with the rites of the Church ; but the 
 remembrance of the priest whom Danton saluted, and 
 the conviction of the aged Madame Gely, prove two 
 things — the calmness of the dying Danton saluting a 
 friendly face in the crowd, and the manly goodness of the 
 man who inspired such sympathies. Happy are those 
 who die beloved ! Their memory sooner or later will 
 be avenged; their death will be regarded by some as 
 a martyrdom, by others as an expiation, by all with 
 regret. 
 
 To be loved ! It is the ideal of happiness, and often 
 it is salvation. To be loved! Camille Desmoulins 
 was loved, and therefore is his memory living still ; 
 therefore, notwithstanding the unpardonable excesses 
 of his pamphlets, he is absolved, nay, more, he is held in 
 honour, by those who admire his talents and compas- 
 sionate his fate. . The love of his wife, the romance of 
 his life, have caused the reality of his history to be for- 
 gotten. At the sight of this pair who loved each other 
 so much, and who were struck by the same knife within 
 two days of each other, one is moved to sorrow. We 
 no longer hear the sarcastic laugh of Desmoulins 
 driving Brissot or Chaumette to the scaffold ; we no 
 longer hear the grating of the rope slipping down the 
 ' fatal lamp-post.' We only see this young man of 
 thirty, dragged from the embraces of his wife, the 
 prattle of his child, and flung into the -bloody grasp of 
 
356 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife, 
 
 the guillotine. We hear only the immortal words he 
 committed to paper, the letters over which he wept, 
 scarce knowing what he wrote. Camille, ' the gamin 
 of genius,' is transfigured by misfortune. It was the 
 pen of a youth intoxicated with liberty which traced 
 the ' France libre ; ' the stylus of a spoiled child 
 wrote the ' Discours de la Lanterne,' certain pages of 
 the 'Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' and 
 'Brissot demasque;' but the hand of a man held the 
 fiery steel of the 'Vieux Cordelier,' and the head 
 of a man fell on the 1 6th Germinal, under the axe of 
 Sanson. 
 
 II. % 
 
 ' The wretches ! not satisfied with assassinating me, 
 they are going to kill my wife too ! ' Camille had said. 
 At the same hour Madame Duplessis, in her terror, 
 was writing a letter to Robespierre which remained un- 
 finished and which never reached Maximilien, a letter in 
 which the cry of Camille was repeated — 'Robespierre,- 
 was it not enough to kill your best friend ; will you also 
 shed the blood of his wife ? ' Lucile had been de- 
 nounced by a certain Amans, imprisoned in the Luxem- 
 bourg — a miserable spy, a decoy of his fellow-prisoners ; 
 a mouton, who, in a letter to Robespierre, accused the 
 ex-General Dillon of conspiring in favour of Danton, 
 Camille, and Philippeaux. ' Dillon,' this Amans wrote, 
 ' works in his office every night until five or six o'clock 
 in the morning ; he has a trustworthy messenger, who 
 comes and goes with packets ; suspicious-looking people 
 come to see him, and speak with him privately. . . * 
 
L ucile is Denounced. 357 
 
 It is not the first time, in fact, that we have had to 
 notice the comparative liberty allowed to prisoners 
 under the Reign of Terror.' x 
 
 Amans accuses Dillon of having money, and of 
 fomenting a conspiracy. The agent, Alexandre La 
 Flotte, soon gave a name to this imaginary plot. 
 Fouquier complained that they meant to assassinate 
 him, and the conspiracy of the prisons was created. 
 Dillon, according to La Flotte, had concerted a project 
 with Simond, the deputy (a friend of Herault). They 
 distributed' money among the people. They sent 
 ' persons ' among the Revolutionary Tribunal, Des- 
 moulins' wife, added La Flotte, is in the plot. 2 
 
 1 See the ' Memoirs ' of Madame Roland in the prison of St. P^Iagie. 
 The 'Essais' of Beaulieu also show how the prisoners were allowed to go 
 to the cafd of the Conciergerie, where (wonderful to relate !) ' there was,' 
 he says, ' a good deal of gaiety-' 
 
 2 There is a record respecting the Dantonists and the day after 
 their death which will be read with interest, called the ' Rapport fait a la 
 Socidtd des Amis de la Liberte" et de l'Egalit^, seante aux Jacobins,' Rue 
 Honore", Paris, upon the conspiracies of Hebert, Ronsin, Vincent, and 
 their accomplices ; of Fabre d'Eglantines {sic) ; Chabot, Delaunay 
 d'Angers, Bazire, Danton, Lacroix, He'rault, Camille Desmoulins, Philip- 
 peaux, Westermann, and their' accomplices, by Dumas, president of the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal, one of the members of the society. Sitting of the 
 23rd Germinal (the eve of the execution of Lucile). The report speaks in 
 the same breath of the ' enraged ' and the ' indulgents.' 
 
 ' The brigands,' says Dumas, ' who were bold usurpers, betrayed 
 the cause of the people. A watchful government has followed them to 
 the foot of the grave they dug for liberty, and the national justice has 
 precipitated them into " nothingness." They are no more, and soon we 
 shall say of their accomplices also, They have lived ! ' 
 
 He calls the Dantonists, ' creatures and rivals of the immoral 
 Mirabeau, the poor slaves of d'Orleans, who only attacked the king, 
 never royalty.' He represents them 'as loaded with the spoils of 
 Belgium and dreaming of themselves as new Cromwells.' What rhetoric ! 
 ' You sold the welfare of the public,' he says to them, ' to the enemy 
 very cheap.' Still the same System, which consists of confounding the 
 friends of clemency with the forgers of the decrees of the Convention. - 
 
 [The society has stopped the printing of the present discours, and its 
 distribution to the members, the people in the galleries, and the affiliated 
 
358 CamilU Desmoulim and his Wife. 
 
 The destruction of Lucile — a woman ! — was de- 
 cided upon. The Committee, not satisfied with having 
 silenced for ever the pen of the. pamphleteer, deter' 
 mined to strike the author of the ' Vieux Cordelier ' 
 another blow, through her who bore his name. 
 
 At the hour when the heads of Danton and Camille 
 fell, Vadier mounted the rostrum of the Convention, 
 and declaring that he had been present 'without 
 being seen, at the scandalous debates of the Revo- 
 lutionary Tribunal,' asserted that Dillon and Simond 
 were conspiring now in their prison. ' They have,' 
 he said, ' organised a cohort of scoundrels, who are to 
 issue forth from the Luxembourg, with a password, to 
 occupy the avenues to the Committees of Public Wel- 
 fare and General Safety, fall upon the members com- 
 posing these Committees, and immolate them to their 
 fury.' ' And these men,' added Vadier, ' still breathe.' 
 Couthon succeeded him on the rostrum, and asked for 
 a fresh sentence of death. The following night, the 
 prisoners accused of having taken part in the 'conspiracy 
 of the prisons ' were taken to the Conciergerie. Among 
 them were Arthur Dillon, the deputy Simond, the ex- 
 bishop Gobel ; Anaxagoras Chaumette, one of Camille's 
 victims ; Grammont-Roselly, the actor, adjutant-general 
 of the revolutionary army, who had insulted Marie- 
 Antoinette as she went to the scaffold ; Grammont- 
 Nourry, his son; Lambert, the turnkey ; Beyssier, the 
 surgeon ; and the widows of Hebert and Camille. 
 
 What strange irony in the promiscuous joining to- 
 gether in condemnation and death of the Jacqueline 
 of Pere Duchesne and the Rouleau, the bon lojip of 
 Camille ! Thrown side by side, accused together, 
 
 societies. Signed, Veau, deputy-president; Maillard, vice-president | 
 Lequinio, deputy ; Voiron, Lassis, Leclerc, and Poidevin, secretaries.] 
 
Lucile is yudged, 359 
 
 threatened with the same danger ! ' They often sat 
 on the same stone in the court of the Conciergerie,' 
 says Riouffe, 1 ' and wept together.' 
 
 Certain gaolers of the Luxembourg, some old 
 soldiers, of the army of Ph. Ronsin, a man-at-arms 
 belonging to the household of the Count of Artois, 
 Commissary Lapalue, Captain Lassalle of the merchant 
 marine, Adjutant Denet, Lebrasse, a lieutenant of the 
 gendarmerie, were imprisoned with the wretched women. 
 
 All these unhappy beings, threatened with a com- 
 mon accusation, were brought before the Revolution- 
 ary Tribunal as guilty of having conspired against the 
 safety of the people, and of having wished to destroy 
 the National Convention. To destroy the Convention ! 
 Lucile wish to do that ! Fouquier-Tinville went still 
 further in odious absurdity : he accused Dillon, 
 Lambert, Simond, and Desmoulins' widow of having 
 ' aimed at replacing on the throne of France the son of 
 Louis XVI.' 
 
 ' They were in the pay of the foreigner,' said the 
 public prosecutor. Lucile exert herself to destroy the 
 Convention, and place the Dauphin on the throne! 
 All that she wished was to see Camille again, to save 
 him if she could, or to find him again in death, if 
 her efforts should prove vain. The unhappy wife 
 never received those eloquent, sublime, and touching 
 letters of farewell which Camille had addressed to 
 her from his prison.' 2 She had not been able to press 
 
 1 ' Memoirs of a Prisoner,' p. 66. 
 
 2 ' Before quitting the Luxembourg,' said M. Emile Campardon, 
 ' Camille wrote his wife a touching letter. . . . When he arrived at the 
 Conciergerie he gave it to Citizen Grossd-Beaurepaire, whom he found 
 detained there, charging him to have it delivered to his wife. But 
 Madame Desmoulins soon followed her husband to the scaffold, and this 
 letter never reached her. Grossd-Beaurepaire gave it to Jules Pard, 
 formerly Minister of the Interior, and a friend of Danton and Canrillej in 
 
360 Camille Desmoulins and kis Wife. 
 
 a last kiss upon the paper blotted with Camille's tears. 
 She longed then, with feverish ardour — like that of 
 the martyrs eager to be delivered to the torturers— 
 for death which should reunite her with him whom 
 she had lost. 
 
 Before her judges she was calm and intrepid, but 
 withal womanly. She denied that General Dillon had 
 written to her, and sent her three thousand livres to 
 cover the expenses of an outbreak against the Conven- 
 tion. ' At least,' the president, Dumas, said to Dillon, 
 ' you cannot deny having lighted the flame of revolt in 
 the prisons ? ' 'I said,' replied the ex-general, ' that if 
 the terrors of the days of September were to be re- 
 enacted in the prisons (as was reasonably supposed at 
 one time), it would be the duty of every brave man 
 to defend his life, to demand to be heard and judged 
 before he allowed himself to be sacrificed.' This was, 
 in fact, the only crime of the accused ; they struggled 
 with the executioner for their own existence, or that of 
 those dear to them, 
 
 Lucile was guilty only of despair and love ; she 
 had never conspired, she had but hovered around the 
 prison like a bird over its nest, She had called on 
 Camille's name, she had made mournful signs which 
 were intended to convey all her feelings, in one look, 
 one gesture. That was enough for her destruction. 
 She was condemned to death, after three days' delibe* 
 ration, with eighteen others (all under twenty-six years 
 of age), on the 24th Germinal. Nearly all the con- 
 demned might say, with Chaumette, at the tribunal: 
 ' You have decided upon my fate. I await my destiny 
 with calmness !' 
 
 whose possession it remained.'— Le Tribunal Revolutionnaire, vol. ii. 
 p. 254. 
 
Lucile is Sentenced. 361 
 
 The astonishing serenity which Lucile had pre- 
 served during the trial, when there was a look in 
 her eyes as if she saw far beyond the judgment hall, 
 had given place to exultation ; and, on hearing the 
 sentence that condemned her to death, she raised her 
 head, and with eyes that glistened with the brilliancy 
 of fever, she cried, ' What happiness ! in a few hours 
 I shall see my Camille again.' And then her loyal 
 glance fell upon her judges. ' In quitting this earth, 
 to which love no longer binds me,' she said, ' I am 
 less to be pitied than you ; for at your death, which 
 will be infamous, you will be haunted by remorse for 
 what you have done.' 
 
 The tribunal condemned Hebert's widow with 
 Camille's widow. The ex-nun of the Convent of the 
 Conception, in the Rue St. Honore, the woman whom 
 Fouquier accused of having employed ' her wit and 
 her charms to decoy men to conspire against her 
 country,' was to die with Camille's widow. In vain 
 did she declare she was pregnant. Thery and Naury, 
 the health officers, were of opinion that there were 
 no grounds for a reprieve. The wife of the inheritor 
 of Marat's tragic fame, and the wife of the promoter of 
 the Committee of Clemency, were to die on the same 
 day. But what a difference between these two women ! 
 Hebert's widow felt it herself. One of the witnesses 
 on the trial of Fouquier-Tinville, Grandpre, deposed 
 that on the day the sentence was pronounced, Hebert's 
 widow said to Lucile : ' You are very fortunate ; no- 
 body speaks ill of you ; there is no shadow upon your 
 character ; you will go out of life by the grand stair- 
 case.' Thus before their death these two beings, who 
 bore the names of men constantly hostile to each other, 
 became friends. The husbands had killed each other ; 
 
362 Camille Desmouliris and his Wife. 
 
 their widows renounced their traditional enmity upon 
 the steps of the scaffold. 
 
 What did it matter to Lucile whether she was 
 accused or defended ? She had no longer any pretext 
 for living in this world. She was one of those 
 heroines of conjugal love who are more wife than 
 mother. Besides, Horace lived, and Camille was dead. 
 It was of the absent only that she thought. As for 
 the child, would not Madame Duplessis act a mother's 
 part to him ? The grandmother would watch over the 
 orphan. If Lucile had lived, she could have done 
 nothing but weep over the cradle, thinking of Camille. 
 
 Lucile dressed herself for death as if for a 
 bridal. She displayed, I repeat, the holy exultation of 
 a martyr. ' The blood of a woman drove the Tar- 
 quins out of Rome ; so may mine drive away tyranny' 1 
 — are words imputed to her. 
 
 While Hebert's widow wept, Lucile smiled. She 
 had cut her hair ' close to her head,' we are told by 
 the executioner, 2 and she sent it to her mother,. perhaps 
 with a letter which she wrote in her prison — a short 
 
 1 M. Ed. Fleury considers these words apocryphal, because they 
 are not in accordance with the character of Lucile, which was simple, 
 dignified, touching, and modest. Enthusiasm, however, does not exclude 
 dignity, and we have seen from the memoranda of the young girl that 
 Lucile was both enthusiastic and charming. 
 
 2 ' The 24th saw many persons perish, among them Camille Des- 
 moulins' wife and Hubert's wife. The first made much impression upon 
 the public by her beauty and her demeanour. One man only dared to 
 insult Lucile. This was that wretched Geoffrey, the author of the 
 " Rougyff ou le Frankenvedette," a journal of blood and mud, whom 
 Camille was weak enough to call " our dear Rougyff," and who wrote 
 (No. 107): "The widows of Hdbert and Desmoulins chatted with appa- 
 rent calmness ; but an observant eye could see that it was more the 
 effect of a foolish pride in having played a part in the revolution ! " And 
 this man speaks of the conceit of the women in the face of the scaffold!' 
 — Memorial of P. C. Lecomte, vol. i. p. 276. 
 
Lticile is BxectUed. 363 
 
 letter, but irresistibly touching in its devotedness, its 
 resignation, its fervour : 
 
 ' Good-night, my dear Mama. A tear drops from my eyes ; 
 it is for you. I shall fall asleep in the calmness of innocence. 
 
 ' LUCILE.' 
 
 When the tumbril — the same perhaps which Camille 
 had ascended a week before — arrived to carry away 
 the condemned, the ex-General Arthur Dillon came 
 towards poor Lucile bowing his head. ' I am sorry,' 
 she said, ' to have caused your death.' Dillon smiled, 
 and replied that the . accusation against him was only 
 a pretext, and was beginning, to compassionate her in 
 his turn, when Lucile interrupted him. ' Look,' she 
 said, ' at my face ; is it that of a woman who needs 
 consolation ?' In truth, she looked radiant. She had 
 tied a white neckerchief under her chin. It covered 
 her hair. She looked a little pale, but charming. ' I 
 saw this young creature,' says Tissot, in his ' Histdire de 
 la Revolution;' 'and she made an indelible impression 
 on me, in which the memory of her beauty, the virginal 
 graces of her person, the melody of her heart-stirring 
 voice, were mingled with admiration of her courage, 
 and regret for the cruel fate which threw her into 
 the jaws of death a few days after her husband, and 
 which denied her even the consolation of being united 
 to him in the same grave.' Camille, ' that good 
 fellow,' could have said nothing in his own defence 
 but ' I am a child.' Lucile preferred to hold up her 
 head and ask for death. ' They have assassinated the 
 best of men,' she again said ; ' if I did not hate them 
 for that, I should bless them for the service they have 
 done me this day.' Among all the heroic women who 
 have died upon the scaffold, the youthful smiling face 
 
364 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 of Lucile stands out prominently, illuminated with 
 a joyous light. It is the wife dying for the husband, 
 a victim of passionate love of the noblest, holiest 
 kind. 
 
 She bowed to Dillon, ' with playfulness,' as if she 
 were taking leave of him in a drawing-room, and should 
 soon see him again ; then she took her place in the 
 second tumbril with Grammont-Roselly and his son, 
 who reproached each other with their respective deaths 
 during the transit ; Brumeau-Lacroix, Lapalue, Lassalle, 
 and Hubert's widow. Lapalue was . twenty-six years 
 old, Lassalle was twenty-four. Lucile chatted with 
 them pleasantly and smilingly. Grammont-Nourry 
 having called his father a scoundrel, it is recorded that 
 Lucile Desmoulins said to him, 'You insulted An- 
 toinette when she was in the tumbril ; that does not 
 surprise me. Had you not better keep a little of your 
 courage to brave another queen, Death, to whom we 
 are hastening ? ' ' Grammont,' says an eye-witness, 
 ' answered her with insults, but she turned from him 
 with contempt' Grammont-Roselly desired to em- 
 brace his son before he died, but his son refused that 
 last embrace with the utmost brutality. 
 
 ' Long live the king ! ' cried Dillon, returning on 
 the scaffold to what he had been at Versailles. 
 
 Lucile said nothing ; she mounted the steps of the 
 scaffold with a sort of happy pride. They were for 
 her the steps of an altar. She was going to Camille ! 
 This thought made her smile. The executioner looked 
 at her, moved in spite of himself. She was, he has 
 told us, scarcely pale. This young woman, who 
 looked like a picture by Greuze, died like a Roman 
 matron. The fair childlike head retained its expression 
 of profound joy and passionate ecstasy, even when 
 
When all was over, 365 
 
 flung bleeding, into the blood-stained sawdust of the 
 dreadful basket, by the brutal hands of Sanson's 
 assistant. 
 
 III. 
 
 Thus, of those who, in the December of 1 790, had 
 been present at the marriage of Camille and Lucile, 
 at St, Sulpice, three were dead : Brissot, Petion, 
 Lucile and Camille had disappeared. And in four 
 months' time Robespierre was to die ! 
 
 At Guise was an old man, overwhelmed with grief, 
 whom sorrow was bringing down to the grave. In 
 Paris was a broken-down man nearly dead with grief 
 like M. Desmoulins, and an old woman mourning 
 beside an orphan child. A few months later M. Des- 
 moulins and M. Duplessis had both passed away. 
 Political strife has always these dreadful after-conse- 
 quences, and grief kills slowly those whom the steel 
 has spared. 
 
 Madame Duplessis devoted herself entirely to the 
 education of. little Horace Desmoulins. She lived 
 with her daughter Adele, the betrothed of Robes- 
 pierre, who survived until a few years ago, at Vervins, 
 in M. Matton's neighbourhood. Philippeaux's widow, 
 ever faithful to his memory, also devoted herself to 
 his son. 
 
 These unhappy women lived for their respec- 
 tive charges, and nothing can be more touching than 
 the correspondence between the survivors of such 
 cruel trials. The letters, now published for the first 
 time, will be found at the end of this volume, 
 
366 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Canaille's faithful friend also watched over the little 
 Horace. Brune wrote to Madame Duplessis as 
 follows : 
 
 ' I have just written to Freron, as we agreed. 
 
 ' This is what I think you ought to ask of him. 
 
 ' 1st Being your children's friend, that he should take all 
 necessary steps in Horace's favour with the Committees. 
 
 '2nd. That he should claim for him the family papers, 
 and his father's manuscripts. The Committee of General 
 Safety has the right to retain temporarily such as relate imme- 
 diately to the welfare of the State. The others ought to be 
 given back to the young orphan at once ; they will serve 
 for his instruction, they will teach him to know the authors 
 of his being. 
 
 ' 3rd. That he should claim for Horace the family books ; 
 they also will be useful for his instruction ; they are indispens- 
 able for the supply of his wants ; besides, this justice has been 
 already done to Citizen Boucher's widow, therefore there is 
 a precedent for it. 
 
 ' Committees composed of the friends of justice ought to 
 be proud of being useful to the orphans of patriots. 
 
 'FreVon and his friends cannot refuse to act in concert 
 with you. Greeting and friendship. 
 
 ' (Signed) Brune.' l 
 
 Oh ! morrow of revolutions and of useless 
 slaughter ! 
 
 The time was not far distant when the Conven- 
 tion itself — that Convention which unanimously voted 
 the arrest of Danton, Camille, and their friends — 
 proclaimed that Desmoulins and Philippeaux had de- 
 served well of humanity. On the 10th Thermidor, 
 two months after the publication by Desenne of the 
 seventh number of the 'Vieux Cordelier' (1795), 
 Merlin de Thionville, Camille's friend and fellow- 
 
 1 Unpublished. 
 
When all was over. 367 
 
 worker, mounted the rostrum, and declared, amid 
 unanimous applause, that ' flowers ought to be laid 
 upon the tomb of the unfortunate Philippeaux, and 
 upon that of Camille Desmoulins, who was the. first 
 to assume the tricolored cockade, at the Palais 
 EgaliteV It was the green cockade, but Merlin de 
 Thionville's idea, which was so much applauded, was 
 a fitting tribute to him who had proudly called himself 
 ' the first apostle of liberty.' 
 
 A year later, deputy Bailleul presented to the 
 Council of the Five Hundred the report of a petition 
 from the widows of Carra, Gorsas, Petion, Valaze, 
 Brissot, and Philippeaux, asking the nation's aid for 
 themselves and their children. At the request of 
 Goupillau, the name of Camille Desmoulins' son, ' who 
 is in poverty,' was added to the draft of the decree 
 voted April 28, 1796 — 
 
 ' In consideration of Camille Desmoulins, a repre- 
 sentative of the people and a member of the National 
 Convention, having been put to death for rising 
 against proscriptions, and recalling principles of hu- 
 manity, too long forgotten.' At the end of this sentence 
 is recorded an annual grant of two thousand francs 
 to Camille Desmoulins' son, to be paid him until he 
 should have reached his eighteenth year. 
 
 The young orphan's life was short and sad. 
 
 In the year IX., he was placed at the Prytan^e, in 
 Paris (the same college of Louis-le-Grand where his 
 father had dreamed), where he remained until schools 
 were formed in the departments, of the boursiers from 
 the Prytanee. Horace was to be sent, we learn from 
 M. J. Quicherat, to the college of Bordeaux. ' It was 
 a death-blow to Madame Duplessis. She laid her 
 petition and her distress before the minister, Fourcroy, 
 
368 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 who was then director of public education ; he- imagined 
 that it would be easy to erase the child's name from 
 the list, but found himself powerless to do so. To 
 save the poor woman from the alternative of being 
 separated from her grandchild or of refusing the 
 education that was to be given him, there was no 
 other resource than to appeal to the kindness of the 
 director of St. Barbe, M. de Lanneau. Although 
 Desmoulins' name was in such bad odour, and Four- 
 croy's- favour was so uncertain, M. Lanneau hastened 
 to enrol the orphan among the number of his free 
 pupils. 1 
 
 Madame Duplessis did her best to protect her 
 grandson's interests, like a brave woman who had been 
 
 1 Jules Quicherat, ' History of St. Barbe,' vol. iii. p. 32, passage 
 quoted by M. E. Campardon. We possess among our autographs the 
 following letter from Madame Duplessis to M. de Lanneau: — 
 
 Sir, — Until now an illness, from which I hoped every day to recover, 
 but from which I am still suffering, has prevented me from coming, to 
 pay you the tribute of gratitude I owe you. Believe, monsieur, I beg, 
 that I look upon this hindrance as a new misfortune added to my sorrows. 
 I am anxious to express to you the impatience and trouble it has 
 caused me. I will devote the first strength of my convalescence to this duty. 
 Until I can acquit myself of it, accept the assurance of my profoundest 
 respect. I shall be able, I hope, soon to express this in person, accom- 
 panied by Camille's son. 
 
 Continue, monsieur, to watch over young Horace with the good- 
 ness of a true Maecenas, such as you have shown yourself to be,' and 
 accept on this occasion with indulgence the assurance of grateful wishes 
 and deepest respect. 
 
 Widow Duplessis. 
 Bourg. Egalite - : 4th Nivose, year XII. 
 
 An anonymous note, appended to this autograph, contains these 
 remarks by one of little Horace's masters : — 
 
 ' I knew this child, a young pupil of the institution of St. Barbe, 
 directed by M. Lanneau, and I was his master. He was a very amiable 
 and interesting child. I have never heard him spoken of since, and if he 
 be still alive, it is evident that he has not made so much noise in the 
 world as his father.' 
 
Horace Desmoulins. 369 
 
 made manlike by trial. (See a letter of hers relating 
 to her house of Bourg-la-Reine, in the Appendix.) • 
 
 Horace died at Jacmel, in Hayti, where he per- 
 haps met Virginie, the old negress, who is living to 
 this day, and whose name must have reminded him 
 of the proscriber of his father. She was Billaud- 
 Varenne's widow. Virginie, now old and decrepid, still 
 preserves the portrait of him whom Desmoulins ironi- 
 cally called ' Le rectiligne! 
 
 Horace Desmoulins left a daughter, now Madame 
 Broom, in Hayti, who inherited Horace's property, 
 and had among other relics some spoons marked 
 C. D., and Camille's drinking-cup. Also the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 1 st. A diploma dated 16th (or 10th) November, 
 18 1 6, given and signed by Charles-Philippe of 
 France, Monsieur, Count of Artois, Lieutenant-Gen eral 
 of the National Guards, authorising Horace-Camille 
 Desmoulins, a lawyer, corporal of grenadiers of the 
 National Guard, to wear the mddaille dii Lys ! 
 
 The medaille du Lys ! What wonderful changes 
 in this world of ours ! What would Camille. have said 
 could he have seen such a decoration on the breast of 
 his son ? 
 
 2nd. A bachelor-at-law's diploma in favour of the 
 same Horace-Camille Desmoulins, in the name of 
 Napoleon, Emperor of the French, King of Italy and 
 Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine — Paris, 
 August 24, 1813; signed, Louis de Fontanes, grand- 
 master of the University. 
 
 3rd. A diploma of the Royal Arch. Mason Eagle 
 Chapter, No. 54, at New York (April 5, 1824). 
 
 4th. A Certificate of the death of Horace-Camille 
 Desmoulins. 
 
 B B 
 
37© Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 Horace arrived at Hayti in 1817, and died, like his 
 father, at the age of the sans-adotte Jesus ; he was 
 thirty-three years old, and the certificate gives us the 
 date of his death, June 29, 185 1. 1 
 
 It was Madame Duplessis' fate to survive this child 
 also. She lived, a relic of other times, speaking elo- 
 quently of the tumultuous and eventful past. In 
 her modest apartment in the Rue de la Sorbonne, 
 forgotten, seeking retirement, and only opening her 
 door to a few friends, she spoke softly of times gone 
 by, and of great names departed. She recalled 
 the romantic reminiscences, sorrowful at once and 
 glorious, of the 14th of July, the 20th of June ; the 
 dark tragedies of the 16th and 24th Germinal, the 
 deaths of Camille and Lucile. Living thus, among 
 the relics of her former life, Madame Duplessis and 
 her daughter Adele sometimes turned over the 
 manuscripts of unpublished numbers of the ' Vieux 
 Cordelier,' or the note-book of the poor young Lucile. 
 She was like Rachel of old, less loud in her grief, but 
 struck down as deeply, and .like her refusing to be 
 comforted. 
 
 To Madame Duplessis, history owes the restora- 
 tion, in all its truth, of the vacillating but pleasing 
 character of Camille Desmoulins. She has preserved 
 and handed down to us the tradition of his troubled 
 and tragic existence. She has pleaded, if I may 
 say so, the cause of her children with posterity. 
 And side by side with the young and smiling faces 
 of Camille and Lucile, history has kept a place for 
 the sorrow-stricken, serious, grave countenance of the 
 aged white-haired woman, who survived all she loved 
 
 1 We are indebted to the kindness .of the distinguished doctor M. 
 Betonces of Hayti, for this information. ' 
 
Madame Duplessis. 371 
 
 — a place which lasts longer than the glamour of popu- 
 larity — longer than the clamour of hatred, which re- 
 mains, when the Reign of Terror has long been over,, 
 like pardon, forgetfulness, consolation, reconciliation, 
 and truth. 
 
 E B 2 
 
372 Camille Desmoulins and hts Wife. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 It is not without a certain melancholy that we re- 
 open the annals of the past. History bears in its train, 
 with its instructive lessons, its own especial sad- 
 ness. What evils ! What struggles ! What destruc- 
 tion ! What failures ! What triumph of injustice ! 
 What terrible eclipse of right ! What rude asser- 
 tion of might ! And, to recall only the period of 
 those episodes which we have related, what hopes, 
 brilliant at the beginning, and shattered at the end ! If 
 we were left with only the heart-breaking impression 
 which every man with a heart must feel at the recital 
 of such wholesale slaughter, we should shut up 
 our book in despair, and ask ourselves whether the 
 liberty the men of the eighteenth century desired so 
 ardently to secure exacted so many sacrifices and so 
 much blood ? But it is from afar, from a distance, 
 away from our own fireside, and as it were away from 
 the centre of our present condition, now based upon 
 equality, that the work of the French Revolution must 
 be considered. Liberty it gave us only in part ; but 
 equality — which our national temperament, unfortu- 
 nately, prefers to liberty — it established in reality and 
 for ever. This is the great feat, the absolute result, 
 which should console us for so many sorrows and 
 make us forget them; This is what binds us, sons 
 of the Revolution, to our tragic and magnificent 
 
Conclusion. 373 
 
 past, to the bubbling crucible in which was elaborated 
 modern society. 
 
 The Revolution will be to France what the Refor- 
 mation has been to Germany — an era of remodelling, of 
 fresh youth, and of new life. Each time we have 
 frankly adopted its principles, we have felt stronger 
 and more sure of ourselves. Each time we have 
 denied them, we have become like a man who loses both 
 his conscience and his confidence in himself. Come 
 what may; the Revolution is to-day our great national 
 tradition ; so true is this, that modern times admit of 
 no form of government which does not proceed 
 directly from the Revolution ; the Empire, which is 
 a deviation from it ; or the Republic, which' is its 
 law. 
 
 But we must agree upon what is called the Revo- 
 lution, and the time has arrived when we should accept 
 nothing that is not fruitful and solid in it— political and 
 social reform, generous ideas — when we should re- 
 pudiate all that is theatrical and hurtful. Healthy ideas 
 are to be found, codified, so to speak, in the ' Declar- 
 ation des Droits ' ; liberty is secured ; property is 
 inviolable ; natural resistance to oppression is per- 
 mitted ; in a word, the law has become the expression 
 of the general will, and has a right to forbid only those 
 actions which are hurtful to society ; public authority, 
 the guarantee of the rights of each, is exercised for the 
 advantage of all, and not for the private benefit of 
 those in whom it is vested ; society having the right 
 to call every public official to account for his adminis- 
 tration. These are the true ideas of the Revolution ; 
 its testament, I would say, if the Revolution were not 
 still living, and if the benefits it desired to secure to 
 future generations had not been taken from us only 
 
374 Camiiie Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 too often, and if we had not still to labour legally, 
 without disorder or violence, for their security. 
 
 Our ' breakers ahead ' are affectation, tragic gran- 
 deur, the love of fine words, of speech-making, of 
 dramatic effect, which turned the Revolution into a 
 tumultuous drama, at once terrifying and attractive 
 —attractive in that it still further developed in the 
 French that especial taste for outward demonstrations, 
 for costumes, for shows, which lies at the foundation 
 of the character of our race. The Revolution must 
 not be confounded with revolutions. The Revolution 
 is the complete reform of the ancient order of things ; 
 revolutions are a series of- shocks and of sudden 
 ' Coups cTdtat ' which have more that once imperilled 
 the very spirit of the Revolution. 
 
 It was to make an end of revolutions, tumults, 
 and the dog-days, — asCamille Desmoulins said, in speak- 
 ing of the outbreaks of the ' glorious faubourg ; ' — it was 
 to found liberty, to establish the Republic upon a solid 
 basis, that the men whose history we have related 
 risked and gave their lives. They were weary of 
 magnificent but sterile demonstrations. The long lines 
 of honest people offering the best of their goods to 
 the country (a poor woman brought — do not let 
 us laugh— four eggs, all she had to offer, to the 
 country), 1 those manifestations of generous sentiments 
 which spoke so loudly to the hearts of the masses had- 
 
 1 ' Moniteur' of March 17, 4793, p. 346, 1 : 
 
 ' I observe that a poor widow without any resources came to lay upon • 
 the altar of the country FOUR EGGS ; it was all she had. I regret not to 
 be able to tell you her name.' (This widow was from Tarbes.) Feraud, 
 deputy of the Hautes-Pyrenees, remarks this fact, and adds : ' A civic 
 auction was at once opened, and the four eggs produced an offering of 
 fifty hvres for the war expenses.'— Ibid. (Sitting of Thursday, March 14, 
 1 793-) - 
 
Conclusion. 375 
 
 another side to them, when cunning men or madmen 
 stirred up the mud in those grand and majestic currents. 
 Danton was weary of these perpetual eddies. He knew 
 that after the 10th of August came the dreaded 2nd of 
 September. He wished to make the Nile return to its 
 bed. Was this, as his mortal enemies called it, was this 
 to be a counter-revolutionist ? Yes, if by revolution we 
 understand the perpetual abandonment to mere instincts. 
 No, if we admit that the aim of the Revolution was the 
 constitution of the Republic and the establishment of 
 the laws. Like Mirabeau, Danton wished for order 
 without the ancient order. He was right. 
 
 Doubtless the Reign of Terror, dear to Saint- Just 
 under the name of ' justice,' and to Billaud-Varennes 
 under the name of ' fear,' gave a sinister grandeur to the 
 days gone by. Men's minds were invigorated by awe. 
 See what dignity or poetry characterised their last 
 hours. It was delirium, fever. They died like heroes, 
 like Jean Petit, a volunteer in the first battalion of the 
 Lombards, who said to the surgeon extracting the 
 lead, ' Give me the bullet ; I will send it back to the 
 Austrians;' like the gunner who exclaimed, ' Pitt ! your 
 guineas would not have bought a drop of my blood, 
 and I shed it all to-day for liberty ; ' like the man whom 
 the Vendeans tortured because he had killed his king, 
 and who cried out, with his feet upon the burning 
 brands, ' Call him back to life, and I will do it again ! ' 
 
 All this is replete with tragic grandeur, sublime and 
 wild. But did this national fever constitute, after all, 
 a government able to secure what France had vainly 
 demanded for nearly a century— a morrow ? What 
 had we come to, in 1793, and still more, in 1794' 
 when Danton desired to ensure peace and liberty to 
 France ? 
 
376 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife- 
 
 Camille Desmoulins propounded the question sor- 
 rowfully, with a sort of terrible presentiment : — 
 
 ' Shall France/ he said, ' be a Republic, or will she seek 
 in the Monarchy repose from her weariness of the continual 
 treason of her representatives ? Shall we form part of the 
 Prussian or Austrian monarchies, or will France be dis- 
 membered into a federal Republic ? Shall Paris, as the price 
 of her civism and her sacrifices, be drowned in blood ? Will 
 you decree -her entire destruction, the depopulation of the 
 eighty-four departments, and perhaps fifty years of civil war ? 
 Shall it be a question whether the founders of the Republic 
 are not worthy of death ? ' ' 
 
 These were the thoughts and doubts which filled 
 the hearts of some men then, and which, minus the 
 threats of death, assail and profoundly disquiet the 
 hearts of patriots now. ' What will France be ? Whither 
 is she tending ? Will she be a Republic or a Monarchy ? 
 And — still more formidable question — will she be 
 France ? ' 
 
 Alas ! after having seen her fall so many times from 
 liberty into despotism, free herself to-day to hold out 
 her arms to the lictor's cords to-morrow — after having 
 seen her hesitate, stagger, then rush blindly into the 
 gulf, we ask ourselves, the terrible question which 
 Desmoulins and Danton asked. 
 
 It is because they replied to this question that it 
 was time to devote their lives to the organisation of 
 the Republic — that is, to the welfare of the country ; it 
 is because they represented good sense, a clear view of 
 the future, law and justice based upon pity and gene- 
 rosity, that I felt myself drawn towards them, and 
 wished to add a page to their history. 
 
 They did not establish anything definitively because 
 1 Speech on the trial of Louis XVI. 
 
Conchtsion. 377 
 
 they died, because Robespierre himself fell in trying 
 to take up, in another form, the task for which he 
 assailed them so pitilessly ; they did not establish any- 
 thing, and yet, on the day when the French nation 
 enjoys peace and stability, it will be to them she will 
 owe (and she will remember it) her emancipation and 
 her new organization. 
 
 This day is perhaps far distant. The liberty of 
 which Camille dreamed, that liberty which was the 
 daughter of Athens reared under the sky of Gaul, 
 liberty alike elegant and affable, is still far off. Until 
 now we have preferred equality to liberty. We 
 have let fall the substance for the shadow. What 
 matters it to me that I am the equal of him who 
 is not free ? What matters it to me that I share the 
 rights of one whose right it is to grovel ? But 
 equality fascinates, like a chimera, while liberty re- 
 quires a loftier worship. This is the easy seduction 
 of the one and the eternal charm of the other. 
 
 Let us then love and prefer, above all, the liberty 
 which makes men honest and nations great. Let us 
 love her, despite her excesses, and in order to hinder 
 her excesses. A free people knows not the fury 
 of nations that break their fetters and are but un- 
 chained from time to time. Slaves only flock to the 
 Saturnalia. 
 
 Let us not imitate these ancestors of the Revolution 
 except in their probity and their uprightness, in those 
 qualities which would easily make, despite its perils and 
 trials, the epoch in which they lived more enviable 
 than the degenerate times through which we drag our 
 steps. Do not let our enthusiasm consist in a retro- 
 spective passion for scarfs, plumes, or costumes. The 
 Commune of 1 871 has shown us what those traditions of 
 
378 Camille Desmoulins and his Wife. 
 
 revolution, all display and sham, cost. Let us be of 
 our time, honouring the past for what was great in it, 
 but not seeking to begin it over again. The future 
 is made from to-day, not from yesterday. Let us try to 
 construct, not a revolutionary State always in efferves- 
 cence, but a republican State, both solid and peaceable. 
 
 Let us cultivate our vines and our crops upon the 
 extinct volcano that none should rekindle ; and while 
 the grumbling, the sullen roaring of the lava of hatred 
 shall pass away more and more with fresh generations, 
 let us think only of our mother, our country, whose 
 wounds are bleeding still, and of our betrothed — 
 Liberty, whom perhaps fate still reserves for our love ! 
 
 It is with this prayer, this dream, that I wish to 
 conclude a book in which will be found, I think, hatred 
 of oppression, whatever it may be, and respect for 
 human life and liberty. But let us not forget the 
 Dantonists' death, that frightful sacrifice of devoted 
 citizens, while we say to ourselves that at least their 
 death was of some use. None of them in dying gave 
 the lie to their lives. As they lived, so they died. The 
 things of this world disenchant us often, but it would 
 be too bitter a thought that such sacrifices are useless, 
 and that the people for whom men such as these died 
 are incapable of being free, and will, as Tacitus says, 
 hurl themselves upon slavery. So many violent Coups 
 d'e'tat of all sorts, so many successive deceptions, so 
 much ignorant despair, have perhaps at last accustomed 
 the nation to serve. Perhaps she feels lost without a 
 master. The restive horse wants the bit tightened, and 
 the manger full. 
 
 I will not believe this, and I will still hope. 
 
 ' There shall be no Brumaire to obscure again the 
 great sun that only the blind do not see,' said 
 
Conclusion. 379 
 
 Bonaparte. Peaceably, step by step, our France will 
 make her way to a state of calmness and reparation 
 where she will find once more her greatness and her. 
 rSle. The first of the everlasting flowers, as a thinker 
 who was also a poet called it, the flower of 'humanity, will 
 once more shed its perfume. And what joy would 
 remain henceforth to the world if we should only prove . 
 to it that Caesarism, open or disguised — that Caesarisrn 
 in which ended the Republic, the dream of Danton and 
 Camille — is also the end of all human effort, of sacri- 
 fice, and of martyrdom ? 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. i. 
 
 Unpublished Fragments of Camille Desmoulins' 
 Writings. 
 
 All that comes from the pen of a great writer has a real 
 importance, and especially whatever is left tmfinished and can 
 give, not a more perfect, but a more lifelike, idea of him. In 
 certain fragments by political writers, as in a painter's sketches, 
 ilwugh barely outlined, we discover the personality, the manner, 
 and, as it were, the peculiar bent of the author's talent. The 
 unptiblished fragments which follow are therefore given as 
 sketches. It will be seen in them how Desmoulins worked, 
 making orderly notes tabulated as subjects and words, so that 
 the journalist had at his disposal an alphabetical repertory, a 
 portable arsenal of quotations. More than one article merely 
 begun will also be found in these Notes. I have had to select 
 from among them so as not to moke my volume too large. 
 
 The authenticity of these Fragments is indisputable ; M. 
 Carteron copied them from Camilla's manuscripts, in the posses- 
 sion of Baron Girardot ; a piece of good luck by which we 
 have profited, thanks to the politeness of M. F. Lock, who had 
 these documents from M. Edouard Carteron. 
 
 Manners of the Romans. 
 
 Romulus divides the soil of the country into three parts : 
 one for religion ; another for the support of the government ; 
 
382 Appendix. 
 
 he distributes the third portion among the citizens. Hence, 
 no taxes. 
 
 In the beginning there were patricians and plebeians in 
 Rome ; but this distinction of the patricians in the beginning, 
 the word patrici, meant only, some authors say, those who 
 could give the name of their fathers. How many bastards 
 there must have been in the thirty-five tribes ! 
 
 The dignity of a prince of the Senate conferred only rank, 
 without power. This post was, however, most honourable, 
 because none but those who had led an irreproachable life 
 could aspire to it. 
 
 When the Republic had become a flourishing state, each 
 senator was obliged to prove possession of an annual 
 income of forty thousand livres, and Augustus received a 
 revenue of no less than sixty thousand livres. 
 
 The tribunes of the people convoked the Senate, and if 
 any senators were absent they lost a certain fee. At Rome 
 permission to speak was not asked ; the senators spoke in 
 their turn. 
 
 If anyone opposed a decree, it was no longer a senatusr 
 consultum, but was called the opinion of the Senate, senatus 
 • auctoritas. 
 
 At Rome the Senate was, . properly speaking, only the 
 ministry, the Council of State, the administrative body. The 
 matters reported to the Senate, authors say, were all those 
 which concerned the Republic ; but, 1st, the creation of 
 magistrates ; 2nd, the legislation ; 3rd, deliberations con- 
 cerning war and peace, were absolutely referred to the people. 
 The Senate was so entirely subordinate to the Assembly of 
 the people, that the people withdrew or restored its pre- 
 rogatives at will. In the year 63 1 the tribune Sempronius 
 Gracchus publishes a law which takes the judicial power from 
 the senators and transfers it to the knights. What did the 
 Emperors do in order to establish a despotism ? They began 
 by transferring the comitia to the Senate ; they made over to 
 them all the rights of the people, whom they thus despoiled 
 of the legislative power and of their sovereignty. The fasces 
 were lowered before the people in assembly, as were the 
 colours before the king. The people were divided into thirty 
 
From Camilles Note Book. 383 
 
 curiae ; so soon as sixteen of these had given their opinion, 
 the Assembly rose and the plebiscite was formed. 
 
 Varieties. 
 
 Two officers of the colonial regiment of Port-au-Prince 
 narrate a touching anecdote ; an example of attachment and 
 domestic virtue which only Eros, Antony's slave, has* hitherto 
 offered, and which seems above human nature, and to belong 
 only to dogs — animals, however, inferior to men in friendship. 
 M. Monduit du Plessis, colonel of the regiment . of Port-au- 
 Prince, had a mulatto who was much attached to him. After 
 the colonel had been hacked to pieces, the mulatto spent 
 several days in gathering together his master's scattered 
 limbs, and when he had done this, he dug a grave and buried 
 them. For several days he was seen to shed tears over 
 the grave, and he ended by shooting himself upon it with a 
 pistol. He was found dead on his master's grave. When 
 the first emotions of admiration aroused by this act were 
 succeeded by reflection, an observer said, ' There are, then, 
 men born to be slaves.' When death, which, in the old as in 
 the new order, makes all ranks equal, had levelled every dis- 
 tinction between the colonel and the mulatto, might we not 
 say that the latter, distracted by grief, still recognised a dis- 
 tinction between his master and himself — a distinction so 
 deeply rooted that he would not even kill himself upon his 
 master's body, lest their dust should mingle ; he only 
 killed himself upon the grave ? 
 
 Mably. 
 
 ' Money is the motive power of war,' said Arisfias ; ' do 
 you not see that our poverty does not permit us to have 
 a fleet and to keep up an army ? ' ' These fine maxims,' 
 says Phocion, ' would not have been heard when our fathers 
 vanquished the Persians at Marathon and Salami's. They 
 regarded temperance, the love of glory, courage and discipline 
 as the sinews of war ; they despised money, which was useless 
 to them ; they were poor, yet they built a numerous fleet to 
 
384 Appendix. 
 
 fight Xerxes : they constructed it out of the wood-work of 
 their houses ; they did not pay their citizen soldiers, who had 
 never commanded, and they vanquished the ten thousand 
 immortals whose splendid achievements were the admiration of 
 all Asia. If money be as powerful as Pericles called it, why 
 do we not buy a Miltiades, an Aristides, a Themistocles, 
 magistrates, citizens and heroes. 
 
 It is blasphemous to think that the gods make human 
 reason contradict itself, by advising in the name of policy what 
 it forbids in the name of morality. As for me, I make policy 
 the servant of reason, and from that I see the happiness of 
 communities arise. 
 
 Cyrus, wearied by the frequent revolts of the Lydians, 
 ordered them to wear mantles and buskins ; he gave them 
 entertainments, an opera-house, public walks, and enervated 
 them by means of a circus and a pantheon. 
 
 Voltaire 
 
 calls the Witch of Endor, Mademoiselle d'Endor. He sings 
 the praises of the journalist and his functions somewhere ; but 
 after all we must say, as the magician Mambres, in the ' Taureau 
 Blanc,' says to the witch, Mademoiselle d'Endor : ' Comrade, 
 your trade is a fine one, but dangerous ; and you run a risk 
 of being hanged.' 
 
 It is not without reason that the ancients made young 
 girls weep for their virginity before they were sacrificed ; 
 meaning that there was nothing to regret' in dying, when that 
 was lost. 
 
 Mercury, the god of lawyers, thieves, and orators. 
 
 The minister who does not send in his accounts is like a 
 man who, after having dined well, puts the forks and spoons 
 in his pocket, and decamps without paying. 
 
 J.- J. Rousseau. 
 
 We are surrounded by people who complain of their 
 lives. I ask if it has ever been heard that a free savage 
 thought of complaining of his life or of depriving himself 
 of it. 
 
From Camilles Note Book. 385 
 
 The conveniences of life soon lose their charm by use ; 
 they degenerate into actual necessities, the loss of which is far. 
 more painful than their possession was pleasant. 
 
 When the ancients, says Gratianus, gave the ear of corn to 
 Ceres as a legislatrix, and the name of Thesmophoria to a feast 
 celebrated in her honour, they intended to signify that 
 division of land had produced laws. 
 
 It is pleasant to hear Jean-Jacques exclaim at the sim- 
 plicity of the manners of such great people as M. and Madame 
 de Luxembourg. He weeps for joy, he wants to kiss the 
 footprints of that good Marshal de Luxembourg who went 
 out walking with one of his friends, a clerk of Britton's. 
 
 ' Having finished reading " Julie," I at once began to read 
 " Emile," that I might keep myself up in the presence of 
 Madame la Marechale.' What a mean creature ! 
 
 ' I received,' he says elsewhere, ' the greatest honour a 
 man can receive : a visit from the Prince de Conti.' An 
 honour which he shared with numerous prostitutes. 
 
 On reading his ' Confessions,' we say to him what he wrote 
 to Voltaire : ' I do not like you.' 
 
 A Philosopher 's Holidays (Materials). 
 
 We are doubly bound to pray for the emperors and the 
 whole empire, because we know the end of the world and the 
 miseries with which it threatens us are retarded by the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 In the public rejoicings, fires were made and tables were 
 laid, people ate in the streets, they ' .... in open day. 
 The Christians took no part in all that . . . . l which drew 
 down persecution. ' We are only of yesterday,' says Tertullian, 
 in speaking of the Christians, ' and we are everywhere ; in your 
 towns, your islands, your castles, your villages, your camps,, 
 your tribes, in the palace, the Senate, in the public squares ; 
 we leave you only your temples.' 
 
 The plays in Rome are excused on the ground, that men 
 in masks took the women's parts ; but it is precisely men in 
 women's clothes who are cursed by God in Deuteronomy. 
 
 1 Erased in the MS. 
 C C 
 
386 Appendix. 
 
 Tertullian compares with the feasts and pleasures of the 
 heathen the pleasures of the Christians, and here they are, 
 according to him : ' You trample the gods of the Gentiles 
 under feet ; you drive out devils, you heal the sick, you 
 demand consolations. . . . These are the pleasures, these the 
 plays of Christians.' 
 
 The envy of the clergy of the Roman Church of Tertullian, 
 and the affronts they put upon him, drove him into the heresy 
 of the Inontonists. Tertullian, in his treatise on the soul, 
 believes that all souls remain in hell — that is, in the middle of 
 the earth,— until the day of judgment, and that the (plank) of 
 the saints were there relieved ; he places the martyrs only in 
 heaven. 
 
 Four Christian soldiers saw a young man being tortured, 
 who, yielding to the pain, seemed about to renounce his 
 faith ; they began to grind their teeth with anger, to spread 
 out their hands, and to make signs to him with their faces and 
 their entire bodies. They were consequently led to the torture 
 themselves. 
 
 And Satan entered. The sacrificing priest, surprised, 
 hastened to Gregory, asking to be instructed, but the instruc- 
 tion displeased him. ' Never mind/ said B , ' I will pass 
 
 over my doubts, if you will command this stone to change its 
 place and go to another,' which he indicated. Gregory having 
 uttered the command, the stone, which was enormous, limes 
 agro positus, set off at once and did not stop until it reached 
 the place indicated by the heathen priest ; who thereupon 
 confessed Christianity. 
 
 In Origen we trace the pride and insolence of the bishops ; 
 we repulse the poor, we want to have body guards such as 
 belong to kings. 
 
 Origen thought it necessary to observe to the letter the 
 law concerning the first-fruits, also several others which had 
 not been abolished by the Gospel ; what he says of first-fruits, 
 he says also of tithes, and what he says of fruit he also says 
 of herds. 1 St. Cyprian attributes persecution to the relaxation 
 of morals : women paint ; men dye their beards, eyebrows 
 
 1 Erased in the MS. 
 
From Camillas Note Book. 387 
 
 and hair ; many bishops quit their sees, abandon their flocks, 
 go into the provinces, to frequent fairs and enrich themselves 
 by traffic (plank). We are full of pride, jealousy, and division ; 
 we neglect simplicity and faith, we have renounced the world 
 in word but not in deed ; we please ourselves, and we are 
 displeasing to everyone else. When the persecution of Decius 
 was proclaimed at Carthage, the magistrates' tribunals were 
 besieged by an immense crowd of Christians hastening to 
 offer sacrifice to the gods. A cord was put round the neck 
 of the priest Pionius to drag him to the temple in order to 
 kill him ; six soldiers pulled at it with all their might, but 
 he resisted so hard that they were obliged to force him 
 into the temple with kicks. This Pionius was one of those 
 most renowned among the Christians for science and phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 Let those who have denied their faith, if at the point of 
 death and no priest can be found, confess to a deacon, and 
 having received the imposition of hands, let them go to the 
 Lord in peace. — St. Cyprian. 
 
 Pertinent Allusions. 
 
 To people who come to hear sermons for the sake of the 
 preacher's eloquence may be applied what Joseph said to his 
 brethren who had come to Egypt in search of corn: Non 
 frumenti qucesitores, sed exploratores estis. — Massillon. 
 
 M. le Brun carried off at twenty years of age the accessit 
 of the Academy. In a notice of the young author's paper, 
 Freron ends with these words : ' Monsieur, France has already 
 given birth to a great painter of the same name as yours ; 
 there is room to hope that in our days ut pictura poesis erit.' 
 — Freron. 
 
 Erasmus loved to live at Basle ; he left the place sometimes, 
 but always returned thither : hie illius arma, hie currus fuit. 
 — Bayle. 
 
 The hypocrite covers his snares with the externals of 
 religion. He displays a superficial piety so as to give freer 
 course to his passions, and like .the priests of the temple of 
 Babylon, he offers all to the divinity in public ; in secret, and 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 Appendix. 
 
 by subterranean passages, he takes it all back for himself.— 
 Massillon. 
 
 At the Council of Trent, a French bishop complained of 
 the abuses committed in the disposal of benefices ; an Italian 
 prelate having said with a sarcastic smile, ' Gallus cantat", 
 ' Utinam,' replied the Bishop of Lavour, Pierre Danet, who 
 was French ambassador, ' utinam ad hunc Galli cantum 
 excitaretur petrus, et fleret amare. 
 
 Appropriate Applications. 
 
 The Cabal having suppressed the names of Pascal ' and 
 Arnauld in the Lives of Illustrious Men, the public remem- 
 bered what Tacitus says : Prcsfulgebant Cassius et Brutus eo 
 ipso quod illorum effigies non viseretur. 
 
 Some one said, pointing to Father Bauny, an extremely 
 lax casuist, Ecce qui tollit peccata mundi. 
 
 How many afflictions there are of which the consolation 
 is more difficult to bear than the affliction itself! Joseph's 
 brethren hastened to wipe away Jacob's tears ; it was they 
 who had made them flow. — F. de Neuville. 
 
 The Duke of Burgundy showed the most vicious incli- 
 nations, but what plant could have remained diseased under 
 Fenelon's hands ? He smothered the germs of every vice in 
 his pupil, and made of him the amiable prince so much regretted 
 by our fathers. M. de la Harpe, in his eulogium upon Fene- 
 lon, supposes that when the education of this young prince,- 
 already depraved, was committed to him, the good prelate 
 said in his heart what God said of man at the Creation : 
 ' Let us make him in our image.' A sublime thought, and to 
 which it is impossible to add anything without weakening its 
 effect. 
 
 Polybius begged Cato to obtain from the Senate that the 
 exiles of Achaia, whom he had already sent back to their own 
 country, should be reinstated in all their posts and dignities. 
 Cato said to him : ' Polybius, you do not imitate the wisdom 
 of Ulysses ; you want to go back into the Cyclop's cavern for 
 a forgotten hat or girdle.' 
 
 1 Desmoulins wrote Paschal. 
 
From Camillas Note Book. 389 
 
 Charles I. invented the word Demagogue. 
 
 The English people dragged the Protestant bishops out 
 of the Upper House by their rochets, but they well deserved 
 to be dragged out of it in another manner. 
 
 According to ancient law, Parliaments ought to have been 
 held in London twice a year(?) The people wished the 
 sittings to be triennial under Charles I. and the ministers ; 
 afterwards they found it to their advantage to make them 
 septennial. 
 
 This is what that animal, a king, is ! Charles I. in his 
 book, written in prison, says : ' Good subjects do not consider 
 it just that the condition of kings should be made worse by 
 the amelioration of their own lot' 
 
 Charles I. said to his Parliament, before accepting the 
 new Constitution {the nineteen propositions), he must chew 
 morsels of that kind' before swallowing them : he must de- 
 liberate. ' But,' Milton said in answer, ' if the nation tastes 
 nothing that he has not chewed, he must take the nation for 
 a big baby in long clothes.' 
 
 Varia. 
 
 A young lady, before whom Voltaire was standing, having 
 
 begged him to sit down, he said to her : ' No, mademoiselle, 
 
 I am the audience, and I am looking at a pretty piece.' He 
 
 ' said to Father Adam, a Jesuit who had criticised him : 'It is 
 
 well known that Father Adam is not the first man in the world.' 
 
 We all like to see people whom we have obliged ; in 
 consequence, kindnesses secure favour, and favour new kind- 
 nesses ; this is why the celebrated Comte de Grammont asked 
 Louis XIV. one day for a crown, adding, that it was ' only the 
 first kindness which cost.' 
 
 The Emperor of China never signs a death-warrant without 
 preparing himself for it by fasting, and no one can sign a 
 death-warrant but himself. In China, the sagacity which 
 has discovered a culprit in spite of the shifts he used to escape, 
 is less praised than the penetration of the judge who discerns 
 innocence under the appearance of guilt. 
 
390 Appendix. 
 
 In 1774 M. de Solar, a young officer of the Swiss Guards, 
 gave a rare example of conjugal love. He put an end to his 
 life by strangling himself with his hair, which was very 
 handsome, and of which his mouth and throat were full. 1 
 
 Cicero tells us that his friends left him legacies which 
 increased his fortune by two millions (francs). 
 
 Who would venture to boast of his plate after what Pliny 
 tells of a slave of Claudius, who had nine silver dishes, 
 one of which weighed five hundred pounds ; and that the 
 granddaughter of Zollius, at an ordinary wedding-supper, 
 displayed ornaments worth seven millions, 782,010 livres? 
 Sixty years before, JEsop the actor had had at his table 
 a dish of birds costing 19,453 livres. 
 
 Froissart remarks that Charles V. ennobled the profession 
 of lawyers : equites creati sunt. In Savoy, in Italy, in Venice 
 and in Spain, lawyers are noble by a real and transmissible 
 nobility. It was the custom for Parliaments under Louis XII. 
 to present three candidates for a vacant place, and the king 
 then nominated one chosen from amongst the leading 
 lawyers. 
 
 It was represented to Mazarin that the people were com- 
 plaining of the taxes. ' Let them cackle,' he said, ' while we 
 eat their eggs.' 
 
 In the times of Justinian, forty thousand bushels of corn 
 were daily distributed to the people of Constantinople ; that 
 is, enough to feed two hundred and forty thousand men. 
 
 Pliny speaks of a sort of ballet executed by elephants ; 
 besides which, according to him, they walked upon the tight 
 rope, and four of them carried a litter in which was another 
 elephant. He also relates that one of these animals wrote 
 on the pedestal of a trophy in Greek letters, ' I myself have 
 traced these letters and dedicated the spoils of the Celts.' 
 
 The same author says that Strabo of Sicily was so sharp- 
 sighted that from the promontory of Lilybaeum he counted the 
 vessels entering the port of Carthage, which is physically 
 impossible, as the furthest distance the eye can reach is thirty 
 leagues. Valerius Maximus, Cicero, Elienus, Varro, and 
 Solinus, relate the same fact. 
 
 1 Scratched out in the MS. 
 
From Camilles Note Book. 391 
 
 Barthol says that a man who had taught civil law for 
 ten years was a knight, ipso facto. 
 
 During the proscriptions, Attilius the younger was invested 
 with the toga of manhood before his majority, in order that 
 he might be proscribed. A head was brought to Antony, 
 who said, ' I do not know that man ; this is no doubt an 
 affair of my wife's,' and he spoke the truth. 
 
 The emperor Otho III. had married a princess of Arragon, 
 named Maria. While they were passing through Modena, 
 the empress fell violently in love with a young Italian count ; 
 he, just married and idolising his wife, met the empress's 
 advances by excuses, and Maria, imitating Phaedra and 
 Potiphar's wife, accused him of having tried to seduce her. 
 The credulous emperor had the young man's head cut off on 
 the spot, but the young countess threw herself at the feet of 
 the monarch, revealed the queen's crime, and demanded 
 the ordeal by fire in proof of her words. She held the red- 
 hot iron for a long time without being burnt, and Otho caused 
 the empress to be burnt alive in the great square at Modena, 
 and himself paid a heavy fine to the countess. 
 
 Formerly, the inhabitants of certain districts had the right 
 to avoid imprisonment if they could find bail ; among these 
 were Nevers, Saint-Genies in Languedoc, and Villefranche in 
 Pdrigord. — Encycloptdie, word prison. 
 
 According to the ancient laws of the kingdom, no one 
 could be arrested or made a prisoner for any other cause 
 than a capital and notorious crime. — Ord. des rois de France, 
 vol. i. p. 12. If a citizen was arrested for any reason, unless 
 indeed he was notoriously guilty, it was allowable to rescue 
 him from his captors. — Ibid. vol. iii. p. 17. 
 
 A little bird, pursued by a sparrow-hawk, took refuge 
 under the robe of Xenocrates ; he saved its life and gave it 
 back its liberty, saying, ' Let us never deceive the hopes of 
 those who have recourse to us.' 
 
 The laws of Draco punished idleness with death. A law 
 of Solon decreed the same penalty against a magistrate who 
 should be found drunk. 
 
 A royal edict in 1757 decrees that all authors, printers, or 
 distributors of books tending to attack religion, to excite the 
 
39 2 Appendix. 
 
 public mind, and to impair the king's authority, be condemned 
 to death ; and the detestable Mugart de Vouglans inserted 
 this edict in his compilation. 
 
 We may judge of the rank and preeminence of ecclesi- 
 astical dignities by one of the canons of the third Lateran 
 Council, held in 1779. It is ordered that archbishops attend- 
 ing the council shall have only forty horses, bishops twenty, 
 cardinals twenty-five, archdeacons seven, and deans two. 1 
 
 Pliny says that Anaxagoras predicted the fall of a stone, 
 which, at the time indicated, did fall into the ./Egos Potamos. 
 The astronomers of antiquity were more skilful than those 
 of our day. We may judge of the knowledge of the ancients 
 by this fact : Pytheus said that in the island of Thule, called 
 by Virgil Ultima Thule, six days' journey from Great Britain, 
 there was neither earth, nor sea, nor air, but a mixture of the 
 three elements, in which it was not possible to walk on foot 
 nor go in a vessel ; he spoke of it as of a thing which he had 
 seen. 
 
 Hippocrates begins his aphorisms with these grand words : 
 'Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experience 
 dangerous, judgment difficult.' 
 
 Louis, King of Navarre, and Charles, Count de la Marche, 
 both sons of Philippe le Bel, and who reigned after him, had 
 married respectively — Louis, Margaret of Burgundy, and 
 Charles, Blanche de la Marche, princesses endowed with many 
 personal and mental charms. They passed the spring at the 
 abbey of Montbrisson, where they gave themselves up to the 
 pleasure of loving and being loved. The princesses had for 
 lovers two brothers, Philippe and Gauthier de Launay. The • 
 two brothers having been found in the beds of the two 
 princesses, were arrested and sentenced by the Parliament to 
 be flayed alive and dragged by horses over a newly-ploughed 
 field. In 13 13 the Queen of Navarre was strangled with a 
 winding-sheet at Chateau Gaillard. 
 
 According to Herodotus, Aristotle describes Babylon as 
 so large a city, that the enemy having entered it at one end, 
 the news of their arrival was not known at the opposite end 
 
 1 Among the Jews, the. law forbade a husband to leave his wife during the first 
 year of marriage, 
 
From Camilles Note Book. 393 
 
 until three days after, in consequence of the distance of the 
 two quarters from each other. There are few falsehoods of 
 such magnitude, and Herodotus has here surpassed the passage 
 in the Scriptures in which it is said that Jonah occupied three 
 days in traversing Nineveh. Would it be believed that 
 modern writers have exaggerated still more ; if we are to 
 credit Marco Polo, Quincoy, a town in China, had seventy- 
 two thousand stone bridges. Mendez-Pinto, Herrera, Mal- 
 sonati, and Trigant have said of this town that a man on 
 horseback can hardly traverse it in one day ; that it is thirty 
 leagues in circumference, ten long, and fifteen wide ; that it 
 has four hundred and eighty gates, and walls upon which 
 twelve horses could go abreast. 
 
 We read in Josephus that it is established by the testimony 
 of Hesiod, Argesilaus, Hellenicus, Nicholas of Damascus, 
 Manetho, Berosus, Moschus, Estiseus, and Jerome of Egypt, 
 that the ancients frequently lived a thousand years. It is 
 related in the Life of Tamerlane that a man of Sogdiana 
 lived three hundred and fifty years. Gassendi makes mention 
 of a Persian who, in his time, was about four hundred years of 
 age. Xenophon allots eight hundred to the king of I know 
 not what island ; but all this is little in comparison with the 
 life of Macrosiris, which avers that he had lived five thousand 
 years. — Huet. 
 
 Among the Gauls, the fine for touching a woman's hand 
 was fifteen sols ; for touching her arm, thirty sols ; for the 
 elbow, thirty-five sols ; for the breast, forty-five sols. — Lex 
 salica, title 25. The fine for rape was the same as for murder, 
 two hundred pounds. 1 
 
 Such is the inviolable respect due to forms that Scipio 
 Africanus, being censor, did not dare to strike off the list of 
 knights a certain Licinius, although he declared himself 
 certain of his guilt, because no one presented himself to offer 
 proofs. 
 
 The favourites of Richard II. caused a notice to be pub- 
 lished in London that no one was to prefer any charge, no 
 matter what, against them, under pain of confiscation. 
 
 1 Erased in the MS. 
 
394 Appendix. 
 
 At Rome, when a young man was called to the bar, it was 
 a day of triumph in the family. Augustus, wishing his two 
 sons to matriculate, at the same time demanded the consular 
 dignity for them. Tiberius honoured with his presence the 
 first appearance at the bar of his son Drusus, and of Nero 
 and Drusus, his grandsons. 
 
 In 1763 Lord Ferrers, a blood relation of the Royal 
 family of England, was hanged publicly in London for having 
 killed his servant ; this did not prevent his brother from 
 taking his seat on the following day in the House of Lords. 1 
 
 The Arcadians, after having put to death their king Aris- 
 tocrates, a traitor to his country, caused these words to be 
 engraved upon the column which they erected in the temple 
 of Jupiter : ' Perjured kings are punished sooner or later by 
 the aid of Jupiter. We have at last discovered the perfidy of 
 him who betrayed Messenium. Great Jupiter be praised ! ' 
 
 Xenophon said, more than twenty centuries ago : ' The 
 great difference Lycurgus has brought about between Lace- 
 daemon and other cities consists in this, that there every 
 citizen obeys the laws ; he comes when the magistrate calls : 
 but at Athens, a rich man would be in despair if he were 
 thought to depend upon the magistrate.' This is precisely 
 our case : the people is under the yoke of a law which is only 
 an additional bondage, since it is not the safeguard of liberty, 
 and all men of position consider it beneath them to demand 
 redress of injuries from ordinary justice. 
 
 M6zerai wrote on the margin of his copy of Daubigne's 
 ' Universal History ' : Duo tantum hcec of to : unum ut moriens 
 populum francorum liberum relinquam, alterum ut ita cuiquam 
 veniat, sicut de republica merebitur. 
 
 A charming religion is that of the Basilists and Carpo- 
 cratians ; they set forth that .we were born in a state of nature, 
 innocent, like Adam, at the moment of creation, and therefore 
 ought to imitate his nudity ; they detested marriage, main- 
 taining that but for sin it would never have existed. In order 
 to restore the innocent life of the earthly paradise and the 
 pleasures of the Golden Age, they practised their rites in a 
 
 1 It is hardly necessary to observe that Camille Desmoulins is mistaken in 
 attributing this relationship to Earl Ferrers. 
 
From Camille's Note Book. 395 
 
 superb subterranean temple, heated by stoves, which temple 
 they entered naked, both men and women. There, every- 
 thing was permitted them, even unions which we call adul- 
 terous and incestuous, so soon as the chief of the assembly 
 had pronounced these words from Genesis : ' Increase and 
 multiply.' 
 
 Near Lake Morat, in Switzerland, over a heap of bones, 
 there is still to be found the following sublime inscription : 
 ' The Burgundians thought to conquer a free people : behold 
 what is left of them ! ' 
 
 The Christians. 
 
 The following fragments seem to belong to a work upon 
 Christ. It is impossible to quote more than these samples. In 
 what we suppress Camille makes no exegesis ; he jests and 
 scoffs in the tone habitual to the eighteenth century, after the 
 fashion of Voltaire, or rather of Parny. 
 
 .... Astonishing that anyone should ever have existed 
 who dared to proclaim that he would disperse the darkness 
 which has covered the universe since its birth, that he was the 
 bearer of truth to men ; this truth, according to his account, 
 he had brought from heaven. At least, it was not at the feet 
 of sages and doctors that he had learned it ; he had not come 
 out of their schools, but from the workshop of a poor artisan, 
 to men who for thirty years had witnessed his obscure life 
 amongst them. From handling the axe and the saw, from 
 making ploughs and yokes, he came to people who had the 
 soundest ideas of divinity, who had never erected altars to 
 any man, and who were proud of their Law, the tables of 
 which they believed to be written by the hand of God him- 
 self. To this people he announced himself as a legislator, 
 and as a God, venturing to retouch the work of the Deity, and 
 to teach a new doctrine. He did not attempt to establish it 
 by disputation as do the philosophers ; he propounded it with 
 simplicity and without argument. He chose his disciples 
 from the lowest class of the people ; sent these men, who could 
 not read, to instruct sages .and nations ; predicted to them the 
 success of their mission, the duration of his reign, even until 
 the end of time ; and, to effect this great revolution, to per- 
 
396 Appendix. 
 
 suade all nations, supplied them with only the simple formula : 
 ' Jesus has said it.' That is to say : ' Greeks, Romans, nations 
 who look upon yourselves as the most enlightened of the uni r 
 verse, truth has issued from that corner of the world whose 
 people seem to you most stupid and despicable of all ; submit 
 your reason to the authority of a carpenter of this base nation, 
 overturn your altars that you may raise one to a Jew, who 
 died upon a gibbet, amid the insults and yells of his own 
 people, scoffing at his divinity. These dogmas which revolt 
 you and seem to you utter folly, you are to believe blindly; 
 walk no more in the steps of your fathers, who expiate in 
 another life by eternal torments the misfortune of not having 
 been able to hear us, and the error of their age. Instead of 
 a joyous religion, which teaches pleasure, and is suited to 
 every taste, a religion in which dancing, plays, feasts, and 
 pleasures are worship, and which had everything in its favour 
 except reason, embrace a religion which is not that of your 
 fathers, a religion which is sorrowful, austere, the enemy of 
 the gentlest desires of nature, which restrains joy, which only 
 promises reward to tears, to suffering, and to poverty, which 
 is only good for hospitals, a religion in which riches and 
 honours are of no value, grace and beauty of no use, in 
 which the wise and the gifted are to envy the poor in spirit, 
 which offers to its votaries a cross and a crown of thorns ; and 
 all this in order that they may enjoy in some third heaven, 
 a kind of felicity that the eye has never seen, and of which 
 no idea can be formed.' 
 
 Nevertheless the ancient cultus was abjured ; crowds threw 
 themselves into the bosom of that religion which has every- 
 thing against it, and especially reason. If Jesus worked the 
 miracles which are related, I am not astonished ; the resur- 
 rection of a dead man silences all objections and removes all 
 difficulties ; but you, who do not accept miracles, can you 
 explain the progress of a religion which is so irksome and so 
 oppressive .... which, in spite of hatred and .... through 
 opprobrium, the stake, the scaffold, and persecutions of all 
 sorts, advances so rapidly towards the conquest of the 
 universe ? 
 
From Camille's Note Book. 397 
 
 The Martyrs} 
 
 .... How does the author of all evil profit by this ? 
 SOSTHENES. — I could wish God had only granted the 
 gift of miracles to those who had received a mission from 
 him. But, at least, there will always be this difference 
 between the miracles transmitted to posterity by the annals 
 of paganism, and those which Jesus worked, that the witnesses 
 of the latter died to attest what they had seen. I say, with 
 Pascal, ' I will believe witnesses who die for the truth they 
 assert.' 
 
 Nearchus. — So you are persuaded to believe because of 
 the crowd of martyrs who have shed their blood for their 
 religion. If the priests of Esculapius had given their lives 
 in testimony of the truth of the miracles they relate, you 
 would then believe them also. 
 
 We do not see that the priests of any religion have 
 died to attest the truth of the miracles which have been the 
 foundation of that religion. But were they reduced to the 
 necessity of dying, or of denying that "they had seen these 
 miracles ? No Pagan government ever put those who main- 
 tained the truth of religion to this test ; if they had been re- 
 duced to such an alternative, how do I know what they 
 would have done? I incline to think there were devotees 
 among the priests who would have let their throats be cut 
 to attest these miracles. 
 
 Obstinacy will undoubtedly make a man face death. 
 Pellegrinus even ascended a funeral pile out of vanity, wholly 
 and solely to make a show. Empedocles burnt himself for the 
 same foolish reason. A coward will brave death and a forlorn 
 hope to escape the charge of cowardice ; a poltroon will fight 
 a duel in deference to public opinion. Did not the early 
 Christians mount the scaffold rather than be accounted 
 cowards and apostates ? Those who denied their faith during 
 the persecutions were held in horror by the faithful, who fled 
 from them as the Jews fled from lepers. Ecclesiastical history 
 tells us that the very peasants reproached them with their 
 
 1 A passage also belonging to the work upon Christ. 
 
398 Appendix, 
 
 meanness. What strength to resist torments must the thought 
 have given them that they were going to be canonised and 
 honoured, that they would be regarded as saints, as demi- 
 gods ! What pride for an artisan, for a man of the lower 
 classes ! ' My bones will be enclosed in a reliquary and 
 kissed ; I shall give my name to a day of the year ; it will 
 also be said that I have worked miracles, I, a poor mean 
 slave ! I shall have a tomb which will be venerated by 
 posterity, where a temple will be built in which I shall be 
 invoked ! ' They were so full of the thought of their apothe- 
 osis and of the name they would leave behind them, that a 
 great number had the account of their martyrdom and of 
 their visions in prison written. Their judges knew how 
 much this prospect would support them in their torments, 
 and therefore, to deprive them of such a stay, they were told 
 before sentence was pronounced : ' Doubtless you imagine that 
 women will come to collect your ashes, that they will wrap 
 your remains in silk, and embalm them with perfumes ? But 
 do not flatter yourself, it shall not be permitted.' And let it 
 not be said that it is only in later times these great honours 
 were rendered to the martyrs, since we see that the faithful 
 religiously kept the stones with which St. Stephen, the first 
 martyr, had been put to death. And we are surprised that, 
 full of these hopes and already surrounded by the aureole, 
 the martyrs should have braved death— we who see thousands 
 of soldiers face it daily in battle for five sols, without even the 
 poor consolation of embellishing the gazette with a name to 
 be forgotten on the morrow ! In India, how many women 
 have been burnt on the funeral pile of husbands whom they 
 did not love, that they might be accounted faithful, and because 
 it was the custom ! Do we not daily see suicides descend 
 tranquilly into the grave without any reason so far as we know ? 
 Let us confess it ; a very little thing will sometimes determine 
 a man to suffer death. 
 
 A citizen of Sybaris said that it was no wonder the 
 Spartans sought to die in battle that they might rest them- 
 selves from so much toil and from their v austere and rigorous 
 discipline. Can we read what the fathers of the first centuries 
 tell us of the lives of the early Christians, and not say the 
 
From Camilles Note Book. 399 
 
 same of them ; and with much more reason, because beyond 
 the tomb the Christians saw the heavens open, and an immortal 
 crown as the reward of their sacrifice ? 
 
 Tragical death of my cousin Philippe. — His character. — 
 Preface to his works. 
 
 .... Unfortunately he had taken the pistol which was 
 loaded with bullets and cousin Philippe fell. I ran up in 
 despair ; he was naturally melancholy, but had he been as 
 great a jester as his brother Jacques, his gaiety might have 
 deserted him. What was my astonishment when, pressing my 
 hand, he said, 'At last I have some weight (lead) in my brain, 
 late enough. How I regret not having foreseen that I should 
 be killed ! I should have died speaking like Socrates and 
 Seneca. What beautiful things I would have said ! My last 
 conversation should have been the preface to my works, instead 
 of leaving it to my editor to pass a preliminary eulogium upon 
 them. I should have praised myself much better.' ' O my 
 poor cousin ! ' I replied, ' most unfortunate of poets and of 
 lawyers ! why should it happen that the first time you walked 
 with a respectable woman at the Luxembourg, a bearded 
 gallant should have taken advantage of your growing whiskers 
 and thought he could insult her with impunity ? This is what 
 one gets by walking with respectable women ! How much 
 better if you had continued to follow the instructions of wise 
 Cato, if you had only gone amongst prostitutes ; and how 
 right is Horace, that eminently sensible man, when he says 
 old Cato's apothegm is divine : Inquit sententia dia Catonis! 
 'What memories you have just recalled!' replied Philippe. 
 ' Why carry me back to that happy time when, as the day 
 declined, cheating the vigilance of the porter, we escaped 
 together from college to fly to the Palais-Royal, to that 
 garden preferable to the garden of Eden, and by lamplight 
 passed in review a much finer army than that of Xerxes. 
 O charming and tender Rose ! Let us put these ideas away. 
 Would you have me regret life ? This premature death is 
 not a great misfortune for me. What should I have done in 
 the world, a poet without patronage, and a lawyer without a 
 
400 Appendix. 
 
 case ? My imagination was failing. Women, pretty women 
 I mean, of whom I have always been so fervent an adorer, 
 the only beings whose divinity I never dared to call in 
 question, no longer inspired me with religious sentiments, 
 and I was becoming a complete atheist. I said of them still, 
 like Jean the rake : " Under heaven is there a finer animal ? " 
 but I no longer placed them upon an altar, and I happened - 
 sometimes to read Cicero or Desmoulins without my reading 
 being interrupted by what devotees call ejaculatory prayers. 
 What have I then to regret in life ? I should not have suc- 
 ceeded at the bar ; I cannot speak for a quarter of an hour 
 without being hoarse. I had nothing in common with those 
 who make large fortunes. Look at that man who can hardly 
 carry his big brief bag. What advantage has he over others ? 
 That of a watermill over a windmill. Just as the latter can 
 only turn when the wind blows, so other lawyers can only 
 speak when they have something to speak about, whereas 
 he is always turning, like the mill on the river. 1 Nature 
 having refused me this great talent, the resource of writing was 
 left me ; but, I know not by what fatality, I could not exercise 
 my faculties upon praiseworthy subjects ; nothing has ever 
 struck me so much in my life.' 
 
 I. 
 
 There is this difference between the Monarchy and the 
 Republic : that the reigns of the most wicked emperors, Nero, 
 Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula, and Domitian, had a happy 
 beginning ; the advantage of Republics is that they improve. 
 
 We have seen that Trajan said of his sword, Pro me, si 
 mereor, in me? Saying is not doing ; it belongs only to a 
 senate to deal rigorously with the sovereign, and to send a 
 hundred of its members to the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
 
 To be able to do everything, and to denounce, to be van- 
 quished by ignorance (blank) with impunity, by calling oneself 
 
 1 It is amusing enough to meet with this satire upon the legal profession from 
 the pen of a lawyer turned pamphleteer. (J. C.) 
 
 2 Aur. Vict. Dfe Cses. 13.— Dion, lviii. 16.— Cf. Pliny, Pan. 67. 
 
From Camilles Note Book. 401 
 
 a Jacobin or a Cordelier, is not this returning to the time 
 when the slave might insulthis master, the criminal might escape 
 justice, the most infamous scoundrel ' or most vicious woman 
 might do every imaginable injury to a good man, and a 
 senator, by wearing the image of Tiberius or Augustus ? 
 
 Aquilius Regulus, the denouncer, was twice honoured with 
 the consulate as a reward for his denunciations, 2 
 - Usurping power by denunciation and means so base that 
 they dishonoured power itself, denouncers were not more 
 detested for their crimes than for the salary they derived 
 from them. 
 
 The Convention would have done better to grant full 
 liberty of speech, than to have missed so much important 
 information. The sovereign whose ears are over-sensitive sees 
 himself dethroned before he suspects that he is hated, and 
 hardly knows an interval between the praise of flatterers and 
 the guillotine. 
 
 The Romans allowed Sylla to live, the Syracusans Dio- 
 nysius, the Athenians Pisistratus — despicable nations 3 who 
 suffered little from the evils of tyranny, since they pardoned 
 the tyrant. 
 
 Will not the world be reformed rather by patriotism than 
 by Christianity ? And is it not only one hypocrisy and one 
 monkery 4 succeeded by another ? Thus we have seen 
 Fdnelon and the solitaries of Port-Royal hated and per- 
 secuted as bad Christians, while others, contemptible and 
 debauched, received applause and incense ; 5 the most stupidly 
 ignorant, the most infamously voluptuous, the most violent 
 bigots were regarded as the ornaments, 6 the fathers of the 
 Gallican Church. 
 
 Doubtless Solon will succeed to Draco. 
 
 And yet, never were so many great men seen : Brutus, 
 
 1 Doubtful — blackened loith vices can be read distinctly. 
 
 2 The two fragments are perhaps only one ; nevertheless, they are separate in 
 the MS. 
 
 3 Doubtful — the word nations only. 
 
 * There is monkery ; I was long inclined to read mummery. 
 
 h The word is very difficult to read, but I believe this reading iscorrect. 
 
 6 Sic in the MS. 
 
 D D 
 
402 Appendix. 
 
 Scipio, Anacharsis, Anaxagoras, Gracchus, and ray valet de 
 chambre is Epaminondas. 1 
 
 II. My Tablets. 
 
 Neque enim quum lectulus aut me 
 Porticus excepit, desum mihi : ' Rectius hoc est, 
 Hoc faciens vivam melius [sic dulcis amicis 
 Occurram; hoc quidam non belle ; numquid ego illi 
 Imprudens olim faciam simile ? ' Haec ego mecum 
 Compressis agito labris] ; ubi quid datur oti, 
 Illudo chartis. — Horace, Sat. I. iv. 133-139. 
 
 Claude de l'Etoile, one of the first Academicians who had 
 the reputation of a connoisseur in his time, caused a young man, 
 who had come from Languedoc with a comedy which he 
 thought a masterpiece, and in which the academician pointed 
 out a thousand defects, to die of grief. This great connoisseur 
 said seriously that he would rather have written the last scene 
 of the ' Dana'ldes,' by Gombaut, than the best plays that 
 had appeared in the last twenty years. And observe that 
 Corneille's masterpieces had just then come out! In the 
 same way Passerat declared that he would rather have written 
 Ronsard's ode to the Chancellor de l'H6pital than be Duke 
 of Milan. 
 
 Under Tiberius, all people condemned to death who 
 waited for execution, lost their property, and were deprived 
 of burial. Those who had the courage to kill themselves 
 were buried, and could make a will. It is astonishing that 
 duelling was unknown to a nation by whom suicide was 
 held in such honour. We need seek no other motive for 
 this premium given to suicide than in the policy of the 
 tyrant, who was pleased that those he had proscribed and 
 condemned should appear to have condemned themselves. 
 
 1 Note : — These two fragments (X. and XI.) are very difficult to read ; never- 
 theless, by means of a magnifying glass, I succeeded in restoring them accurately. 
 At least, I think so. (J. C.) 
 
 These curious and important little notes, copied from the original belong- 
 ing to Baron de Girardot, occupy the right-hand side of a page ; the last two 
 begin the left-hand side of the sheet, which is unfinished ; the rest is blank. 
 
From Camilles Note Book. 403 
 
 The following passage in a letter from Cicero to Atticus 
 is remarkable : ' If you would know why Clodius was par- 
 doned, seek no further than the indigence and turpitude of 
 his judges. . . .* Not even in a gaming-house was so infamous 
 an assemblage seen. 2 Crassus conducted the whole affair : 
 he sent for the judges, made promises to them, offered 
 them bail, and made them presents. Into the bargain, 
 certain judges were to have the favours of several ladies of 
 quality.' 3 
 
 Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who had conspired against 
 Hipparchus and Hippias, the two tyrants of Athens, were to 
 stab them during a procession ; as the procession was leaving 
 the Bull's Eye, they saw one of the conspirators speaking 
 familiarly to Hippias. Believing themselves betrayed, they 
 determined to sell their lives dearly, and stabbed Hipparchus; 
 Harmodius fell at the same moment covered with wounds. 
 Aristogeiton, being arrested and put to the torture, accused 
 the most faithful friends of Hippias, who ordered them to be 
 executed on the spot. ' Hast thou more villains to .de- 
 nounce ? ' cried the tyrant in a fury. ' Only thyself/ replied 
 the Athenian ; ' I die, and in dying I carry with me the satis- 
 faction* of having deprived thee of thy best friends.' 4 
 
 Pisistratus, being accused of a murder, appeared before the 
 Areopagus to justify himself, as though he had been the 
 meanest citizen. 
 
 Otanes, after the death of Cambyses, proposed to estab- 
 lish a democracy ; few in high places would do likewise. 
 
 What reflections are called forth by the conduct of 
 Zopyrus, who, in order to deceive the enemy and open the 
 gates of Babylon to the king his master, cut"off his nose and 
 his ears, and mutilated himself from head to foot — if the inci- 
 dent be true ! Must we admire him as we admire -Eros the 
 
 1 Ab Attic. I. 16, vol. xxi. p. 86. Leclerc: 'Si causam quseris absolutionis, 
 egestas judicium fuit et turpitudo. . . .' 
 
 2 Page 88 : 'Non enim unquam turpior in ludo talario confessus fuit.' 
 
 3 Page 90 : ' Biduo per unum servum, et eum ex gladiatorio ludo, confecit 
 totum negotium: arcessivit ad se, promisit, intercessit, dedit. Jam vera (o dii 
 boni !) rem perditam ! etiam noctes certarum mulierum atque adolescentulorum 
 nobilium introductiones nonnullis judicibus pro mercedis cumulo fuerunt.' 
 
 ♦ Thucyd. 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 Appendix. 
 
 slave, who set the example of death to Antony ? Or shall 
 we call him a madman ? Racine, and our old Trivulcius, 
 dying of grief at not having been saluted by the king, were 
 sick of this same servile fever. 
 
 Histiseus of Miletus had raised all the Greeks of Ionia 
 against Darius, but he had also prevented the destruction of 
 the bridge of the Ister, against the advice of Miltiades, and 
 had formerly saved the army of Darius from utter ruin in the 
 expedition to Scythia. Darius would have forgiven him in 
 memory of this service if his generals had not hastened to 
 put him to death. The Persians rewarded crimes and bene- 
 fits alike. 
 
 Darius, on learning the burning of Sardis, was so furious 
 that he charged one of his officers to remind him daily to 
 take vengeance for it. He must have been strangely absent- 
 minded if it was necessary to remind him of the burning of 
 this capital ! What an idea does this give us of kings ? 
 
 Aristides, when exiled, left Athens, praying for his 
 country. 
 
 A violent storm having destroyed the bridge Xerxes had 
 made, he ordered the workmen to be beheaded, and the 
 sea to be whipped and branded with a red-hot iron. 
 
 The companions of Leonidas honoured by anticipation his 
 death and their own by a funeral combat at which their fathers 
 and mothers were present. They then conducted their rela- 
 tives to a distance from the city, where they bade them an 
 eternal farewell. Then it was that Leonidas said to his wife, 
 who asked what were his last wishes : ' I wish you a husband 
 worthy of you, and children who shall resemble him.' 
 
 Xerxes wrote to him : ' If thou wilt submit, I will give 
 thee the empire of Greece.' Leonidas replied, ' I would 
 rather die for my country than enslave her.' 
 
 The Duke de Richelieu, when shut up in the Bastile, was 
 visited by two princesses of the blood royal, rivals, and both 
 in love with him, who, disguised as servants, spent a hundred 
 thousand crowns in bribing the jailors. 
 
 The day after the death of Louis XIV., the Parliament 
 assembled, and received a lettre de cachet from Louis XV., 
 aged five years. A lettre de cachet at five years old! 
 
From Camilles Note Book. 405 
 
 The peers would not uncover to the first President, while 
 speaking. This affair made a great noise. Tbe peers, said 
 the Parliament in its memorial, venture apparently to include 
 this assembly, the most august in the kingdom, in the tiers 
 &at. 
 
 A medal was decreed to the Duke of Bedford with this 
 inscription : For having planted an acorn. 
 
 Henry IV. called himself a bourgeois of Paris. 
 
 A law of Athens forbade anyone under fifty years of age 
 to speak in public. 
 
 Critias, one of the thirty tyrants, carried that ridiculous 
 law by which it was forbidden to teach the art of reasoning. 
 
 In general, those who mix themselves up in public affairs 
 are not disinterested, and the reflection of Demadus the 
 orator, who found Phocion at table and was surprised at his 
 extreme frugality, was a very just one: ' I am astonished,' said 
 he, ' that, being content with so humble a repast, you take the 
 trouble to mix yourself up in the affairs of the Republic' 
 
 Aristides abolished that law of Solon, which only allowed 
 such citizens to be raised to the magistracy as received from 
 their land at least two hundred measures of wheat, oil, and 
 wine, which was the ruin of the aristocracy of Athens. Mably 
 says this was a great mistake. 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 Verses by Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 I. To Miss L , a young English lady* 
 
 To the air O ma tendre musette, or to the air of the ballet of 'Armide.' ' 
 
 Pardon, si, sur ses traces, 
 On me voit chaque soir ; 
 Mais pour suivre les graces 
 Est-il besoin d'espoir ? 
 
 1 These verses are unpublished. They were communicated to us by M. C 
 Charavay. We give them merely as a curiosity. 
 
406 Appendix. 
 
 Sans pouvoir m'en defendre 
 Mes jours vont s'^couler, 
 Le matin a l'attendre, 
 Le soir a. l'admirer. 
 
 Cherchais-tu la plus belle 
 Qu'on trouve sous les cieux ? 
 Regardez : c'est bien elle 
 Que demandaient tes yeux. 
 Ne cherchais-tu que celle 
 Qui promit le bonheur ? 
 Eh bien ! c'est encore elle 
 Que demandait ton cceur. 
 
 Ta cousine est jolie ; 
 Mais seulement tu veux 
 Disputer a Fannie 
 A qui courra le mieux. 
 Oh ! prolonge l'enfance 
 Par ces jeux, mais pourquoi ? 
 Clarisse, l'innocence 
 N'a point d'age pour toi. 1 
 
 II. To the King? 
 
 Qu'aujourd'hui mes vers, les muses une fois, 
 Au lieu de les flatter, epouvantent les rois ! 
 Stupides citoyens, 6 laches que nous sommes ! 
 Un homme ose braver tant de millions d'hommes : 
 Du front de l'artisan, du front du laboureur, 
 II croit que pour lui seul doit couler la sueur, 
 Que les peuples sont faits dans nos tristes contrees 
 Pour payer les hochets a. d'augustes poupees ; 
 
 1 Var. — On dit qu'elle est jolie ; 
 
 Mais, detournant les yeux, 
 Tu provoques Fannie 
 A qui courra le mieux. 
 2 This is one of the pieces that Camille found published in the ' Choix de 
 Poesies revolutionnaires,' against which he protested* and of which only the 
 first part had appeared in 1 789. 
 
Camille's Verses. 407 
 
 Et que tout doit soufifrir, afin qu'a Trianon 
 
 Nos maux fassent danser l'Autrichienne Toinon. 
 
 Claude sur les Frangais regrie, et de Messaline 
 
 L'age accroit tous les jours la fureur uterine : 
 
 Et quoiqu'un milliard coule dans le tresor, 
 
 Claude pour ses amants demande un fleuve d'or : 
 
 Car tel est mon plaisir, dit-il. Dieux, quel langage ! 
 
 Sommes-nous de vils serfs echus par heritage ? 
 
 Ah ! mon sang qui bouillonne a ces mots insolents, 
 
 M'avertit que je sors de ces antiques Francs 
 
 Qui, pour mettre leur septre {sic) en des mains plus habiles, 
 
 L'dtoient aux faineants, l'dtoient aux imbeciles, 
 
 Et, maitres d'obeir, ont du tr6ne deux fois, 
 
 Car tel fut leur plaisir, fait descendre leurs rois. 
 
 Heritier d'Henri quatre et de Charles septieme, 
 
 Est-ce done a son fer qu'il doit le diademe ? 
 
 Croit-il parler en maitre a. des peuples conquis ? 
 
 Tout conquerant qu'il fut, m£me a ses Francs, Clovis, 
 
 S'il eut dicte pour loi sa volonte supreme, 
 
 La massue a leurs pieds l'eut etendu lui-meme ! 
 
 Apprends, mon cher Louis, mon gros benet de roi, 
 
 Que tel est ton plaisir n'est pas telle est la loi ; 
 
 Rends compte, et Ton veut bien encor payer ta dette ; 
 
 Mais sois poli du moins quand tu fais une quete. 
 
 D'un gueux, dit Salomon, l'insolence deplaft, 
 
 Et e'est au mendiant a m'6ter son bonnet ! 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 Complaint against Camille Desmoulins and 
 Gorsas. 
 
 ( Unpublished document). 
 
 In the year 1790, Thursday, September 23, at ten o'clock in 
 the morning, before us, Marie-Joseph Ch^non the younger, 
 &c, appeared Ch*rles-Francois-Marie-Joseph de Dortan, 
 deputy from the bailiwicks of D61e, Ornans and Quingey to the 
 
408 Appendix. 
 
 National Assembly, living usually at D61e in Franche-Comte, 
 at present lodging in Paris, Rue des Orties, Butte St.-Roche, 
 h6tel de Picardie ; who told us that Charles-Marie-Joseph 
 de Dortan, his brother, knight of the royal and military order 
 of St-Louis, lieutenant-colonel of the Queen's regiment 
 of cavalry, has addressed to him a certificated power of 
 attorney procured from Thtebault and Bourgeois, notaries 
 at Stenay, directing us to complain in his name, and to 
 proceed against the authors, printers, and vendors of a 
 certain periodical in which he was libelled, notably in a paper 
 called : ' Courrier de Paris dans les quatre-vingt-trois departe- 
 ments,' No. 21 ; ' but as the author of this paper, in his 
 third number of September 4, present month,, has made a 
 sort of retractation, applicant could only complain in the 
 name of his said brother of the authors of another paper 
 called ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant, par Camille 
 Desmoulins, de la Soci^te- des Amis de la Constitution,' 
 with the motto Quid Novit dated August 23, 1790, No. 
 39, in which it is said (p. 734) : 'The lieutenant-colonel of 
 the Queen's regiment (cavalry), while manoeuvring his regi- 
 ment at Stenay, proposed that it should go over in a body 
 to the Austrian service. It is true that the majority of the 
 men refused, and that the left side gained the victory over 
 the right ; but the commandant was not strung up to the 
 lamp-post for a crime of high treason to the nation, which 
 proves how much ground we have gained.' The applicant 
 showed us No. 21 of the 'Revolutions de Paris,' as above 
 dated and mentioned ; (we) have initialled it with him at 
 the page 734, at the passage which concerns the brother of 
 the applicant, and have annexed it to these presents. 
 
 The applicant, similarly, showed us the power of attorney 
 of his said brother, procured as above mentioned, &c. 
 
 The applicant, in the name of his brother, makes the 
 present complaint against the authors, printers, vendors and 
 distributors of the paper, the ' Revolutions de France et de 
 Brabant,' reserving the power to add to his complaint ; 
 requiring in the terms of the said proxy, the assistance of the 
 
 1 ' Le Courrier de Paris ' is Gorsas' journal in its third form. See ' Deschiens/ 
 123- 
 
Fragments of Pamphlets. 409 
 
 minister of public prosecution, that he may obtain from justice 
 all legal reparation due to his said brother, both damages 
 and interest, &c, praying us to make record of his com- 
 plaint. 
 (Signed) CHARLES DE DORTAN ; CHENON the younger, 
 (file 801). Commissioner Ch^NON the younger. 
 
 No. 4. 
 
 Observations upon the Exchange of Sancerre, 
 by Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 {A pamphlet in 8vo. of eight pages — Analysis of the pamphlet.) 1 
 
 The prayer of all French people is that the National 
 Assembly should finish as soon as possible the great work of 
 the Constitution, says Desmoulins at the opening of the 
 pamphlet. 
 
 ' This Constitution forbids the legislators of the country 
 to be, in any case, the judges of their fellow-citizens, for then 
 they would confound the legislative and judicial powers, and 
 the liberty of the public would be in danger. 
 
 ' The National Assembly would therefore, on one hand, 
 violate the Constitution if it abandoned its labours to make 
 itself the sovereign judge in private matters. 
 
 ' On the other hand, it would be losing precious time at a 
 critical moment for the empire ; for we must not deceive 
 ourselves, we are surrounded by powerful enemies, who 
 threaten us from outside ; hidden enemies, traitors, unnatural 
 children within our walls burn with the criminal desire to 
 overturn everything, to summon anarchy into the bosom of 
 the country ; to give back to the clergy their opulence and 
 their egotism, to the nobility their oppressive prerogatives, 
 
 1 This very rare pamphlet of Camllle's has been too often spoken of for us to 
 omit its analysis here ; the more so as it contains some curious details about 
 d'Espagnac, whom Herault de Sechelles called ' that Spanish cheat.' 
 
4i o Appendix. 
 
 and to the former magistrature its old domination over the 
 people. 
 
 ' How then can a patriot have brought forward the affair 
 of the exchange of Sancerre, on Thursday evening in the 
 National Assembly, with which he well knows the Com- 
 mittee of Domains is occupied, but which it will not submit 
 to the National Assembly until after it shall have received 
 the most careful examination ? ' 
 
 {Camille then attacks Calonne ' the depredator,' the ex- 
 minister archbishop of Rheims, bankrupt, &c.) 
 
 'In 1784 M. d'Espagnac owed the government a sum of 
 five hundred thousand livres, which had been lent him for the 
 aid of his brother-in-law, who had fallen into misfortunes and 
 had rendered services to the State. 1 
 
 ' Not being able to put this sum back into the treasury, he 
 offered the king the comtd of Sancerre in payment; the 
 king accepted the arrangement, and a quittance for five, 
 hundred thousand livres was given to M. d'Espagnac as an 
 instalment on the value of his land. 
 
 ' Some months passed ; the ex-minister Calonne endea- 
 voured to make the king give him the marquisate of Hatton- 
 Chatel in Lorraine, near his property of Hannonville. In 
 order to hold possession of it in a patrimonial manner, he 
 contrived the plan of a contract, half rent, half exchange ; he 
 offered to M. d'Espagnac, in the name of the king, over and 
 above his quittance of five hundred thousand livres, a further 
 sum of five hundred thousand livres in assignats, payable in 
 three years; and for the surplus, he presented him with 
 domains, with power to sell them to the amount of the value 
 of his land. M. d'Espagnac, in his penury, was obliged to 
 accept whatever the government chose to offer ; he would 
 have preferred money ; but, in fact, the sale of the domains 
 which were to be handed over to him gave him the means to 
 pay off his burthensome debts. . . . 
 
 ' In fact, he consented that the price of the lands should 
 be paid to him, as follows : 
 
 ' A million in money or receipts, and the surplus in 
 domains. 
 
 ' In 1 75 7. the army being in want of money, M. de Montmartel had provided 
 the government with his paper. 
 
Fragments of Pamphlets. 41 1 
 
 ' What was then called a domain of the Crown was in- 
 alienable ; it could only be alienated by way of exchange. 
 
 ' It was quite necessary to have recourse to this means, 
 the only one which could then legalise the cession of Crown 
 lands, the only one which could guarantee the domain from 
 all damage. . . . The domains which the government in- 
 tended to give, him as the equivalent of the value of his land, 
 were, in fact, ceded to him. 
 
 ' M. d'Espagnac could have made a lucrative affair of the 
 sale of these domains, but he did not ; he sold at the valua- 
 tion price ratified by the upper courts and the council ; it was 
 stipulated in the private contracts that the produce of the 
 sale should be placed in the hands of M. Trutat, notary, to 
 liquidate the fortune of M. d'Espagnac. The valuation began 
 after the execution of the contract of exchange, and jt would 
 have been completely ratified if the Archbishop of Sens had 
 not violated all constitutional law in order to annul the ex- 
 change. He put a stop to the valuations in the king's name, 
 and took M. d'Espagnac from his natural judges, handing . 
 him over to an illegal commission. The public only saw 
 in this act of authority the punishment of the ex-minister 
 Calonne, and did not perceive that their approbation of this 
 violation of the rights of a citizen rivetted more and more 
 firmly the chains of despotism, for law is one and indivisible 
 for every citizen of the empire. To violate it, even in the 
 case of a suspected parricide, is a social crime.' 
 
 (JDesmoulins defends the exchange, or, if he finds a fault in 
 it, he attributes it to Calonne ; he pleads for M. d'Espagnac, 
 who — 
 in 1776, caused the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to be 
 
 annulled ; 
 in 178 1, was the first to propose the suppression of forced 
 
 labour (la corvee) in the provincial Assembly of Berry.- 
 in 1788, lost his military post for having dared to publish 
 
 constitutional truth in his requests to the king ; 
 in 1789, at the time of the primary Assembly of the baili- 
 wick of Blois, demanded that the people should have 
 their representatives equally with the clergy and no- 
 bility. 
 
412 Appendix. 
 
 In fact, d'Espagnac always defended the rights of the people. 
 Moreover, in this affair he submits himself to the will of 
 the Assembly.. 
 
 Desmoulins finally demands that from three to four thou- 
 sand acres of wood be taken from Calonne, who had caused 
 them to be given to himself after the contract of exchange, and 
 that an estimable citizen should be regarded apart from the 
 operations of a minister so generally censured. 
 
 The tone of this pamphlet is far removed from the praises 
 formerly bestowed by Camille upon his dear Calonne}) 
 
 No. 5. 
 An Address by Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 {Unpublished document?) 
 
 The 10th September, 1791. 
 
 Report made to the Procureur of the Commune upon an 
 incendiary document signed Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 Commissary Gueulette thinks that M. le Procureur should 
 prevent the consequences of the excitement which such a 
 document may produce in the public mind. 
 
 The address is distributed throughout the entire section 
 and other quarters. It is printed on red * paper, and, its head- 
 ing, the expressions it contains, its insulting, indecent, and 
 disgusting sallies .... bear all the characteristics of an 
 inflammatory production, with the designation of the word 
 Passan printed in large type and in a line by itself. 
 
 Having been composed, printed, and posted with the 
 design of exciting all citizens to share with its author those 
 sentiments of contempt which he impudently professes to 
 entertain towards the members of the tribunal. 
 
 The said writing being seditious, inflammatory, and likely 
 to disturb the public tranquillity, the commissary, having 
 
 1 In reality the placard is rose-colour. This document was preserved in the 
 Archives of the Prefecture of Police at Paris, now burnt down. 
 
A Violent Placard. 413 
 
 walked through the streets, found it posted up in the Rue du 
 Monceau, St.-Gervaise, near the turnstile St.-Jean, and the 
 stable-door of a house in which lives M. Mouricault, a 
 judge of one of the district tribunals in the department of 
 Paris. Upon the church-wall of the former parish of St- 
 Jean-en-Greve, the commissary saw the address, and a dozen 
 people stopping to read it. We thought it the duty of our 
 office to take down two of these papers, one from the wall of 
 the said church, the other from the house of M. Mouricault, 
 and, in consequence, we pulled them down in presence of the 
 public, and, being in possession of these two papers, it seemed 
 to us essential to give notice of them. 
 
 GUEULETTE, Commissary. ; JOLLY, Registrar. 
 
 PLACARD. 
 
 ONLY UNSKILFUL DESPOTS USE THE BAYONET. 
 
 THE ART OF TYRANNY 
 IS TO USE JUDGES FOR SIMILAR PURPOSES. 
 
 Tacitus, a. factious and incendiary historian. 
 
 Passers-by, 
 
 I beg you to stop a moment and say to whom 
 you would give the prize of virtue, if you had to choose 
 between the benches of the convicts and the seats of the 
 tribunal of the sixth arrondissement. 
 
 You have learned from the placard of Sanierre that, false 
 witnesses having failed, Bernard, the public prosecutor, sup- 
 plied the false evidence by sending to the Friend of the 
 Citizens, and signing with his own hand, a false extract from 
 depositions which did not exist. 
 
 According to the same extract, sent to the journals by 
 the sycophant Bernard, I understood they had made the 
 lucky discovery of a false witness against me, and that the 
 sixth witness had deposed, as the Gazette des Tribunaux as- 
 serted, 'that Camille Desmoulins had said at the Cate Procope, 
 that the National Guard ought to be fired upon, and M. de 
 
4 1 4 Appendix. 
 
 Lafayette killed, and had also read aloud a petition in which 
 he maintained that the assignats were the patrimony of poor, 
 people.' 
 
 Instead of this deposition, what was my astonishment at 
 the examination to find only the following : 
 
 ' The sixth witness, Pierre l'Allemand, deposes that, fif- 
 teen days before the affair of the Champ de Mars, he heard 
 Camille Desmoulins reading aloud, at the Cafe" Procope, a 
 petition in which he maintained that assignats were the patri- 
 mony of the poor, which is all he said he knew! 
 
 Citizens, you perceive that I never said the National Guard 
 must be fired upon and M. de Lafayette killed, All this is 
 an embellishment of the public prosecutor's. 
 
 There only remained the capital accusation of having 
 read the petition. 
 
 But, 1st. How could the enunciation of an opinion upon 
 the assignats, on the 3rd of July, be an event of the day on 
 the 17th? 
 
 2ndly. If it was a great crime to have read the petition in 
 the afternoon, at the Cafe" Procope, why did not the National 
 Assembly denounce me for having presented it solemnly in 
 the morning ? 
 
 3tdly. I have added the petition to the papers in' the case. 
 I defy the judges to find in it what the witness pretended I 
 had read ; and if they find the proposition that assignats are 
 the patrimony of the poor, I will consent to recognise MM. 
 Clement de Blavet, Isnard, Lacaze, Robin, and this same 
 Bernard, 1 as honest men who have never been set up to drive 
 away too patriotic electors by decrees of adjournment. 
 
 What says this petition ? ' That as a part of the assignats 
 (and NOT all) represents Church property, of which one 
 fourth was appropriated to the relief of the indigent, this 
 part would not be diverted from its object if it were employed 
 in procuring work for men who are in want of it.' 
 
 1 I should myself be a calumniator as despicable as these judges' if I did not 
 except from this denunciation M. Mutel, whom I cannot praise too highly, and 
 M. Recolene. Nevertheless, has a judge done enough for the oppressed by 
 coldly washing his hands of the matter, like Pilate ? Is it not his duty to arise 
 with the indignation of virtue and say, like Cato, to the judges, in the presence of 
 the people : ' Scoundrels, I stand in the midst of you as in a gang of cut-throats ' ? 
 
A Violent Placard. 415 
 
 This, then, is my crime, that I enunciated in a cafe\ a 
 fortnight before the affair of the 17th, an opinion which I 
 share with Fleury, D'Hericourt, all jurists, and all laws. 
 
 No, my crime is that I am incorruptible, that I have not 
 chosen to make my pen the slave of any of the parties who 
 have courted it and bargained for it ; my crime is that I am 
 the irreconcilable enemy of all enemies of the public wel- 
 fare. This is the crime for which tyrants and slaves, the civil 
 list and traitors, those who have sold themselves and those 
 who would willingly sell themselves, cannot forgive me. 
 
 You see, citizens, that I only needed the petition to convict 
 this witness of falsehood ; and one of the judges has said 
 publicly that there were no more charges, no more de- 
 positions, no more accusations, and yet the tribunal, sitting 
 with closed doors, dismissed my demand to be remanded, at 
 least, for a further hearing. 
 
 Thus I remain under an accusation, without any accu- 
 sation ! 
 
 I should have a fine pretext for crying out in the 
 lettre de cachet, signed Bernard and Co. ; but, once more, a 
 patriot is now-a-days only too happy if he be not shot or im- 
 prisoned, and if he get off with not being sent to the Electoral 
 Assembly. One only thing astonishes me, i.e. how it is that 
 people are stupid enough to repeat daily, by calumnies, the 
 royal prohibition of the Chant du coq, whilst one witness, or 
 even none, was sufficient to let loose at the heels of Brissot, 
 as at those of Danton, Legendre, Camille Desmoulins, &c, 
 Bernard, the public prosecutor, who with one stamped page 
 will do a hundred times more than Morande, the undertaker 
 of defamation, with his long experience and all his reams of 
 libels without a stamp. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 Elector of the section of the Theatre Francais.' 
 
 1 In another placard Camille thus defended his title of Elector : — 
 
 Address of Camille Desmoulins, elector of the section of the The&tre Francais, 
 to the Electoral Body. 
 
 Gentlemen, — Although an elector cf the section of the Theatre Francais, 
 have not received a letter of convocation. 
 
4 1 6 . Appendix. 
 
 No. 6. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins judged by his Enemies. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins, the beloved writer of the Parisian 
 nation. Every orator has his arena and his audience ; some 
 take the rostrum, others the pulpit, others, again, the aca- 
 demical chair. M. Desmoulins sets up with his eloquence in 
 the streets, and he has all who pass by for admirers. With 
 three learned words, nation, lamp-post, and aristocrat, he knew 
 how to bring himself down to the level of the honest butcher- 
 boy and the modest fish-fag, and of all those new readers 
 brought forth by the Revolution. Pens such as his are needed 
 to lead the people, and to accustom them to having ideas. 
 Voltaire and Rousseau, with their sublime writings, have 
 done no more than enlighten and soften men. They have 
 never disgusted them with the monarchical yoke. Never 
 would they, in order to civilise the people, have taught them 
 their strength, and their highly lauded style would never 
 have steeped France in blood. This is precisely what our 
 public writers have contrived to do. Without their periodical 
 harangues the French would still be contented slaves. Even 
 now they would calm down and be weary of living only 
 upon victims. But, happily, M. Desmoulins sustains their 
 energy by his publications ; he keeps, so to speak, their 
 vengeance on the alert, and not one of his Nos. appears 
 but blood is shed somewhere. 1 
 
 In truth I am a journalist, and I am not ignorant that at the sitting of the nth 
 instant M. Bamave declared it to be the abomination of desolation that journalists 
 should be nominated electors. But evidently M. Bamave could not have had my 
 journal in view in this proscription, to which he and his friends did not disdain 
 to put their hands, and of which they were the first lessors ; besides the National 
 Assembly contented itself with highly applauding this speech without branding 
 as infamous a profession followed by a tenth of the numbers, to one of which it 
 has given a place in the Pantheon. 
 
 My section has twenty-six representatives : to take away one would be to 
 impugn the sovereignty of the people. 
 
 In a representative government, as the National Assembly has repeatedly said, 
 the sovereignty of the people consists of the sole right to elect. 
 
 What remains to them of this paltry sovereignty is impugned, if their repre- 
 sentatives are taken from them. 
 
 1 'Petit Dictionnaire des Grands Hommes de la Revolution,' by an Active 
 Citizen, formerly a Nobody. At the Palais Royal, from the National Printing- 
 press, 1790.) 
 
HdrauWs Judgeship. 4 r 7 
 
 No. 7. 
 
 HERAULT AND DANTON IN 1790. 
 
 A speech delivered by M. HeVault, elected judge of the 
 tribunals of the six districts of the departments of Paris. 
 
 Gentlemen,— 
 
 I am not going to thank you, because you have 
 forbidden expressions of gratitude ; but I may at least offer 
 you the only homage worthy of you, an ardent and lasting 
 zeal in the cause of liberty. 
 
 The choice of my fellow-citizens has surpassed my fondest 
 hopes ; but at the moment when your votes have raised me 
 to the rank of judge I ought not to listen to anything but the 
 voice of my country. Thus, in the midst of a revolution which 
 has changed everything, I owe it to you, gentlemen, to re- 
 main unchanged and still ready to consecrate my life to the 
 maintenance of justice and to the interests of humanity. 
 
 Reply of the President. 
 
 Sir, — 
 
 The memory of those tribunals which you were defend- 
 ing by your eloquence, when public opinion had already pro- 
 nounced against them, will soon exist only in history. 
 
 Such is the fate of things human. You have seen vast 
 bodies fall which believed themselves immortal, but in the 
 midst of ruin, merit and virtue still stand erect. They are 
 the materials of the edifice which our freed hands are build- 
 ing up day by day. You ought to make a part of it. Justice, 
 accustomed to your name, calls you into her new sanctuary. 
 Famous in the rostrum when the voice of liberty dared not 
 ask a hearing, you defended innocence and the laws with 
 all your talents, with all your courage. But the people 
 complained of your silence ; they called for you ; you have 
 reappeared, you have listened to the voice of your country. 
 She reigns over great minds ; in the midst of her children 
 you have just solemnly undertaken to consecrate your life to 
 
 £ E 
 
4 1 8 Appendix. 
 
 her ; she accepts your promise, and the Electoral Assembly 
 in giving you its votes witnesses it. 
 
 Extract from the register of the Electoral Assembly of the 
 department of Paris, sitting in the metropolitan bishop's house. 
 
 A speech made on September 17, 1790, by M. HeVault 
 de S^chelles, nominated deputy of the department of Paris, to 
 the Legislative Body in the winter sitting : — 
 
 Gentlemen, — 
 
 The first time I had the honour of serving the 
 revolution in a public capacity was when it reached the 
 judicial order. By their votes my fellow-citizens deigned 
 to raise me to the honourable function of a judge, and this 
 mark of their confidence renews in my heart the vow that 
 I have taken, never to defend aught but the cause of right 
 and humanity. It is very pleasant to me to be chosen a 
 second time by the people, no longer to urge their interests 
 in rights already established, but to find, if possible, new 
 ones, and to represent them in all the majesty of their 
 power. Until now I have only fulfilled among you the quiet 
 duties of citizenship. As for the proofs of my patriotism, it 
 was not under your eyes, but far from you, that I gave them ; 
 and however formidable the persecutions and the perils may 
 have been to which the senseless rage of our enemies nearly 
 made me a victim, you were not bound to know of 
 them, nor to take them into account. But now, gentlemen, 
 that through your goodness I have been invested with these 
 high functions, where wisdom herself will be nothing without 
 firmness, I promise you that the great cause of liberty, the 
 sovereignty of the nation, the sacredness of the constitution, 
 shall never have a more ardent defender. A great work has 
 just been accomplished ; the bark of France is at last con- 
 structed in the midst of ruin and clamour ; and if, indeed, the 
 storms growling in the distance ever become a reality, and if it 
 be possible to believe that which it is not allowable to fear, she 
 is about to be launched upon a tempestuous sea. Under such 
 important circumstances, though I cannot hope to equal the 
 brilliant intellects and talents of our colleagues, I can at least 
 
He'rault's Speech, 419 
 
 rival them in civic virtues. I will call to mind that I have 
 lived all my life for justice, and this feeling is perhaps the one 
 of all others that gives to man the truest courage and the 
 most enduring energy. Without this, the revolution will not 
 be made ; this sustains it ; and is a guarantee of its con- 
 tinuance for us, and its necessity for all peoples. 
 
 M. Pastoret, the president, replied to him : — 
 
 Sir, — 
 
 In those unhappy times, when, to use the expression 
 of a great man, the law weighed us down like crime, you 
 sought to alleviate its yoke, and your talents, adorned by 
 tender sensibility, won for us the means of reconciling legis- 
 lation with humanity. Then, eloquence was. almost always 
 condemned to take refuge in deserted temples, or to be lost 
 among private interests in the sanctuary of the law. To-day 
 she is more worthy of you and of herself. The orator exercises 
 over us the most powerful of all magistracies, that of genius ; 
 and now, when the nation, once dethroned by kings, has re- 
 conquered its sovereignty, you ought to be proud of becoming 
 the organ of its inalienable rights, and the firm support of its 
 liberties. 
 
 Correct copy. GOUNION, Secretary. 
 
 Extract from the registry of the Electoral Assembly of 
 the department of Paris. 
 
 Letter of M. Danton, elected administrator of the depart- 
 ment : — 
 
 Monsieur le President, — 
 
 I beg of you to announce to the Electoral Assem- 
 bly that I accept the duties to which they have seen fit to 
 call me. The suffrages with which the true friends of liberty 
 have honoured me can add nothing to my feelings of duty 
 towards my country ; to serve her is a debt which is renewed 
 each day, and which augments with each occasion for its 
 acquittal. I do not know whether I deceive myself, but I feel 
 beforehand that I shall not disappoint the expectations of 
 those who have looked upon me as capable of uniting with the 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 Appendix. 
 
 impulses of an ardent patriotism, without which we cannot 
 contribute either to the conquest or the consolidation of 
 liberty, that spirit of moderation which is necessary for enjoying 
 the fruits of our happy revolution. 
 
 Eager to hail the last partisans of a broken-down despotism 
 as my enemies, I cannot hope to silence calumny. I have 
 on other ambition than to add to the esteem of the citizens 
 who have done me justice, that of the well-intentioned men 
 whom prejudice cannot long continue to lead into error. 
 
 Whatever may be the fluctuation of opinion concerning 
 my public life, as I am convinced that it is important for the 
 general interest that the supervision of public functionaries 
 should be unlimited, and its exercise without danger, even 
 for those who bring accusations as false as they are grave ; 
 firm in my principles and my conduct, I engage to oppose 
 to my detractors nothing but my actions themselves, and to 
 avenge myself solely by showing more and more openly my 
 love for the nation, for the laws, and for the king, and my 
 eternal devotion to the maintenance of the constitution. 
 
 I have the honour to be, with respect, M. le President, 
 Your very humble, very obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed) DANTON. 
 
 Correct copy. LACEPEDE, Secretary. 
 
 No. 8. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins and Danton judged by 
 a Contemporary. 1 
 
 The section Lepelletier, regenerated after Thermidor, was 
 very formidable in '93 for its terrorist inquisition. The Sainte- 
 Amaranthe family having lived a long time in the Rue 
 
 1 Extract from a very rare pamphlet, ' La Famille Sainte-Amaranthe,' by 
 Madame A. R. (Paris, printed by V. Goupil and Co., Rue Garanciere 5, 1864, in 
 8°.) The authoress is Madame A. R., whose works, published at the beginning of 
 the century, had a well-deserved success. She died in 1852. 
 
The Saint- Amarantke Family. 421 
 
 Vivienne, found themselves under the jurisdiction of its com- 
 mittee. The members who composed it were objects of 
 horror to the family, and not one of them was ever admitted 
 to the house. 1 
 
 Among the most dangerous was Trial, who played 
 buffoons' parts so cleverly at the OpeVa Comique ! What 
 a perverse nature ! 
 
 According to some of his friends, it appears that the 
 rebuff Trial experienced from Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, 
 when he wished to be received at her house, was one 
 of the principal causes of the fatal catastrophe. Amelie's 
 mother could not bring herself to adopt the strange policy 
 practised at a great number of fashionable salons, where 
 extreme demagogues were admitted rather than moderate 
 patriots. Alas ! that policy did not save the unfortunate 
 slaves of fear, who, however, regained their courage when they 
 needed it to mount the scaffold. Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe 
 consented nevertheless to receive Camille Desmoulins, whose 
 talent, and heart perhaps, ought to have saved him from the 
 excesses of the revolutionary fever. He was presented by 
 M. de Laplatiere, the editor of a journal of some influence, 
 and whose moderate views proved that he did not share 
 Camille's opinions. Anti-Dantonist as I am, I am forced to 
 confess that he made himself very pleasant and was very good 
 company on the only two occasions when he visited at Madame 
 de Sainte-Amaranthe's. He was ugly, but it was a humorous 
 
 1 The editor of the pamphlet 'La Famille de Sainte-Amaranthe' tells us that 
 the author of these pages, the daughter of a financial administrator under Louis 
 XVI. , published some successful works in the beginning of the present century. 
 None are more interesting than the present pamphlet. In it the folding- 
 doors of the drawing-room of the ladies of Sainte-Amaranthe are thrown wide 
 open. But the friendly hand has neglected to initiate us into the secrets of 
 the boudoir. There is no mention of Herault de Sechelles in the enumera- 
 tion of the guests of Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe. MM. Auccanes, the 
 Creole, de Fagan, de Miromesnil, Felix de Saint-Fargeau, the Parisian Alcibiades, 
 figure in this gaming-house (the apartment in the Rue Vivienne) ; Dazincourt 
 too, Fleury, Prince de Ligne, M. de Monville, who gave fetes in the deserted 
 house in the Forest of Marly ; a flute-player whom Frederick II. called 
 Apollyon, the Abbe Lajard de Cherval, brother to the minister of Louis XVI. 
 Vicomte de Pons, a former suitor of Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, M. de 
 Morainville, M, de Langlade, 
 
422 Appendix. 
 
 and pleasing ugliness. He replied with gracious gallantry to 
 Amelie, who paid him a compliment upon the beauty of his 
 wife. 
 
 ' Yes,' said he, with that conjugal enthusiasm of which he 
 has given so many touching proofs, ' yes, citizeness Lucile is 
 very beautiful ; for she would be thought so even beside you.' 
 He charmed M. de Sartines particularly by speaking with 
 delight of the opera, the only thing in the world which was 
 capable of rousing Amelie's husband to enthusiasm. 
 
 ' The opera,' cried Camille, ' is the head-quarters of civilisa- 
 tion ; if that were shut up, we should fall back into barbarism.' 
 
 He has expressed nearly the same thought in an article 
 of his 'Vieux Cordelier.' Would to heaven that his writings, 
 his discourses, had been always so inoffensive ! He came a 
 second time, but perceiving, I fancy, that Madame de Sainte- 
 Amaranthe might have been more amiable than she was to 
 him, he discontinued his visits. Far from complaining, she 
 congratulated herself in speaking of it to me and to our good 
 Colin, who said to her : 
 
 ' You might have worse people at your house than Camille 
 Desmoulins.' 
 
 ' He is quite bad enough,' she replied, laughing. 
 
 Another Fragment. 
 
 Saint-Just, in his report of the 12th Germinal, 1794, speaks 
 of Danton's presence at a conspirators' supper at the Sainte- 
 Amaranthe's. Madame A. R. tells us about this supper, and 
 the relations of Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe with Danton. 
 The Sainte-Amaranthe family then lived at Sucy. The 
 direction of the famous Number 50 had been given to M. 
 de Mounier, who took it in the family's name. The village 
 balls at Sucy threw Vauxhall and Ranelagh into the shade. 
 She received besides. F61ix de Saint-Fargeau, formerly 
 a frequent visitor, rarely appeared. 'Since his brother's 
 death, who was assassinated as a regicide, by the Paris garde 
 de corps, this man, formerly so brilliant and frivolous, has be- 
 come a scarecrow in appearance, and a demagogue in language.' 
 One day a carriage arrived, in which were theComte deMorand, 
 
The Saint-Amaranthe Family. 423 
 
 'little M. Poirson, French consul at Stockholm,' M. de 
 Pressac, a witty talker, aide-de-camp to the Due de Lauzuri, 
 and the Marquis de Fenouil, an ex-officer of the guards and 
 bfother-in-law to M. de Marbeuf. They had dinner. M. de 
 Fenouil proposed to escort the ladies to Paris. The gentle- 
 men were each, in his turn, to regale the ladies at a fashion- 
 able restaurant. M. de Fenouil himself, ' a handsome man,' 
 chose Meot, MM. de Pressac and Poirson votedfor Beauvilliers, 
 and M. de Morand for the famous Rose, the keeper of the 
 hotel Grange-Bateliere. They went to a restaurant ; then, 
 after a long sitting at her dressmaker's, Madame Valandin, 
 Amelie de Sartines appeared at the OpeVa Comique, where the 
 handsome Elleviou acted in ' Philippe and Georgette,' and 
 cast many glances towards the box, while he sang expressively : 
 ' Oh ! ma Georgette, toi seule embellis ce sejour.' 
 
 The third day the dinner was at Rose's restaurant. M. de 
 Morand wanted us to say ' The last is the best ! ' Alas ! 
 we all repeated it ! We arrived there in high spirits, when 
 Rose appeared with a concerned expression of face, and ad- 
 dressing himself to Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, said : 
 
 ' How very unfortunate I am, madame ! Preparations had 
 been made to receive you in one of my finest rooms, when 
 the citizen Danton ordered a dinner, and named the room 
 he wished to have.' Poor Rose announced his discomfiture 
 in despairing accents. M. de Morand was annoyed ; as for 
 Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, she began to laugh, and said : 
 ' Honour to whom honour is due ; give citizen Danton our 
 room, and do not put yourself out too much about it ; you 
 can accommodate us in some other room — can you not ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! yes, madame, on the same floor, in a very nice room ; 
 but not such as I wished to offer to madame.' 
 
 We went there. The dinner was splendid. Rose was 
 determined to eclipse his rivals. We were almost gay, a 
 little frivolous as heretofore. Fleury, who was one of us, 
 had never been so amusing. We guessed when Danton and 
 his guests entered from the sound of their voices ; but not- 
 withstanding that they were so near, we could not distinguish 
 what they said, although it did not the less interrupt our conver- 
 
424 Appendix. 
 
 sation. However, we soon resumed it. We were so glad in 
 those days to forget ourselves sometimes ! 
 
 ' They are graver in there than we are,' observed M. de 
 Morand, pointing to the room where the Dantonist party was. 
 We left our room to go to the Franqais. ' Pamela' was acted. 
 Some moments after our entrance a box opposite to us was 
 opened. 
 
 ' There is Danton,' cried M. de Pressac. 
 
 ' He pursues us,' added Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe. 
 Between the acts the fancy took her to look at him closer. 
 
 ' Will you come with me, dear ? ' she said to me. ' The 
 box next to his is vacant. Let us go there. Will you come, 
 Amelie?' 
 
 ' Oh ! I shall remain here,' replied M. de Sartines ; ' when 
 I want to see wild beasts, I can go to the Jardin du Rot.' 
 
 M. de Pressac came with us ; he assured us, laughing, that 
 Danton would be nattered if he knew the reason of our moving. 
 
 ' Yes,' replied my companion, ' he will think he has rallied 
 all parties round him when he sees a royalist and a Girondin 
 hovering about him.' 
 
 Having stayed half through an act in Danton's neigh- 
 bourhood, she said to me : ' I have had enough ; have you ? ' 
 ' I have had too much,' I answered. Turning to our com- 
 panion, she said aloud : ' Our first box was decidedly better ; 
 let us go back to it.' These words were intended to remove 
 any idea of our appearance near Danton being inten- 
 tional, for he and his friends had naturally looked at two 
 well-dressed women. This, I swear, is the only . connexion 
 which ever existed between the family of Sainte-Amaranthe 
 and Danton ; they dined on the same day at Rose's restau- 
 rant, in totally separate rooms. I allow that there may have 
 'been a conspiracy in the room where the famous party leader 
 was, but certainly in ours we were peaceable, almost gay. 1 
 
 Madame A. R. relates, further on, the night journeys of 
 Elleviou to Sucy; the alleys and paths of the garden had 
 been pointed out to him. The arrangement of the lights was 
 the signal agreed upon for his entry into the apartment by 
 
 1 See the pamphlet, p. 112 and following. 
 
The Decree against the Dantonists. 425 
 
 the servants' staircase. History should not despise this infor- 
 mation, which has its value. One day the democrat Chenard 
 learned from his friend Elleviou that it was said among them 
 that the nocturnal visitor was no other than Danton. It was 
 suspected that the fall of Robespierre was set on foot among 
 ' these fair ladies.' All these made-up stories may have had 
 their effect. Chenard even asked Elleviou to appear before the 
 Committee of Public Welfare and declare that it was not Danton 
 who in disguise scaled the walls of the garden. Elleviou 
 would not do this. He ought to have repented of his- refusal, if 
 the anecdote told by the author of this pamphlet is authentic. 
 
 No. 9. 
 Decree of Accusation against the Dantonists. 
 
 Decree of the National Convention on the eleventh day of 
 Germinal, second year of the French Republic, one and indi- 
 visible, accusing Camille Desmoulins, HeVault, Danton, 
 Philippeaux and Lacroix. 
 
 The National Convention, after having heard the report of 
 the Committees of General Safety and Public Welfare, decrees 
 accusation against Camille Desmoulins, Herault, .Danton, 
 Philippeaux, Lacroix, charged with complicity with Orleans 
 and Dumouriez, with Fabre d'Eglantine and the enemies of 
 the Republic, for having taken part in the conspiracy tending 
 to restablish the monarchy, and to destroy national repre- 
 sentation and republican government ; consequently it orders 
 that they stand their trial with Fabre d'Eglantine. 
 Examined by the inspector. 
 
 (Signed) Auger. 
 
 Compared with the original by us the President and 
 Secretary of the National Convention, in Paris, eleventh 
 Germinal, second year of the Republic, one and indivisible. 
 
 (Signed) Tallien, President ; 
 Peyssard and Bezard, Secretaries, 
 
426 Appendix. 
 
 In the name of the Republic, the Executive Provisional 
 Council summons and orders all the administrative bodies 
 and tribunals to enter the present law in their registers, to 
 read, publish, post up, and execute it, in their departments 
 and respective resorts. In virtue of which we have affixed 
 our signature and the seal of the Republic. Given at Paris 
 eleventh day of Germinal, second of the French Republic, one 
 and indivisible. 
 
 (Signed) Destournelles ; (Countersigned) Gohier. 
 
 Sealed with the seal of the Republic. 
 
 Certified copy. 
 
 (Signed) Gohier. 
 
 A correct copy, collated by me, Registrar-in-chief of the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal undersigned 
 
 N.-J. FABRICIUS. 1 
 
 No. 10. 
 Imposition of Seals at Westermann's House. 8 
 
 Section of Gravilliers — Committee of Supervision. 
 
 The thirteenth day of Germinal, second year of the French 
 Republic, one and indivisible. 
 
 We, the undersigned, Commissioners of the Revolutionary 
 Committee of the Section of Gravilliers, nominated to place 
 
 1 National Archives, legislative and judicial section. (C. W. 342, No. 648 
 and following. ) 
 
 2 Westermann wrote to the Convention as follows : 
 
 ' Saint-Maixent, 1st November, 1793, II. year of the 
 Republic, one and indivisible. 
 ' Citizen President, — I send the Convention the State seals and stamps 
 of the pretended country conquered by the so-called Louis XVII., taken by me 
 on my entry into Beaupreau. 
 
 ' General of Brigade, WESTERMANN.' * 
 
 * Unpublished autograph, to be seen at the Museum of the National Archives. 
 (See the important publication of M. Plon, Mushim cies Archives). 
 
A rrest of Westermann. 427 
 
 the seals on the effects of the citizen Westermann, general of 
 brigade, living in the Rue Mesll^e, No. 63, arrested this day, 
 by order of citizen Fouquier, public prosecutor to the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal of Paris. 
 
 Being arrived, we found citizeness Anne-Louise-Jos6phine 
 Leloir, whom we had ordered to show us the effects belong- 
 ing to citizen Westermann, which she did not refuse to 
 do, declaring that all moveables belonged to him. So we 
 carried away many trunks, as well as boxes, portmanteaus, 
 arms, guns, hats, and other effects belonging to him ; also 
 papers, from a room situated between the sleeping-room 
 and drawing-room, having a window looking on the Rue 
 Mesll^e, and in the said room is a little alcove, where we 
 shut everything up, and put seals on the door opening into 
 the sleeping-room, and in the same room we have also put 
 the watch that the citizen Westermann gave us at the Com- 
 mittee, in a small box, where he keeps his gold and silver 
 epaulettes. 
 
 After having required the citizeness Leloir to give us 
 proofs that the dwelling was hired in her name and to 
 show us the receipts, she obeyed, and showed us the receipt 
 for the last term, which proved that the dwelling was taken 
 in her name. 
 
 And, finally, we have placed as guardian of the aforesaid 
 seals, after having showed him and made him take notice that 
 they were whole and entire, citizen Claude-Francis Menayant, 
 who is engaged to represent us in this way every time 
 that he shall be legally required. We have brought to our 
 Committee a bunch of nine keys, which belong to the trunks 
 and the articles under seal, and have drawn up this state- 
 ment, and, after having had it read, have said it was declared, 
 and with us has signed it. 
 
 Correct copy. Houdemard, Secretary. 
 
 ' Citizen Varineau Antoine, aged 28 years, native of Da- 
 guenau, aide-de-camp to General Westermann, living in Rue 
 Notre Dame de Lazareth, No. 130, showed us his passport 
 from the minister, dated 12th Germinal, and good for six days, 
 
428 Appendix. 
 
 to be given up at his post, that he may rejoin his corps, which 
 is at Poitie, making part of the army of the West ; captain of 
 the legion of the North, of the third company, 2nd battalion 
 and aide-de-camp since August 1793 (old style). 
 
 Correct copy. HOUDEMARD, Secretary} 
 
 No. 11. 
 Chabot— his Will and his attempt at Suicide. 
 
 Chabot's will contains two full pages of close writing. 
 I quote some lines of it : — 
 
 ' I hope that the agents of England will not be much 
 longer successful in misleading the French Government by 
 a sect of so-called Catonists or Spartans, who neither know 
 nor admire those who are courageous, and who live like 
 Sybarites, while they recommend black broth to the favoured 
 friends of the nation. The system preached by Saint-Just 
 in particular will lead us to slavery, by a shorter road than 
 the luxury which he declaims against. Men ought to be led 
 to equality through the happiness of the greater number of 
 those who work, and who add to the enjoyments of society by 
 the development of their talents and their industry, and not 
 through the privations of every individual. 
 
 ' . . . . Chabot disowns the son of Julie Berger, but 
 directs that he shall be maintained until his fourteenth year, 
 recommending his parents to take care of his " very virtuous 
 wife, and to console her." 
 
 ' The two national domains of eleven thousand eight hun- 
 dred livres were purchased with the money of my sister and 
 mother, who for sixty-four years have practised economy, and 
 gone through unheard-of toil to leave a competency to their 
 children. My family has always lived by labour. 
 
 ' I pardon,' he adds, ' my enemies from the bottom of my 
 
 ' From the same file as the preceding document. Documents 9 and 10 are 
 ill -spelt throughout in the original, 
 
Chabofs Will. 429 
 
 heart ; if I have censured them a little too much in my 
 memoir, I declare that the love of my country has been my 
 ruling passion. 
 
 ' The writings which I leave after me may do something 
 towards the establishment of that happiness which, as I wrote 
 long before Saint-Just did so, should be the aim of all societies. 
 I have been guilty of weaknesses in my life. But the 
 most disinterested philanthropy and respect for the laws of 
 nature will secure for me pardon for some of the wander- 
 ings of my headstrong passions. I hope the Divinity, whom 
 I adore, in spite of all the modern fanatics of atheism, will 
 forget these, and will receive me into his bosom. 
 
 ' I die exclaiming : Long live the Republic, one and indi- 
 visible ! Long live her founders, her defenders, and her friends ! 
 War to the bloodthirsty, for they resemble despots of all 
 sorts ! Peace to all true friends of humanity ! Down with 
 the power of men ! Long live that of virtue ! 
 
 ' Francois Chabot.' 
 
 The postscripts are in defence of Fabre and Bazire. 
 Bulletin of Chabot 's health. 
 
 30 Vent6se. 
 
 We have found him easier ; stomach still swollen, but 
 rather less so ; the urine difficult and painful to pass, also 
 the motions ; the head still affected, with mind wandering ; 
 vomiting from time to time. 
 
 The health officers of the police administration adminis- 
 tered a purge to-day. Of this we do not approve ; the treat- 
 ment was premature, and calculated to augment the irritation 
 and pain. Chabot is in a condition to be taken to-day to the 
 
 hospital. 
 
 Bayard, Maury. 
 
 Guillaume Besse, turnkey (prison of the Luxembourg, 
 section of Mucius SceVola), deposes : 
 
 About two o'clock he heard some one call out, 'Tell 
 citizen Benott to come up.' 
 
430 Appendix. 
 
 Chabot had rung. Besse went up. He saw citizen 
 Felette and Benott, who were taking care of Chabot. He, 
 being interrogated, replied : 
 
 * I shall not explain except to the Committee of Public 
 Welfare or of General Safety.' 
 
 Besse did not know what poison the prisoner had taken. 
 There was the word topique on the bottle. Chabot, hearing 
 the amendment of Billaud-de-Varennes to the act of accusa- 
 tions cried in the street, had drunk, calling out, ' Long live 
 the Republic ! ' 
 
 About three o'clock, or a little past — for his watch did not 
 go well — being in agony, he called the boy. Benott came. 
 ' Take my will, which is lying on the table,' Chabot said to 
 him, ' and carry it to the Committee of General Safety, and 
 say to my oppressors that I pardon them, because I believe 
 that they have only pronounced sentence of death upon me 
 to save the country.' 
 
 The administrators of police, Dange and Cailleux, were 
 summoned, then the physicians Markoski and Soupe. They ad- 
 ministered an anodyne, such as laudanum, and ordered 'that 
 every care should be taken of him that humanity and the 
 nature of their functions demanded.' 
 
 (Signed) Francois Chabot (upon the seal). 1 
 
 No. 12. 
 
 Translation of a Letter written by the Spanish 
 Ambassador at Venice to the Duke de la 
 Mendia. 
 
 July 31st, 1793. 
 
 My Lord, — Your Excellency doubtless already knows 
 that on the 3rd of this month the Queen of France was 
 separated from the Dauphin, which was done by the heads of 
 Marat's party in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, 
 who had no knowledge of it until it was over, and then did 
 
 1 In the original, this and the preceding document are ill-spelt throughout. •' 
 
An Ambassador's Letter. 431 
 
 not dare to offer any opposition. The Royalists think that 
 they wish by this means to render the intrigues of that 
 princess more credible. She persists in exposing herself to 
 danger, notwithstanding the advice which it is more and 
 more difficult to give her, owing to the severity with which 
 she is treated and the constraint she is under, as you will 
 see. The Commune of Paris pretend that an agent of the 
 Prince of Coburg is in correspondence with the Queen ; 
 that Danton and Lacroix, who were of the Montague, 
 have become Girondins, and have had interviews with her 
 Majesty ; that the said agent is nephew to General Ferraris ; 
 that he comes to Paris, and returns on foot for fear of being 
 known ; that he set out at night on the 7th, carrying letters to 
 the Queen ; before she received them they had to pass through 
 the hands of the Commissary of the Temple, in whom they 
 thought they could confide, but the rascal carried them 
 to his Commune, who had them copied. Upon this infor- 
 mation the Commune turned accuser, and drew up a 
 charge composed of seventeen articles. This critical situa- 
 tion is not -less alarming than the suppression of the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety and its re-formation. Nine of the 
 principal Maratist leaders are members, Marat himself is presi- 
 dent, Robespierre is secretary. They hope, however, to find a 
 Royalist spy, disguised under a Maratist mask, amongst them. 
 These scoundrels are known ; we may expect anything from 
 them. This idea alone makes one tremble. 
 
 I have already informed your Excellency, on the 17th 
 of the current month, that a courier had arrived at Paris 
 to announce the taking of Nantes by the army of Gaston. 
 This news has been contradicted by letters written to Paris on 
 the 1 3th, and it is feared that the Royalists, finding themselves 
 masters of the suburbs, and thai the skirmishes which have 
 taken place in the streets of the town were to their advan- 
 tage, congratulated themselves prematurely on having gained 
 a complete victory. 
 
 Custine was defeated on the 3rd. On the 8th the details 
 were not yet known in Paris, for the Commune, which seems 
 to be much dispirited by them, kept them back. It was the- 
 same with the news of Wimpfen (Wimphen). He had brought 
 
432 Appendix^ 
 
 his advance-posts up to the town of Caen, and taken several 
 spare horses which were destined for the patriot hussars. 
 
 The Committee assembled at Bagatelle resolved that all 
 possible measures should be taken to make the people con- 
 sent to the Convention having a recess, at the same time 
 remaining in Paris to receive what the Committee of Public 
 Safety, the executive power, the department, and the Com- 
 mune should send them. 
 
 The Commune is so strongly opposed to this project that 
 it has not been carried out. 
 
 I do not know how they are to find generals. If the troops 
 meet with any check, the generals are at once summoned 
 before the bar of the Convention, and called to account by a 
 decree of accusation. This is the case with Custine, Biron, 
 Westermann, and Sandos, but most probably they will not 
 obey the summons to the bar. 
 
 The reunion of the Marseillais and Lyonnais is still un- 
 certain. In general the armies are for the Republic, but as 
 the greater part of their leaders are Royalists, there is nothing 
 to fear but from the soldiers, who will be easily persuaded to 
 do all that the generals wish. 
 
 I have already told your Excellency that I had taken the 
 liberty of giving notice to all the State inquisitors of the 
 approaching arrival of Semonville. Neither he nor his com- 
 panions have been seen. After the rigorous orders that have 
 been issued, they could not pass through any town in this State. 
 I have just heard that he had about two millions worth of 
 diamonds belonging to the Crown. General Salis, who knows 
 this, and who has much influence, has told his most devoted 
 servants of it, pointing out to them the return routes by which 
 he might pass. He has given orders that the diamonds and 
 his papers should be taken from him. The Archduke of 
 Milan will agree on his side as to the necessity for this 
 proceeding. 
 
 Sainte-Croix has written to the Convention from Con*, 
 stantinople. I have already made you acquainted with his 
 situation in that capital, and that the Austrian and Russian 
 ministers carry on a brisk war with him, but that the English 
 minister protects him and helps him to remain there. He is 
 
Baron Trenck. 433 
 
 his intimate friend, a Jacobin by inclination, and does all he 
 • can to embroil the Porte with the Courts of Vienna and St. 
 Petersburg.. 
 
 (Signed) Clemente de Campos. 
 
 I have just heard that Marat has been killed by a woman 
 twenty-two years old. 
 
 No. 13. 
 
 Copy of a note found among th'e papers of Baron Trenck, 
 entitled Note upon the cause of my arrest : — 
 
 I know a Jew named Dobruska (or Doboufka), born at 
 Nikelsburg in Moravia. He came to Vienna on account of 
 his two very pretty sisters, who had ruined several young 
 men of rank, and for that reason were publicly expelled from 
 the city and the Austrian dominions. The Emperor Joseph 
 made use of this Jew (who bought the title of Schonfeld at 
 Vienna) as a spy during the sittings of the Hungarian Diet, 
 where everybody knew him by this respectable title. I 
 have seen him acting as such ; I know him well ; and I know 
 that it was thus he gained free access to the Emperor; 
 Leopold. 
 
 Four months ago my wife wrote to me to be on my guard 
 in Paris, because the cunning Jew Schonfeld was there, and 
 that no doubt he would have instructions from the Emperor 
 to do me harm. A favourite of the sovereign even gave 
 me the same advice, out of friendship. I sought Schonfeld 
 here, but did not find him. At length a Viennese came to 
 tell me that he lived in the Rue d'Anjou, at a Royalist hotel, 
 where he spent a great deal of money, kept open house for 
 the Jacobins, among whom he played a great part ; that he 
 went by the name of Frey, and that he had given his sister, 
 the celebrated virgin of Vienna, in marriage to the deputy 
 Chabot, an ex-Capuchin. 
 
 I went immediately to him to make sure of my facts. I 
 
 F F 
 
434 Appendix. 
 
 found the same Jew Dobruska, the Emperor's spy ; he con- 
 fessed, too, that it was he who, by means of one of his 
 friends, had hindered my reception among the Jacobins, when 
 I presented myself at their tribune, &c. 
 
 I have just heard that the wife and children of the Jew 
 are at Vienna. 
 
 Paris, November 28, 1793. 
 
 (Signed) Trenck. 
 Correct copy. 
 
 GUFFROY. 1 
 
 No. 14. 
 
 The Order for the Arrest of the D'antonists 
 (notified i2th germinal). 
 
 To the citizens president, and judge of the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal. 
 
 The public prosecutor, in consequence of the accusation 
 by .the National Convention, in its decree of 1 ith Germinal 
 present month, against the above-named Camille Desmoulins, 
 Herault, Danton, Philippeaux and Lacroix, deputies; the 
 said decree accusing them of complicity with d'Orleans and 
 Dumouriez, with Fabre d'Eglantine and the enemies of the 
 Republic, of having taken part in the conspiracies. 
 
 The said decree consequently ordering them to be tried 
 with Fabre d'Eglantine. 
 
 Requires that, pending the decree of accusation under- 
 dated, and to be put into execution as aforesaid, it be ordered 
 by the assembled tribunal that, as quickly as possible, and by 
 an usher of the tribunal, bearer of the undersigned order, 
 Camille Desmoulins, Herault, Danton, Philippeaux and La- 
 croix, deputies of the National Convention, and arraigned 
 by the decree of accusation, be apprehended, taken up and 
 arrested wherever they may be found, and their names 
 
 1 AH these papers are taken from the same file. 
 
The Warrant. 435 
 
 entered in the jail-book of the register of the Luxembourg 
 house of detention, where they shall remain in prison. And 
 also that the said forthcoming ordinance shall be notified 
 to the municipality of Paris as well as to the accused. 
 
 Given at the office of the public prosecutor, 1 2th Germinal 
 of the second year of the French Republic, one and indi- 
 visible. 
 
 Q. FOUQUIER. 
 
 The tribunal, acting upon the requisition of the public 
 prosecutor, orders in consequence, that, with all promptitude 
 in execution of the decree of the National Convention of the 
 nth Germinal, present month, and by an usher, bearer of 
 the present order, Camille Desmoulins, HeVault, Danton, 
 Philippeaux, and Lacroix, deputies of the National Con- 
 vention, arraigned by the undersigned decree of accusation, 
 shall be arrested wherever they may be found. 
 
 Given and decreed by the tribunal, 12th Germinal of the 
 second year of the French Republic, one and indivisible, by 
 citizens Martial Herman, president ; Antoine-Marie Maire, 
 Etienne Foucault, Gabriel Deli^ge, and Claude-Emmanuel 
 Dobsent, judges ; who have signed. 
 
 Herman, President. 
 Deliege, Dobsent, A.-M. Maire, Foucault. 
 
 No. 15. 
 Danton's Death (related by an Eye-witness). 
 
 I was on my way to M&iul's house, which was in the Rue 
 de la Monnaie, when I met in the Rue St.-Honore" the tumbril 
 in which this revolutionary hero was presiding for the last time 
 over his party, since shorn of its heads. He sat calmly be- 
 tween Camille Desmoulins, to whom he listened, and Fabre 
 d'Eglantine, who listened to nobody. Camille was speaking 
 with much vehemence, and throwing himself about, so that 
 
 F F2 
 
436 Appendix. 
 
 his torn clothes exposed his bare neck and shoulders, 
 which were soon to be separated by the axe. Never had 
 the life in him been more active. As to Fabre, motionless 
 in his misery, weighed down by the suffering of the moment, 
 and perhaps also by the remembrance of the past, he seemed 
 hardly alive. Camille, who, in co-operating in the revolution 
 had believed himself to be helping on a great work, still 
 rejoiced in his delusion ; he imagined himself on the way 
 to martyrdom. Alluding to his last writings, he cried to the 
 crowd, * My crime has been to shed tears.' He was proud of 
 his condemnation. Fabre, who had been led into revo- 
 lutionary excesses by less generous feelings, was struck 
 dumb by the voice of truth ; he only saw the punishment 
 at the end of the short way he had still to traverse. 
 
 Another face also attracted my attention to this tumbril 
 of the condemned ; it was that of HeVault de S^chelles. The 
 peace which shone in the handsome face of the late Advocate- 
 General was of a different sort from the calm of Danton, 
 whose face was a caricature of Socrates. Hdrault de 
 S6chelles' calmness sprang from indifference, Danton's from 
 contempt. Danton was not pale, but He>ault's face was 
 tinged with so high a colour, that he looked more like a man 
 returning from a banquet than one going to a scaffold. 
 Herault de Sechelles appeared to be detached from life, to 
 which he had clung at the price of so much cowardice and 
 so many atrocities. The aspect of this egotist astonished 
 everybody; everyone asked his name, but as soon as they 
 had heard it, they ceased to be interested in him. 
 
 An anecdote. Some weeks previous to this terrible day, 
 He>ault had seen Hubert, Clootz, and Ronsin driven along 
 the road which he was so soon to travel in the very same 
 tumbril. 'I found myself on their road accidentally,' he 
 said to the person from whom I learned the fact. 'I should 
 not have run after the sight, but I am not sorry it came in 
 my way ; such things are refreshing! 
 
 I entered M6hul's house, and my mind was full of what I 
 had just seen. ' I should like to see the end of this tragedy,' 
 I said to him, after I had finished in three words the business 
 that brought me there. ' This Danton plays his part very 
 
An Eye witness on the Execution. 437 
 
 well. We are all on the eve of such a day as is just ending 
 for him ; I should like to learn how to go through it well 
 also.' ' A study,' answered Mehul, who looked at things as 
 I did, and who would have come with me if he had not been 
 in his dressing-gown and slippers. 
 
 Meanwhile the fatal cart had continued its progress ; the 
 execution had begun, when, having crossed the Tuileries, 
 I arrived at the railing of the Place Louis XV. From thence 
 I saw the condemned, not ascending, but appearing in turn 
 upon the fatal platform, to disappear immediately by the 
 movement of the plank on which they stepped — the bed on 
 which their eternal repose began. The rest of the operation 
 was hidden from me by the assistants. The accelerated fall 
 of the steel alone showed me what was doing, what was 
 done. 
 
 Danton was the last to appear upon the platform, red 
 with the blood of his friends. ' At the foot of the horrible 
 statue, whose enormous mass was outlined against the sky, I 
 saw the tribune stand like one of Dante's shadows, and half 
 illumined by the dying sun, looking rather as if new risen 
 from the tomb than ready to go into it. Nothing was ever 
 seen more brave than the demeanour of this athlete of the 
 Revolution, more formidable than the expression of the face 
 which defied the axe, than the bearing of the head which, 
 though about to fall, seemed still to dictate laws ! Terrible 
 picture ! Time will never erase it from my memory. I 
 perfectly comprehend the feeling which inspired Danton to 
 utter his last words, those terrible words, that I could not 
 hear, but which were repeated to me in trembling horror 
 and admiration. ' Do not forget, above all,' he said to the 
 executioner, in the tone of one of the Gracchi, ' do not forget 
 to show my. head to the people ; it is good to look at' — 
 Souvenirs cfun Sexagdnaire, by A.-V. Arnault. Paris, Dafey, 
 4 vols. 8vo. 1833, vol. ii. "p. 96 and following. 
 
438 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 No. 16. 
 
 Record of the Entry in the Jail-book of the 
 Dantonists' Names and their Delivery to the 
 Executioner. 
 
 The 9 Germinal, 2nd year 
 of the French Republic, one 
 and indivisible, We, in virtue 
 of a judgment made by the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal and 
 duly signed, and on the 
 requisition of the public 
 prosecutor, at the said 
 tribunal, domiciled at his 
 office near that of "jfah 
 (illegible) to the undersigned 
 tribunal, caused to be taken 
 from the house of detention 
 the under - named, Fabre 
 d'Eglantine, Delaunay Dan- 
 gers, Chabot, Camille des 
 Moulins, Lacroix, Philip- 
 peaux, Bazire, Herault de 
 Sechelles, Danton, and have 
 confined and delivered them 
 into the hands of the - exe- 
 cutor of criminal judgments, 
 to be taken hence to the 
 Place de la Revolution, there 
 to suffer the penalty of 
 death, which was done the 
 same day of the discharge. 
 
 Fabre d'Eglan- 
 tine. 
 
 Delaunay Dan- 
 gers. 
 Chabot. 
 
 Camille des Mou- 
 lins. 
 
 Lacroix. 
 Philippeaux. 
 Bazire. 
 Herault. 
 Danton. 
 
 On the said day, 13th 
 Germinal, the under-named, 
 Fabre d'Eglantine, Delaunay 
 Dangers, Chabot, Camille 
 des Moulins, Lacroix, Philip- 
 peaux, Bazire, Herault, 
 Danton, all the nine, ex- 
 deputies to the National 
 Convention, were transferred 
 from the prison where 
 they were detained to this 
 house, and inscribed in the 
 jail-book of this register by 
 me, undersigned, usher to 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
 in virtue of the order of the 
 said tribunal of to-day's date, 
 made according to the decree 
 of the National Convention 
 of the same day for them to 
 remain in this house, or in 
 the prison of the tribunal, 
 by reason of which citizen 
 Richard, turnkey of the said 
 house, remained in charge 
 for the term fixed by the law, 
 of which I have made them 
 acquainted, speaking to them 
 personally at the wicket as a 
 free place ; of all which, as 
 aforesaid, I have at the pre- 
 sent date made an act to one 
 separately. 
 
 Monet, 1 
 
 1 Copied from the jail-book of the Prison of the Conciergerie, communicated 
 by M. Labat senior. This book, which formed part of the Archives of the Pre- 
 fecture of Police, is now destroyed. 
 
Effects of the Condemned. 439 
 
 No. 17. 
 
 Certificate of the Death of Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 This certifies the death of Lucile-Simplice-Camille-Benoist 
 Desmoulins, 16th Germinal (April 5, 1794), literary man, 
 aged 33 years, native of Guise, district of Vervins, residing 
 in Paris, Place du Theatre Francais. 1 
 
 7th Floreal, 2nd year of the Republic. 
 
 No. 18. 
 The Clothes and other Effects of the Condemned. 
 
 I. 
 
 1 8th Germinal. 
 
 Citizen Richard appeared ; and deposited : 
 
 747 livres 5 sols assignats. 
 
 An old gold watch, maker's name Romilly, Paris, with a 
 copper key ; another watch of gilded copper, without number 
 or name, and on the dial-plate the name of Leblond ; two 
 pairs of silver garter-buckles, two steel ditto ; one silver hat- 
 buckle, one steel ditto ; one pair of copper shoe-buckles ; a 
 locket set in copper ; a large cardboard snuff-box, with a 
 portrait ; two other snuff-boxes, also of cardboard ; a copper 
 pocket inkstand ; a pair of old silver buttons ; ivory spec- 
 tacles and other spectacles of silvered or plated copper ; 
 an overcoat of blue cloth ; a thick iron-grey baize coat ; a 
 brown blouse ; twelve pocket handkerchiefs of different 
 colours ; nine white handkerchiefs ; five silk neckerchiefs ; 
 nine cravats or neckties ; one cotton cap ; three muslin 
 collars ; one frilled shirt. Richard declared that these articles 
 belonged to the fifteen men condemned to death by the 
 sentence of 12th Germinal, current month, of whom Lacroix 
 
 1 Register of the Municipality. — Dictionmire de A, Jal, 
 
440 Appendix. 
 
 and Danton were two, but was not able to point out to whom 
 the said effects respectively belonged, and signed, with me, 
 the undersigned, 
 
 Wolff. Richard. 1 
 
 II. 
 
 7th Flordal. 
 
 Citizen Deguaign^, usher to the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
 appeared ; the same deposited at the registry the following 
 objects : 
 
 A bolster ; a pair of sheets ; a pillow and its case ; two 
 cotton counterpanes and one woollen ; a flannel waistcoat ; 
 trousers and overcoat of white cloth ; a striped cloth waist- 
 coat ; yellow cashmere breeches ; and one cotton waistcoat ; 
 another of white flannel ; a woollen cap ; a cotton cap ; eight 
 pairs of shoes ; six white handkerchiefs ; thirteen dinner 
 napkins of linen or huckaback ; two stomach bands ; two 
 shirts ; a white double-breasted waistcoat ; a pair of shoes 
 down at heel ; and a table-cloth, which he declared belonged 
 to Danton, who had been condemned to death. 
 
 Also, the said Deguaigne" deposited the following effects : 
 a pair of sheets ; a ruffled shirt ; an overcoat and trousers of 
 cloth; four linen towels; a cotton cap; a handkerchief; 
 four bound volumes, which he declared belonged to Camille 
 Desmoulins, who was condemned to death. Signed with 
 me, 'undersigned registrar, 
 
 Deguaigne. Wolff. 5 
 
 Prison of the Luxembourg. 
 
 Report of the administrators of the police department ; 
 Inventory — accompanied by the citizen Vignieul, member of 
 the revolutionary committee ; citizens Guyard, ex-turnkey, 
 and Mousset, guardian of the said seals, and citizen Bertrand, 
 turnkey. 
 
 Having ascended to the apartments on the second floor, 
 we verified the seals affixed to the door of the second room 
 
 1 National Archives, \V. 354, 2, » Same file, 
 
Effects of the Condemned. 441 
 
 to the left, and on the three windows looking into the stable 
 yard, which we found whole and entire, in the presence of 
 the above named, in the order which follows : — 
 
 1. Musse. 
 
 2. Helle. 
 
 3. Citizeness Dapremont. 
 
 4. Lacroix (belonging to), who have fallen by the sword 
 of the law ; 
 
 A small bedstead with sacking bottom. 
 
 A mattress covered with checked tick. 
 
 A horsehair under-mattress. 
 
 An earthenware shaving-dish. 
 
 An arm-chair covered with red and white striped 
 
 Utrecht velvet. 
 A night-stool ; with two chamber utensils. 
 A water-jug ; an earthenware inkstand. 
 An iron spoon and fork. 
 A steel garter buckle. 
 A small table, with fire-screen. 
 A straw-bottom chair, harp-shaped back. 
 A toilet glass ; effects sent to agency of the National 
 Domains. 
 
 5. Belonging to Danton : 
 
 A sacking bed. 
 A horsehair under-mattress. 
 Two mattresses. 
 
 A water-jug, with an earthenware lid. 
 Three empty bottles. - 
 A tin coffee-pot. 
 A hand-glass. 
 A shaving-dish. 
 
 A mother-of-pearl knife worked in silver. 
 An easy-chair covered with flowered damask. 
 A night-stool and two chamber utensils. 
 A common straw chair. 
 A small writing-table. 
 A shovel and tongs. 
 
 Two small candlesticks of copper gilt ; effects sent to 
 the agency of the National Domains, 
 
442 Appendix. 
 
 6. Belonging to Poire, upon whom the law has done justice. 
 
 7. Belonging to Simon, condemned to death. 
 
 8. Belonging to Fabre d'Eglantine, condemned to death : 
 
 Two silver dishes. 
 
 A pair of sheets. 
 
 A large muff. 
 
 An ivory telescope. 
 
 Fifty bound volumes, thirty-nine ' Encyclopaedia,' and 
 
 six volumes, works of Moliere. 
 Two manuscript histories of the Revolution. 
 An oil lamp. 
 Three mattresses. 
 
 A straw-bottom arm-chair with a harp-shaped back. 
 A water-jug. 
 
 A small bottle containing several prunes. 
 A half bottle of brandy. 
 An office seal. 
 A pair of garter buckles. 
 
 Seventeen sols in cash. 
 
 A small organ. 
 
 Ten large bottles. 
 
 Have found more than a hundred and fifteen sols in 
 paper money. 
 
 More than thirty empty bottles. 
 
 Three wax candles. 
 
 A jar of gherkins. 
 
 A tobacco jar. 
 
 Two small ones for cream. 
 
 A glass saltcellar. 
 
 An oil cruet, and one broken. 
 
 An earthenware chamber utensil. 
 
 A lid. 
 
 A small brown earthenware saucepan. 
 
 Four plates and a small dish. 
 
 A writing-table ; effects sent to the agency of the 
 National Domains. 
 8 bis. Belonging to Bazire : 
 
 Two glass cups. 
 
 A box. 
 
 Three small fruit baskets. 
 
Effects of the Condemned. 443 
 
 9. Belonging to Roland, condemned -to death. 
 
 10. A backgammon-board, belonging to Castellane, who 
 
 has escaped from the said prison. 
 
 11. Mardeuil, condemned to death. 
 
 12. Fecamp,' „ „ 
 
 13. Mohaux, „ „ ' 
 
 14. Choiseau, „ „ 
 
 15. Dupuis, 
 
 16. Champlateux (he had escaped from September). 
 
 The sitting broke up at two o'clock, having re-affixed the 
 seals on the door of the entry of the said chamber, and con- 
 cluded the present, and the citizens undernamed have signed, 
 Ballay, Guiard, Bertrand, Mousset, 
 Vignieux, MlNlER, Secretary} 
 
 Conciergerie. — Return of 2$tk Germinal, by Richard. 
 
 Wife of Camille : Belonging to the wife of Camille, six 
 hundred livres in assignats, a pocket book, a gold ring with 
 five circlets, another gold ring with a woman's portrait. 
 
 Wife of Hubert : Belonging to the wife of Hebert, three 
 hundred and fifty livres in assignats, a knife with a horn 
 handle ornamented with silver, a pair of scissors, and a por- 
 trait of the traitor Hubert set in gold. 
 
 Camille : Belonging to Camille, a gold collar buckle. 
 
 Deposited on tlie 1 8th Germinal, year two, by Richard, 
 
 Danton and others : Belonging to Danton and others, 
 seven hundred and forty-seven livres five sols (sous) in 
 assignats. 
 
 Return of igt/i Germinal, by Auvray. 
 
 Westermann : Belonging to Westermann, four thousand 
 seven hundred and fifty livres in assignats. 
 
 1 ' Archives of the Police Prefecture.' This interesting document is unpub- 
 lished. The sitting, broken off at two o'clock, was resumed after three hours' 
 interval. Among the relics of the nobles (house of Noailles) were found certain 
 'church books.'' 
 
444 Appendix. 
 
 To Camille Desmoulins, condemned : 
 
 A copper candlestick in bad condition, and a tin coffee- 
 pot. 
 
 An earthenware water-jug and basin. 
 
 An earthenware chamber utensil. 
 
 Three bottles, a small earthen saucepan and pot ; sent 
 to the office. 1 
 
 No. 19. 
 Order for the Arrest of Lucile Desmoulins. 
 
 The French Republic, one and indivisible. 
 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, OR DEATH. 
 
 Committee of Public Welfare. 
 
 Minute of the Order. 
 
 Paris, 15th Germinal, year II. of the French Republic, 
 
 one and indivisible. 
 
 The Committees of Public Welfare and of General Safety 
 jointly decree that the wife of Camille Desmoulins be at once 
 imprisoned in Sainte-Pelagie, and the seals put upon her 
 papers. 
 
 The members of the Committees of Public Welfare and 
 General Safety, 
 
 (Signed) DUBARRAU, COUTHON, C.-A. PRIEUR, 
 
 Carnot, Voulland, B. Barere, 
 Billaud-Varennes, Robespierre. 2 
 
 ' Unpublislied. ' Archives of the Prefecture of Police.' Documents 
 destroyed. 
 
 * These minutes are entirely in Dubarrau's handwriting. 
 
Camille and Robespierre. 445 
 
 No. 20. 
 Camille Desmocjlins and Robespierre. 
 
 Extract from the ' Memoires de Charlotte Robespierre.' ' 
 
 One of the gravest charges against my brother, Maxi- 
 milien Robespierre, was, that he sacrificed Danton. I do 
 not know whether this accusation is well founded ; all I 
 know is that my brother loved Camille Desmoulins dearly, 
 they having studied together ; and when he learned his arrest 
 and incarceration at the Luxembourg, he went to the prison 
 with the intention of begging Camille to return to the real 
 revolutionary principles which he had abandoned for an al- 
 liance with the Royalists. Camille would not see him ; and 
 my brother, who would probably have assumed his defence, and 
 perhaps saved him, if he could have persuaded him to abjure 
 his political heresies, abandoned him to the terrible justice of 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal. Now, Danton and Camille were 
 so intimately united that he could not have saved the one 
 without the other ; if, therefore, Camille had not repulsed 
 him when he held out his hand to him, Camille and Danton 
 would not have perished. 
 
 .... Camille was as much a friend of Robespierre's as of 
 Danton's. My brother's friendship for him was very strong ; 
 he has often told me that Camille was perhaps the one of 
 all the prominent revolutionists whom he loved the best, 
 after our younger brother and Saint-Just. 
 
 Desmoulins was a true patriot, and was more virtuous 
 than Danton, without being so much so as my two brothers ; 
 he had most amiable qualities, but also several defects, which 
 were the cause of his death : he was proud and irascible ; once 
 offended, he never forgave, and he used the formidable weapon 
 of his biting and sharp criticism 2 against those of whom he 
 thought he had reason to complain. 
 
 Men who were far from valuing him for his patriotism and 
 
 1 Chapter V. 
 
 1 Here is a fresh example of this peculiarity of character noted by Charlotte 
 Robespierre, and by so many other contemporaneous writers. In a dialogue in 
 the fifth number of the ' Accusateur Public ' by Recher-Sensy, I find a conver- 
 
446 Appendix. 
 
 his talent, and who were jealous of his fame, calumniated him 
 and accused him of being sold to the aristocrats ; no more was 
 required to let the fiery Camille loose upon those who 
 attacked him, and upon those who, without attacking him, 
 followed the same line of conduct as his calumniators. 
 This is why, instead of refuting the imputations of certain 
 members of the committees who were his personal enemies, 
 he attacked the committees in a body, censured their acts, 
 called in question the purity of their intentions, and even 
 associated himself with the aristocrats. Calumnies were 
 redoubled, or rather, falsehoods brought against him when 
 he was irreproachable, turned to truths when he ceased, 
 through resentment, to be blameless. Day by day, he separated 
 himself more widely from his old friends, and made common 
 cause with Danton, and allowing himself to be blinded by 
 the praises lavished upon him by the aristocrats because of 
 the hostility between him and the most terrible of the revolu- 
 tionists, he became in reality the associate of the aristocracy. 
 The unfortunate Camille was turning round and round in 
 a circle ; the enemies of the Revolution were extolling him to 
 , the skies, vaunting his principles, his eloquence, and his 
 moderation. All these praises caused him to be suspected 
 by true democrats ; his enemies made weapons against him of 
 them, and said, Camille is a counter-revolutionist. Camille, 
 beside himself at this accusation, flung himself with still 
 greater fury upon those who attacked him, and the aristo- 
 crats redoubled their praises. 
 
 sation between Merlin (de Thionville) and Roederer. The latter remembers 
 that Serisy had dined with Desmoulins in company with Merlin. 
 
 RCEDERER. 
 
 'I have been told Serisy was the friend of Desmoulins — Desmoulins, that 
 
 infamous ' 
 
 Merlin {interrupting him). 
 
 ' Ah, you are right ; we all three dined together. I cannot in conscience 
 slander Serisy ; Merlin will never profane the sanctity of the table ; his in- 
 violable attachment to it is well known. . . . And Camille infamous ! . . . You 
 will never forgive even his dust for his charming speech about you. It seems to 
 me that Raderer's head was intended by nature to furnish painters with a study 
 for hatred, jealousy and wickedness.' 
 
 This speech of Desmoulins has nothing charming about it, and probably was 
 invented ; but it is certainly characteristic. (J. C.) 
 
Topino-Lebrun s Notes. 447 
 
 Then it was that Desmoulins published his ' Vieux Cor- 
 delier,' in which he arraigned all the revolutionists, and, in 
 consequence, the Revolution. This was worse than a great 
 imprudence on his part — it was a crime. My elder brother 
 said sorrowfully to me on this subject, ' Camille is ruining 
 himself.' He was deeply grieved at seeing him desert the 
 sacred cause of the Revolution, and, at the risk of compro- 
 mising himself, he took up his defence several times ; several 
 times, also, he tried to reclaim him, and spoke to him 
 as to a brother, but in vain. At one of the sittings of the 
 society of the Jacobins, when a storm of reproaches and accu- 
 sations fell upon Camille Desmoulins and his 'Vieux Cor- 
 delier,' Maximilien began to speak, and while energetically 
 blaming the works, tried to justify their author. Despite his 
 immense popularity and extraordinary influence, his words 
 were received with murmurs. Then he saw that, by trying to 
 save Camille, he was working his own ruin. Camille did not 
 give him credit for the efforts he had made to repulse the 
 accusations of which he was the subject ; he only remembered 
 the blame Maximilien had heaped upon the 'Vieux Cor- 
 delier,' and from that time he aimed a thousand acrimonious 
 diatribes at my brother. 
 
 No. 21. 
 
 The Dantonists before the Tribunal. 
 
 Topino-Lehrmis. Notes} 
 
 Among the documents given in this book none are more 
 interesting than the two following fragments, the notes taken at 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal by Topino-Lebrun, a juror; — notes 
 written, so tp speak, at the dictation of Danton and his fellow- 
 prisoners ; — and those of Courtois (de l'Aube). These two 
 documents are, to a great extent, unpublished. Dr. Robinet 
 has made use of Topino-Lebrun's notes in his work upon 
 
 Francois-Jean-Baptiste Topino-Lebrun, aged 31, born at -Marseilles. 
 
448 Appendix. 
 
 Danton. The fragments we give have been drawn up by 
 us from the originals of Topino-Lebrun and Courtois, which 
 formed part of the Archives of the Prefecture of Police, 
 and which were placed at our disposal by the kindness of 
 the late M. Labat. The senseless conflagration which de- 
 voured so much artistic, archaeological, and literary wealth 
 in May 1871, also destroyed the MSS. of Topino-Lebrun 
 and Courtois, with many other documents preserved by M. 
 Labat. These fragments are therefore of inestimable value 
 now-a-days. We publish what remains of them after the 
 copies made by us in 1867 and 1868. Not only the accusers, 
 but the accused, speak in these papers. However unconnected 
 Topino-Lebrun's notes may be, having been taken during the 
 hearing, they are more complete, and besides, more truthful, 
 than the report of Coffmal. 
 
 Topino-Lebrun 's Notes. 
 
 Danton. — ' I, sold ! a man of my stamp is priceless. The 
 proof — was I silent when I defended Marat ? When I was 
 proceeded against under Mirabeau, when I fought against 
 Lafayette ? My address to the people to rouse them to insur- 
 rection on the 5th and 6th October ! Let him who accuses 
 me to the Convention, produce the proofs, the semi-proofs, 
 the signs of my venality. I have laboured too much; 
 life is a burden to me. I require the commissioners of the 
 Convention to receive my denunciation of the system of dic- 
 tatorship. I was nominated administrator by a triple list, the 
 last one a small number of respectable citizens. At the Jaco- 
 bins I forced Mirabeau to remain at his post ; I resisted him 
 when he wished to return to Marseilles. Where is this 
 patriot ? Let him come ; I demand to be confronted with 
 him. Let him come forward ! I prevent the departure of 
 Saint-Just ! I ordered to be arrested for the affair of the 
 Champ de Mars ! I offer proof to the contrary ;— read 
 "l'Orateur." Assassins were sent to murder me at Arcis. 
 One was arrested ; an usher came to put the decree into 
 execution. I fled then, and the people wanted to execute 
 
Topino-Lebruri s Notes. 449 
 
 justice on him. I was at my brother-in-law's house; it was 
 surrounded, and - my brother-in-law was maltreated. As for 
 me, I fled to London, and returned when Garan was nomi- 
 nated. Legendre was offered fifty thousand crowns. to assassi- 
 nate me. 
 
 ' When the Lameths became partisans of the Court, Dan ton 
 resisted them at the Jacobins before the people, and demanded 
 the Republic. 
 
 ' Let patriots rally together, and then, if we cannot con- 
 quer you, we shall triumph over Europe. 
 
 ' Billaud-Varennes has not forgiven me for having been 
 my secretary. What proposition did you make against the 
 Brissotins ? The law of publicola. I carried the challenge to 
 Louvet, who declined. I narrowly escaped assassination at 
 the Commune. I said to Brissot, " You will bring your head 
 to the scaffold ! " and I reminded Lebrun of it here. It was 
 I who prepared the events of the 10th of August, and I went 
 to Arcis — for Danton is a good son — to spend three days, 
 and say farewell to my mother, and to regulate my affairs. 
 I have witnesses of this. I was seen there in the flesh. I 
 did not go to bed. I was at the Cordeliers, although a dele- 
 gate of the Commune. I said to the minister Clavieres, who 
 came from the Commune, that we were going to proclaim the 
 insurrection. After having arranged all the operations and 
 the hour for the attack, I lay down upon my bed like a 
 soldier, having given orders that I was to be called. I rose at 
 one o'clock, and went to the Commune, now turned revolu- 
 tionary. I made out the death-warrant of Mandat, who had 
 orders to fire upon the people ; the mayor was arrested, and 
 I remained there, according to the desire of the patriots. 
 
 ' I still believe Fabre to be a trustworthy citizen. 
 
 'I swear that I did not give my vote for d : Orleans. 
 Let them prove that I nominated him. ' 
 
 ' I had four hundred thousand francs out of the two millions 
 to make the Revolution ! Two hundred thousand livres for 
 secret service I disbursed in the presence of Marat and Robes- 
 pierre for all the commissaries of the department ? — This is 
 a calumny of Brissot. I gave six thousand to Billaud to go 
 to the army : I furnished accounts for a hundred and thirty 
 
 G G 
 
450 Appendix. 
 
 thousand, and the remainder I sent to Fabre to pay the 
 commissaries ; he was cashier, and I only employed him 
 because Billaud-Varennes refused. 
 
 ' Fabre never to my knowledge advocated federalism. 
 
 ' I would embrace my enemy for the sake of my country, 
 for which I would give my body. 
 
 ' As a minister of justice, I have carried out the laws. 
 
 ' Marat had a fiery nature, Robespierre's was tenacious and 
 firm, and I was of use after my own fashion. 
 
 ' I only saw Dumouriez once, when he sounded me about 
 the ministry. I replied I would only be a minister when the 
 cannon roared. 
 
 ' Saw Westermann on the ioth, sword in hand. 
 
 ' The Brissotins have attacked me indeed ! 
 
 'Brissot's device was to make people believe that we 
 disorganised the armies in Belgium. 
 
 ' I am refused witnesses ; very well, I will not defend 
 myself any more. 
 
 ' I have also to apologise for any unnecessary warmth I 
 may have shown ; it is my disposition. 
 
 ' The people will tear my enemies in pieces before three 
 months are over.' 
 
 He"rault. — ' Upon this little box (sic) '■ denies the fact. He 
 was named for the diplomatic party with Barere. Declares 
 that he was never mixed up in negotiations, denies having 
 ever printed anything in diplomacy. 
 
 ' I understand nothing about this nonsense. 
 
 ' I saved an army of sixty thousand for the Republic. 
 Worked with Barth61emy for the neutrality of the Swiss. 
 
 ' Have never communicated with Proly about politics ; 
 and what is more, I ought to be confronted with him.' 
 
 Camille. — ' Born at Guise, department of Verdain (sic). At 
 the Pantheon.' 
 
 Danton. — 'Whatever may be said, this is quite certain, 
 and it matters very little to me ; the people will respect my 
 head ; yes, even when guillotined ! ' 
 
 1 Probably alluding to his seat, as there seems to have been but one chair 
 (fauteuil) provided for the accused. 
 
Topino -L edruris Notes. 4 5 1 
 
 Westermann. — ' From Strasbourg, a soldier from my 
 infancy.' 
 
 Westermann demanded to be examined first. Observed 
 that it was a useless form. Danton. — ' We are here, however, 
 for form's sake.' Westermann insisted : a judge questions him. 
 Danton said : ' Provided that we are allowed to speak, and to 
 speak freely, I am sure to confound my accusers, and if the 
 French people are what they ought to be, I shall be obliged 
 to ask for pardon for them.' Camille. — ' Ah ! we shall be 
 allowed to speak, that is all we ask. (Great and heartfelt 
 joy of all the accused deputies). Danton. Barere is" a 
 patriot now, is he not? (To the jury) : I instituted the tri- 
 bunal, therefore I ought to know about it.' 
 
 Westermann. — ' I shall demand to be shown naked to the 
 people, that they may see me. I have seven wounds, all in 
 front ; I have received only one behind — my act of accusation. 
 Danton. — ' We shall respect the tribunal because,' &c. (Dan- 
 ton pointed to Cambon, and said) ' You believe we are con- 
 spirators ! Look, he laughs ! he does not believe it ! Write - 
 down that he laughs ' (sic). 
 
 First witness : P. J. Cambon, thirty-eight years old, 
 deputy to the Legislative and the Convention. — The decree 
 of December 1 $th to make .... 
 
 ' Anacharsis said to me : " Come and dine with me, dine 
 with Dufour," &c. 
 
 'I knew the guillotined Abbe ; entered into my exile (sic) ; 
 he was a canon and not refractory. This is only a joke. He 
 was not put on his oath. He assisted me in my exile. On July 
 14th at the Bastile I had two men killed by my side. Ill- 
 treated by my relations, I went away to travel. I was im- 
 prisoned for three weeks in Sardinia ; I have come back.' 
 
 Fouquier. — ' On account of the rebellion of the accused. 
 
 'Why did he go on the fourth day with Herman to 
 the jury-room to persuade them to declare that they had 
 sufficient evidence ? ' 
 
 Camille. — ' At the time of his dispute with Saint-Just, the 
 latter said that he would kill him. I denounced Dumouriez 
 before Marat. D'Orleans first. I commenced the Revolution, 
 my death will end it. Marat was deceived in Proly. What 
 
 g g 2 
 
452 Appendix. 
 
 man is there who has not had his Dillon ? Since the 4th 
 number I have written only to retract. I have "belled 
 the cat" with all the factions. I have been encouraged, 
 written to, &c. — Have unmasked the Hubert faction. It is a 
 good thing that some one did it' 
 
 Lacroix. — ' I have neither eaten nor drunk with Du- 
 mouriez. Danton, Gossin, and I together always for seven 
 days. Bought nine hundred francs and six hundred livres' 
 worth of table-linen. It was a good bargain.' 
 
 Danton. — ' I have publicly challenged an explanation of 
 the imputation about the four hundred thousand francs. The 
 result of the report is, that nothing belonged to me but 
 my traps and a flannel vest (in a carriage full of plate). 
 
 ' Have I the face of a hypocrite ? 
 
 ' I aroused the insurrection by calling for fifty revolutionists 
 like myself.' 
 
 Philippeaux. — ' Newly arrived from my department, I 
 knew nothing about intrigues. I voted for Marat.' 
 
 (' It is false ; he neither voted for nor against.') 
 
 Westermann. — ' While Dumouriez was in Belgium, I was 
 in Holland. Abandoned, and with the enemy either side 
 of me, I led my legion to Antwerp.' 
 
 Frey (the elder). — ' The emperor owed him five hundred 
 thousand florins.' 
 
 Frey (the younger). — ' I was a child rather than a 
 brother.' 
 
 Gicsman. — ' Of his long speech, Danton said : " He is 
 building castles in Spain." 
 
 'Herman listened a long time, and Danton said: "They 
 are polite to him because he is a foreigner." Gusman denied 
 having given money to the people.' 
 
 Danton, — ' Barere is the patriot now, and Danton the aris- 
 tocrat ? France will not believe that long.' ' 
 
 1 'Archives of the Prefecture of Police.' Documents destroyed. 
 
Notes of Courtois (de I'Aube). 453 
 
 No. 22. 
 Notes of Courtois (de l'Aube). 
 
 {Unpublished documents, now destroyed.) 
 DANTON. 
 
 The arbitrary opinion of the moment may cleave to 
 his memory, dishonour it even, if it were possible ; but this 
 truly great man will enjoy the esteem of posterity when there 
 are none left in France but Republicans. 
 
 It is from the passions and writings of his enemies that 
 I shall draw materials which will one day form his panegyric. 
 
 Cannot Robespierre's skin be torn without making 
 patriotism bleed ? {See VOLTAIRE, letter, p. 90, vol. xv.) 
 
 What is gained by passing for a giant from the Magellan 
 before a group of Lapps ? 
 
 Danton said in his prison (according to Riouf's report) 
 {sic) that Robespierre, Billaut, Collot, &c, were own brothers 
 to Cain. 
 
 Words addressed to Chrysippus, and which can be ap- 
 plied to Danton : Tua te vis perdet. Thy strength is thy 
 destruction. 
 
 Bayle (article ' Concini '). — This man's insolence is a sad 
 example of the fatality which attends the French monarchy 
 more closely than any other country in the world. Its 
 Queens almost always remain foreigners at heart. 
 
 Danton.— He said to me one day, about a month before 
 his . downfall, ' A certain Pope, whose name I have" forgotten 
 (Pius V.), said : " Since I have been Pope, I despair of my 
 salvation ; " and I say : If the representatives of the people 
 permit to be debased .... if the tyranny of the Committees 
 be not restrained, I despair of the Republic being saved.' 
 
454 Appendix. 
 
 The day that Danton's death was decided upon at the 
 Revolutionary. Tribunal, three jurors, Topino-Lebrun, Trin- 
 chard, and Jambat went in search of David, to ask his advice 
 in their difficult position. They added that they did not 
 hold Danton to be guilty. ' What ! ' exclaimed this blood- 
 thirsty man, 'not guilty? Has not public opinion already 
 passed judgment on him ? What do you expect ? Only 
 cowards could behave thus.' And so the death of this 
 founder of liberty was resolved upon. 
 
 Philippeaux, the victim of his probity, died because he 
 had tried to make truth heard even in the den of tyranny. 
 
 Danton. — A saying of the Emperor Constantine which 
 is applicable to him : They durst not attack him in 
 front. . 
 
 Many deputies come to the Assembly and sit there the 
 whole time of their mission without speaking, like shop- 
 keepers who open shops in order not to sell. (A saying 
 of Danton's.) 
 
 Robespierre.— Wis demeanour was sometimes as. ambiguous 
 as his words (witness the pressure of Desmoulins' hand on 
 the eve of his arrest). 
 
 He had, indeed, the power to kill them, but was never 
 able to prevent their writings and reputation from floating 
 above their corpses. 
 
 He would never have remedied an evil the duration of 
 which he found to be to his advantage. 
 
 He jested sometimes in a bitter and caustic manner. 
 
 Collot d'Herbois boasted in the rostrum, at the Jacobins, 
 that he knew a suspect by only looking him straight in 
 the face. 
 
 Nero projected the extinction of the senatorial body, 
 Which was not base enough for his taste ; Robespierre de- 
 
Notes of Courtois {de I'Aube). 455 
 
 mands from the two Committees in conjunction the dis- 
 banding of the Convention, because it is an obstacle to his 
 designs. 
 
 Saint-Just entreated Lebas to kill him. The latter called 
 him a coward, and told him he had something else to do, 
 after which he killed himself. Why was it not said to Saint- 
 Just as to Nero : Is it then so difficult to die ? 
 
 Freron has said that Robespierre dishonoured the Reign 
 of Terror. The Reign of Terror, which makes the wicked 
 turn pale, but secures tranquillity to the just man. 
 
 Imputed crimes are a legitimate part of crimes com- 
 mitted. 
 
 The Feast of Viala, the day chosen for the slaughter of 
 the Convention. 
 
 A saying of Danton's : ' I have the sweet consolation of 
 believing that the man who died as the chief of the faction of 
 the Indulgents will find favour in the eyes of posterity.' He 
 said, on the subject of the executions, 1 that when people 
 went smiling to execution, it was time to break the scythe of 
 Death. 
 
 Goupilleau de Fontenoy, sent to La Vendee as a com- 
 missary, dismissed Rossignol, a creature of Robespierre's. — 
 ' If/ said Barere to him, ' it was a general like Turenne you had 
 dismissed, you would be easily forgiven ; but when a patriot 
 like Rossignol is in question, it is a crime.' 
 
 Weigh well this saying, and compare it with the political 
 canker maintained in La Vendee. (Courtois.) 
 
 At the time of the courageous attack of Lecointre (de 
 Versailles) upon Billaud, the sitting ended late. Seeing this, 
 a deputy called out : ' Make haste and decree the accusation ; 
 I have some people to dinner.' 
 
 1 Here is an incomprehensible phrase : Vous Ues tant qu'il vous plaira h la 
 rigueur actuelle. 
 
 This phrase is also untranslatable. 
 
456 Appendix. 
 
 Danton called scoundrels of stupidity those men who, 
 without examination, but led by bad temper or some passion 
 of that kind, allowed themselves to sacrifice the staunchest 
 defenders of the country to it. 
 
 Ambition may be compared to the horse of Sejanus, 
 which broke the necks of all who mounted it. 
 
 Danton.— Immediately after the decree of accusation 
 against him, a member of the Committee of General Safety 
 met a deputy, and said to him : ' Did you think the 
 Committees were on the point of giving in ? ' 
 
 He said, on the subject of the sans-culotterie, enforced by 
 the orders of Robespierre and the Committees, 'He who 
 always uses the same materials ends by working his own ruin. 
 If a man persists in stirring up mud, he rarely escapes 
 being covered with it, sooner or later.' 
 
 He said, that if Billaud and Robespierre were in good 
 earnest (they continually had in their mouths the words virtue 
 and probity, which were the order of the day), they would 
 infallibly found the Jansenism of liberty. 
 
 Billaud. — This man, strong through the weakness of the 
 Assembly. 
 
 A dagger on his tongue. 
 
 Danton. — He wrote to me on the subject of the war of 
 the North, of which the beginning was not fortunate, ' What- 
 ever may be the evils caused by the present war, they will 
 still be more bearable than slavery.' 
 
 ' It is false,' he said, ' that a revolution can be successful 
 when no one knows how to profit by it' 
 
 As Robespierre sometimes affected to despise great poli- 
 tical measures he had not invented, Danton said : ' This 
 contempt for great conceptions which are not his own, does 
 not. presage success in the future.' 
 
Notes of Courtois [de VAtibe). 457 
 
 He said that revolutions were like long and difficult 
 navigation, during which we must expect the wind to blow 
 from all parts of the horizon at once, and that the open sea 
 was often less dangerous than the port towards which we 
 were sailing regardless of the thin line of breakers in which 
 the vessel sometimes goes to pieces. 
 
 I have heard him say that Robespierre might perhaps 
 conduct the piece up to its fourth act, but that he would, 
 infallibly, fail at the climax of the fifth. 
 
 Robespierre. — No temerity, no daring. Praises : the 
 Duplay family overwhelmed him with them. 
 
 Barere. — Weak and frivolous, fearful. 
 
 Danton. — He would willingly have been able to withdraw 
 from such a whirlwind, but how could he do so after having 
 played such a part ? 
 
 The powers of Europe did not see that the Revolution 
 resembled a great lawsuit, which does not often enrich those 
 who gain it, and completes the ruin of those who lose it. 
 
 Barere. — It is this man, an atrocious coward, who 
 was the first to attack Desmoulins on the subject of the 
 'Vieux Cordelier.' 
 
 David helped citizen Lesueur, the painter, his pupil, to 
 paint the picture of the beheading of Louis XVI. He (and 
 all the artists have recognised his brush) placed in it the 
 figure of the Duke of Orleans (Egalit£). Danton is behind, 
 his hands extended over the Duke's shoulder, receiving a 
 purse from him. 
 
 Some days after the downfall of Danton, Camille Des- 
 moulins, &c, being at a sitting of the Thermidor, at 
 
 which Robespierre made a cruel and ironical attack upon 
 these unhappy victims of his barbarity ; I saw beside me 
 (for caution kept me at a distance from the seats in the 
 interior of the hall), a citizen who, at those parts of the 
 tyrant's speech which were loudly applauded by the majority 
 of the Convention, clapped his hands also with all his 
 strength, and looked at me smiling. I thought I could 
 perceive that his applause was not sincere, and I replied 
 
458 Appendix. 
 
 to him by a smile which told him I was not duped by 
 the part he was playing. He then came close to my ear and 
 said in a low voice : ' Were it to cost me the pair of gloves 
 with which I am applauding ' (his hands were bare), ' I would 
 willingly sacrifice them to be guaranteed the downfall of 
 the monster who now occupies the rostrum.' I told him to 
 restrain himself. He pressed my hand, his eyes were 
 suffused with tears, and he disappeared. 
 
 Danton (after Marat's death). — An orator who aspires 
 to be Marat's residuary legatee. 
 
 Concourse of scholars of painting and sculpture. — David: 
 It is at the Eevolutionary Tribunal that this matter will be 
 judged. 
 
 Danton. — I often see (?) who blackens my character, 
 
 but I remember having seen him struggle against bad luck, 
 and 'I pity him. 
 
 Preferred the charms of private life to public grandeur. 
 
 Danton killed by Robespierre is Pyrrhus killed by a 
 woman. 
 
 About the committees of government Desmoulins said : 
 ' The safety of the Republic is still far off. * It wanted 
 everyone.' 
 
 Marat. — ' Great scandal ! ' he said ; ' it is a great scandal 
 that we-want.' 
 
 Robespierre the younger. — He was called the great howler, 
 the national bellower. Desmoulins said : Ducos' least gesture 
 is an epigram, and the very sound of young Robespierre's 
 voice is foolish. 
 
 Desmoulins said of the opinions put forward by Robes- 
 pierre the younger in the rostrum that they always came 
 from the throat, never from the head. 1 
 
 1 'Archives of the Prefecture of Police.' (Unpublished and destroyed docu- 
 ments.) 
 
 At the end of these notes I found, scribbled' upon scraps of paper, the following: 
 
Notes of Courtois (cie I'Aube). 459 
 
 No. 23. 
 
 Remorse of one of the Jury of the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal for having voted for the death of 
 his friend Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 The author of this account does not give the name of the 
 juror in question. He says that, while he was in court, 
 Desmoulins never took his eyes off him ; he seemed to say, 
 Would you dare to condemn me ? The unhappy man had 
 daring, or rather cowardice, enough to give his vote against 
 his conscience. He was punished for it ; remorse took pos- 
 session of his heart ; he was a new Orestes ceaselessly troubled 
 by the furies. Two months after the 9th Thermidor, one of 
 his friends went to see him ; he found him gloomy, pale, 
 downcast, taciturn — no more that energetic man whose voice • 
 was constantly heard in the popular meetings, and who 
 swayed the multitude at his will ; one would have said, he 
 was himself about to meet the fate to which he had con- 
 signed so many. 
 
 P asked him the cause of such an extraordinary 
 
 change. N replied at first by a profound sigh.: — 
 
 Danton. — In the conference which Danton had with Robespierre in the presence 
 of Laignelot, he said, among other things : ' If you are not a tyrant, why should 
 you treat the people otherwise than as you would wish to be treated yourself? 
 So violent a state of things cannot last ; it is repugnant to the French tempera- 
 ment.' Robespierre's answer was in favour of the Committee. — ' Danton's tears ' 
 (Courtois). 
 
 Lanthenas. 
 
 Vous faites done aussi des plans de Republique ? 
 Et vous voila parlant en profond politique. 
 Quel miracle ! Comment et quand s'est fait cela ? 
 —Vous m'en voyez, ma foi, tout etonne" moi-meme. • 
 Je ne saurais vous dire au juste le quantieme 
 Dans ma t6te un beau jour ce talent se trouva, 
 Et j'etais medecin quand la chose arriva. 
 
 (Parody of La MHromanie, doubtless Fabre d'Eglantine's.) 
 
 It is unnecessary to point out the importance of these historical fragments, which, 
 but for me, or rather but for the kindness of the late M. Labat, who allowed me 
 to take copies of them, would have been completely lost. (J. C.) 
 
460 Appendix. 
 
 'Do you fear,' asked P , 'the consequences of the re- 
 action ? ' 
 
 'Would to God,' cried N- — -, 'that the 10th Thermidor 
 had witnessed the fall of my head, or that the reaction had 
 sent me to my grave ! I have assassinated my friend ! I 
 cannot live ; I am torn by remorse. Camille is perpetually 
 before my eyes ; even now, while I am speaking to you, he 
 is there — I see him, I hear him. Here, in a river of blood, 
 floats the body I have so often pressed in my arms ; there, 
 immoveable, lies his head, separated from his limbs. It 
 reproaches me with my barbarity, and yet I breathe ! ' 
 
 At these words his eyes clouded over, his whole body 
 shuddered ; he foamed at the mouth ; a continual grinding 
 of his teeth gave notice of an approaching fit ; his eyes closed, 
 he fell down, writhed, rolled, and tumbled about on the 
 
 boards, which he covered with blood and froth. P could 
 
 not hold him ; four men were hardly enough to prevent his 
 dashing his brains out. After a violent convulsion, he 
 slowly recovered his senses, and reproached his friends for 
 the service they had done him in bringing him back to life. 
 
 Extract from the Anecdotes ine"dites de la fin du dix- 
 huitieme sikle, p. 116, I vol. in 8vo. Didot junior publisher, 
 year IX. (1801). 
 
 No. 24. 
 
 Sanson at the House of M. Duplessis. 
 
 15th Germinal. — I have executed the commission poor 
 citizen Desmoulins gave me. At his dwelling, Rue du 
 Theatre Francais, the house-porter gave me the address of 
 citizen and citizeness Duplessis, Rue des Arcs. 1 took care 
 not to go upstairs. I sent for the servant ; without telling 
 her who I was, I told her that, having been present at 
 Desmoulins' death, he had begged me to take a locket 
 to his wife's mother. I put it into her hands, and went away. 
 
Sanson's Story. 461 
 
 I had not gone a hundred paces, when I heard some one 
 running after me and calling ; it was the servant. She told 
 me M. Duplessis had asked for me, and wanted to see me. 
 I replied that I was in a hurry, and would come another 
 day ; but at that moment citizen Duplessis himself came up. 
 He was an aged man, of very venerable aspect. I repeated 
 to him what I had told the girl. He replied that I must 
 have something more to tell him, and that he had to thank 
 me. I still excused myself by alleging my business, but he 
 insisted with much eagerness ; passers-by stopped, and some 
 looked as if they were about to listen. They might have 
 known me ; I thought it was best to follow him, and I went 
 with him. He tried to take my arm ; I drew it back, and as, 
 in the narrow street, we could not make our way side by side, 
 I kept behind him. He lived on the second floor ; he took 
 me into a large room, handsomely furnished, pointed to a 
 chair, and letting himself fall into an armchair placed in front 
 of a table laden with papers, he hid his face in his hands. 
 Hearing a child's cry, I perceived in one corner a cradle 
 with drawn curtains. Citizen, Duplessis ran to the cradle 
 and lifted up a little boy, who seemed to be ill, and was 
 moaning. Showing him to me, he said, ' This is their 
 son.'' There were tears in his voice, but his eyes, as red 
 as iron on the anvil, were dry. ' This is their son,' he re- 
 peated. He embraced him with.a sort of fury, putting him back 
 into his bed, and said, with an effort : ' You were there, you 
 saw him ? ' I made a sign in the affirmative. ' Like a man of 
 feeling, like a Republican ? ' he went on, without pronouncing 
 the word death. I replied that his last words were for 
 those he loved. After a silence of some length, suddenly 
 wringing his hands and turning pale, he cried : ' And she ? my 
 daughter ? my poor Lucile ! Will they be as merciless to 
 her as they have been to him ? Two to mourn — is it not too 
 much for miserable old people ? We believe ourselves philo- 
 sophers, sir ; we think we are fortified by reason against this 
 idea of destruction . . . . what becomes of philosophy, where is 
 reason, when it is our own child who is menaced ? when we find 
 ourselves powerless to. defend her, to fight for her, to shed our 
 blood to save her ? . . . O my God ! to think that we 
 
462 Appendix. 
 
 shall not be permitted to receive her last sigh, that she will 
 be struggling, will be in agony for two hours, . while we 
 shall be here, in safety, in this house in which she was born, 
 amidst these things which she has played with ; before a 
 hearth at which she has sat ! To think that perhaps, less fortu- 
 nate than Camille, she will have, to bring us her last fare- 
 well, no other messenger than the wretch of an executioner 
 who shall have killed her ! ' 
 
 I felt a shudder creep over my body and my hair, and I 
 turned cold. He walked to and fro in the room, shaking 
 his white hair, which had fallen loose, his hands twitching, 
 his eye haggard, his whole aspect wild. Passing in front 
 of a bust of Liberty placed on the mantel-piece, he over- 
 turned it with fury, broke it on the marble, and crushed the 
 pieces with his foot. I was at once shocked and aghast ; I 
 could not find any consolation to address to him, not a word 
 of hope to say, and regretted bitterly that I had yielded to the 
 poor man's entreaties. At this moment a bell rang ; a citizeness 
 in her fiftieth year, still handsome, but her countenance dis- 
 torted by despair, entered and threw herself into citizen 
 Duplessis' arms, crying out : ' Lost ! she is lost ! she is to 
 appear before the tribunal in three days ! ' She was the 
 mother of Desmoulins' wife. I was in terror at the idea of 
 being recognised by this woman, whom I had bereft of her 
 daughter's happiness, whom probably I should have to be- 
 reave of her daughter's self also, and I fled as if I had com- 
 mitted a crime. Never have' I suffered more than in the 
 presence of those unfortunate people. 1 
 
 No. 25. 
 
 A Letter from Freron to Lucile. 
 
 I beg Madame Desmoulins to be pleased to accept the 
 homage of my respect. I have the honour to inform her 
 
 1 Charles -Henry Sanson's 'Journal.' • 
 
Letters. 463 
 
 that my destination is changed, that I shall not go to the 
 National Assembly because I am setting out for the country 
 with MM. Danton and Saturn e. Will she have the goodness 
 to remember that she is to present herself at the Assembly, 
 before ten o'clock, in the hall of deputations ; that she is 
 to send for M. La Source, the secretary, who will come to her, 
 and will find a place for her by means of the commissary of 
 the tribunes. 
 
 I renew the assurance of my respectful devotion to 
 Madame Desmoulins. 
 
 Stanislaus Fr£ron. 
 
 Kindest regards to Camille. 
 
 Monday, January 7th. 
 
 No. 26. 
 
 Letters from Madame Freron to Lucile. 
 
 {Unpublished) 
 
 Coubertin : Monday morning. 
 
 How good you are, my dear Lucile, to take such pains 
 to answer so punctually, and to relieve my anxiety ! I 
 rely upon your kindness to let me know any good news 
 when you know it yourself. Neither my husband nor my 
 brother has written to me ; but, according to what you tell 
 me, M. De la Poype will be with you immediately. 
 Scold him well, I beg, my dear Lucile, and beat him even, if 
 you think it necessary ; I give him over to you. 
 
 Good-bye, dear aunt ; I embrace you with all my heart. 
 Do tell me about your pretty boy ; is he well ? We shall, I 
 hope, see him at some time together. Be the first to tell me of 
 my husband's arrival ; it will be so sweet to owe my happi- 
 ness to you ! Fanny is perfectly well. I received most 
 tenderly the kiss she gave me from you. My compliments 
 to your husband. 
 
 Freron de la Poype. 
 
 Coubertin, near Chevrfiuse, Chevreuse. 
 To Madame Desmoulins. 
 
464 Appendix. 
 
 Here I come again, beautiful and kind Lucile, to plague 
 you with my complaints, and the frightful uneasiness by 
 which I am tormented. The letter your husband had the 
 kindness to write to me does not allay my grief; he tells 
 me that my brother has given him news of my husband, but 
 he had not heard from him before his departure. He has not 
 been absent long enough to have had time to give us news of 
 himself since he set out. I do not hide from you, dear Lucile, 
 that I am in a frightful state ; for pity's sake, try to restore 
 composure to my heart ; let me owe tranquillity to you. 
 
 They say the enemy is within forty leagues of Paris ; if 
 this is so, the country will not be safe. Will you promise to 
 warn me of danger, and to receive me into your house ? I 
 count upon the friendship you have always been willing to 
 show me, and I shall throw myself into your arms with the 
 greatest confidence. 
 
 I beg you to give my compliments to your dear hus- 
 band. • 
 Freron de la Poype. 
 
 Coubertin, near Chevreuse, Chevreuse. 
 The 5th. 
 
 Madame Desmoulins. 
 
 No. 27. 
 
 Letters from the Widow of Philippeaux to 
 Madame Duplessis. 
 
 Concerning the Education of the Children. 
 
 ( Unpublished!) 
 
 A business appointment which should have taken place 
 yesterday, deprives me of the pleasure of responding to your 
 kind invitation, dear friend ; but as I am to be the only 
 loser by that, I beg and pray of you to meet me to-morrow 
 at the deputy's house, with whom I am to go before the 
 Committee of j Inspection, about the object we have 
 
Letters. 465 
 
 in common. Bring with you, I conjure you, your dear little 
 Horace. Let our two children come together in a place at 
 which their unfortunate fathers loved to meet. Our hearts 
 will at least be better able to confront misfortune together. 
 Farewell, I can no longer see what I write. Farewell, I am 
 going to leave these few words for you, this summons to meet 
 me at the Rue de l'Echelle, at the house of the deputy 
 Nioche, between a furrier's and a perfumer's. 
 Friendship and greeting; 
 
 2nd Thermidor. Widow PHILIPPEAUX. 
 
 29th Vendemiaire, year VI. 
 
 I had hoped, citizeness and. friend, to have the satisfaction 
 of seeing you, during the time you required for the conclusion 
 of the little arrangements of which you told me. I can no 
 more flatter myself with the hope of this pleasure. The 
 interval has passed, and you have certainly started on your 
 journey. 
 
 How many things I had to confide to you ! How 
 necessary your advice was to me, and how I have suffered 
 since I saw you last ! My health is very much shattered ; 
 the troubles I have to endure are beyond my strength, and 
 it seems as if Fate took pleasure in multiplying them. My 
 request for a stamp-office cannot be granted. I was advised 
 to ask for a lottery-office ; I did so ; I ought to have one, but 
 at what a cost ! My uneasiness is extreme ; I applied to 
 citizen Reubel, who has given me proofs of his good-will, but 
 as yet without effect. This undertaking makes my head 
 giddy. A considerable sum is required from lottery-office 
 keepers, and I cannot flatter myself I shall be exempted from 
 providing it, as I asked the government for one through the 
 instrumentality of citizen Reubel. Finally, to give you an 
 idea of the journeys I have had to make, and that very often, 
 at one time to the minister, at another to the administrators, 
 I was obliged to go at nine o'clock at night to speak to 
 the Minister of Finance ; it was frightful weather that day. 
 Happily I had my son with me to give me courage. I should 
 never leave off if I gave you the details of the trouble I am 
 obliged to take. I was worn out ; knocked up, and reduced 
 
 H H 
 
466 Appendix. 
 
 to removing into a hovel, for which I am asked a hundred and 
 sixty francs. I have not yet decided ; I am advised to 
 manage the office by myself, and I am about to sacrifice my 
 beloved tranquillity. I shall not be able to weep freely any 
 more, nor enjoy a moment's rest ! What a hard life mine is ! 
 now there is no limit to my unhappiness. I now know that 
 no misfortune can be greater than that of living ! . . . Forgive 
 me, I am letting myself be carried away by my sorrow ; I 
 should be unpardonable by anyone but citizeness Duplessis. 
 The affection you have shown me encourages me to open my 
 heart to you, which is relieved by this outburst. My friend 
 has congratulated me on having had the satisfaction of seeing 
 you during the holidays. This excellent friend knows you 
 and appreciates you, and wishes I were in a position to 
 enjoy your society often. She charges me to give you her 
 best regards ; I beg you to accept them with my loving 
 homage. 
 
 I greet you. Widow Philippeaux. 
 
 I have as yet received none of my pension ; I have been 
 put off until next month. I perceive I have not sent you the 
 whole of Condillac's works. I still have a volume that I 
 found among my own books. Citizen Duplain told me you had 
 this work in your library, so you will have the double copies. 
 I can take back the one I sent you if you do not want it, and 
 I will return you the price. It will not inconvenience me in 
 the least to take it back. My son destined three little volumes 
 for Horace, from which" he will derive great pleasure when he 
 has learned to read. I will send them to you at the first 
 opportunity ; it is Auguste's idea, to please Horace. I hope 
 he will make the same use of them this winter that Auguste 
 did, and that he will soon be able to read quite alone. I em- 
 brace him, so does Auguste ; he has been with me for some 
 days to recruit his health, which has not been good. Accept 
 his tenderest caresses and his respects. We wish you good 
 health. 
 
 My compliments and kind regards to Mademoiselle 
 Adele. If citizen Etienne is with you, I beg you to give him 
 my compliments. 
 
Letters. 467 
 
 2nd Vent6se, year IX. 
 
 Since your last visit, I have seen my dear children twice. 
 We projected a visit to you, and fixed it for the 5 th of this 
 month ; but the weather is so unfavourable, that without your 
 sanction I shall not undertake the journey to Bourg-l'Egalite\ 
 It is not that I am afraid of the bad roads, but for fear 
 that our children should not be so well amused as they expect. 
 I have promised to consult you before deferring this delightful 
 scheme. It requires no less than your authority to give my 
 reasons weight, however good they may be. You would 
 be amused at hearing Horace talk about his arrival : he is to 
 rush in and embrace you, frighten his aunt and Mere Laneau, 
 run all over the whole house from cellar to garret ; above all he 
 ■is to make plenty of noise. He says all this with the greatest 
 vivacity, and only quiets down when he remembers that he 
 is far away from you. He is no longer the same child ; he 
 said, with great calmness, ' For all that, I cannot get ac- 
 customed to not seeing mama. I cry every evening and morn- 
 ing.' Dear, too amiable child ; at his simple and touching 
 sorrow my own tears fall ! . . . . You have been informed 
 of the way in which we passed the 30th. I had much 
 pleasure in making the day of parting pleasant, and in 
 spite of the grand people at the house of little Agathe's 
 mama, where we dined, I managed to amuse the little people, 
 the half of whom I took back to sleep with me. The evening 
 passed quickly away ; at ten o'clock they still wanting to go 
 on with their little games. At last my carriage took us back, 
 and at eleven o'clock our little friends were lying in their beds 
 side by side in my room, where they slept well ; at nine 
 o'clock in the morning they went back to the college, 
 whither I took them, happy and contented, and they are quite 
 well. They will write to you ; my son, Horace's secretary, 
 is going to beg you to come and see him. In yielding to 
 their eagerness to have you, you will crown my desires. 
 I Accept the expression of my feelings, dictated by friend- 
 ship. 
 
 I greet you. 
 
 Widow Philippeaux. 
 
 H H2 
 
468 Appendix. 
 
 I have not felt any inconvenience from the effects of my 
 fall, except an indisposition that a mere nothing would 
 cause. The day after I was in great pain. 
 
 Paris : 8th Prairial. 
 Madam, 
 
 I cannot resist the pleasure of letting you know 
 hat I have just repaired the loss of my dear one's portrait. 
 The artist has succeeded very well this second time ; it is 
 even better than the first. It is a masterpiece. The skilful 
 artist has employed all his talent, and has left me nothing 
 to desire. Will you believe that I am not yet strong enough 
 to contemplate that cherished image ? My health is shat- 
 tered ; my grief disturbs my reason. Oh, how much we are 
 to be pitied ! If I did not know your feelings so well, I 
 should fear to commit an indiscretion by breaking a silence 
 which I attribute only to your continual sorrow. I have felt 
 it no less, but the years fly past us imperceptibly, and ac- 
 cumulate. Shall I not have the pleasure of seeing you 
 again ? Good citizen Becqueret told me he had given you 
 my compliments, and I have received yours through him. 
 No one can feel your remembrance of me more keenly than 
 I do, and I shall hope to be always honoured by it. Is your 
 dear Horace well ? My Auguste is quite well, and works as 
 hard as ever. What consolation this child gives me ! I am 
 in want of it, I assure you. I hope you are well, and I assure 
 you of my warmest feelings for you. 
 
 I greet you. 
 
 Widow Philippeaux. 
 
 My friend talks to me constantly of you, and has told me 
 many times to remember her to you. She has been very ill 
 this winter ; she is better now. 
 
 Paris : 4 Frimaire. 
 Citizeness and friend, 
 
 Your letter gave me great pleasure. I received 
 it the day I left my home ; I was in the midst of the con- 
 fusion of removal. I needed this fresh token of your affec- 
 
Letters. 469 
 
 tion. I confess to you that I was oppressed by the fear that 
 I had worried you by complaints. I did not know what to 
 reproach myself with nor how to construe your silence ; it 
 would have cost me too much to accuse you of indifference. 
 I covered your letter with tender tears, and my eyes are still 
 wet as I call you my friend. Oh ! what a precious title that 
 is to me ! Oh ! how I value it ! I desire nothing better 
 than to be worthy of it. 
 
 At the time when" I was in the greatest straits they were 
 busying themselves at the Directory for my relief. Citizens 
 Reubel, Merlin, and Francois de Neuchateau have ordered a 
 company of the saltworks of the Republic to furnish me with 
 the necessary funds' for the security and expenses of the 
 lottery office to which I was nominated. The undertaking 
 is of sufficient importance to induce these gentlemen to 
 hasten to subscribe to this condition. By this means I am 
 proprietress of an office. It is impossible, citizen and friend, 
 to describe to you the state into which this unhoped-for 
 happiness has put me ; I could not understand it. My 
 sleep has been troubled by it, my mind disturbed — no, I 
 cannot describe the good and the evil I have felt. A 
 sensitive heart escapes no detail of any position ; mine, 
 wrought upon by misfortune, could not bear so rapid a 
 transition from poverty to ease ! . . . So here I am at last 
 installed ; the office established and opened on the 1st Fri- 
 maire, that is, four days ago. I think I shall soon get accus- 
 tomed to this new existence. I get on better than \ could 
 have thought possible. I give you minute details ; they can 
 interest only a real friend, and I cannot let slip any part of 
 that title. I embrace you from the bottom of my heart, and 
 assure you of my most sincere friendship. 
 
 Widow Philippeaux. 
 
 A thousand kisses to your charming Horace and to 
 Mademoiselle Adele. 
 
470 Appendix. 
 
 No. 28. 
 Sale of the House in Bourg-la-Reine. 
 
 {Autograph document of Madame Duplessis.) 
 
 Madame Duplessis's final decision to the persons who 
 presented themselves, in company with M. Palloy, about her 
 property, situate Bourg-la-Reine, canton Sceaux, her patri- 
 mony formerly known as the ' Clos Payen.' The pur- 
 chaser has every security ; all is in the greatest possible 
 order. 
 
 The superficial area of this property ; — part arable land, 
 part vineyard, and kitchen-garden, is twenty-one acres. A 
 cement quarry could be made on it. It brings in from four 
 to five thousand francs per annum. Ten acres are let with 
 offer of lease for three, six, or nine years, at the option of 
 the purchaser. 
 
 Madame Duplessis will not take less than fifty-five thou- 
 sand francs, plus a thousand francs as bonus, and she gives 
 up the crops already gathered in and in the granaries, the 
 fowls and rabbits ; finally, what she has herself stored, making 
 a total of ... . 56,000 livres. 
 
 No other conditions will be accepted. 
 
 As to the payment, she is to receive seven thousand 
 francs deposit, which will not be inserted in the contract of 
 sale, but for which she will give a receipt, with the under- 
 standing that she is under obligation to return the money 
 in the case of any dispute, which is not to be feared, as all 
 is legalised. Twenty-four thousand francs to be paid after 
 the expiration of the term and delay necessary for the exe- 
 cution of the contract ; as for the twenty-five thousand 
 livres remaining, she grants two years, provided interest be 
 paid her at the rate of six per cent, per annum. 
 
 An immediate valuation will be made of the articles be- 
 longing to the garden, tools, farmhouse, wine-press, ladder, 
 and all except the firewood, with immediate possession, 
 except of the part occupied by vendor, of which she retains 
 possession until October 15th, in order to have time to find 
 a dwelling in Paris. 
 
Satire upon Maury. 471 
 
 I have forwarded this deed to my man of business. 1 
 
 ADDITIONS TO THE APPENDIX. 
 
 The following extract from the ' Revolution,' No. 24 (page 
 507), contains a satire upon Maury, which sufficiently indicates 
 the tone of all the others : — 
 
 A comedy in two acts, entitled ' J. H. Maury,' is about 
 to be performed at the Grands Danseurs du Roi. 
 
 Dialogue between Maury and Rosalie. 
 
 MAURY. 
 
 — Ah ! j'ai bien du chagrin ! 
 
 ROSALIE. 
 
 Qu'as-tu done, petit cceur ? 
 
 MAURY. 
 
 Un decret, ce matin. . . . 
 
 ROSALIE. 
 
 Un decret ? achevez. . . . 
 
 MAURY. 
 
 Pour prix de nos services 
 Vient de nous depouiller de tous nos benefices. 
 
 ROSALIE. 
 
 O ciel ! a ce malheur qui se fut attendu ! 
 
 MAURY. 
 
 De 1' eloquence en vain j'ai deploye les charmes, 
 A tous les bons cunSs fait repandre des larmes, 
 Cite commentateurs, et docteurs, et robins, 
 II a fallu ceder le champ aux Jacobins. . . . 
 
 1 Extract from the unpublished papers of Palloy the architect, who pulled down 
 the Bastille. We possess a great number of these documents, in which the 
 author, in his political electicism, alternately sings the praises of the Reign of 
 Terror, of the Reaction, of Atheism and of Religion, of the Republic, the Monarchy* 
 and the Empire. The patriot Palloy, as he called himself, is the life-like image 
 of the worshippers of success and courtiers of fortune. But unfortunately the race 
 has not died out with. him. 
 
472 Appendix. 
 
 Le vicomte de Mirabeau intervient. 
 
 MIRABEAU LE VICOMTE. 
 
 .... Pour moi, je vais a. la cuisine 
 Voir si certain gigot commence a. prendre mine. 
 Je vous ferai passer six flacons de bordeaux : 
 Mettez par la la tourte avec les fricandeaux ; 
 Garnissez ce lieu-ci de cette matelotte. 
 Le petit marmouzet a gate ma culotte. 
 Pour qu'il n'arrive plus un semblable malheur, 
 Et montrer que je tiens la cuisine en honneur, 
 Je m'en vais, mes enfants, endosser le costume. 
 Otons le bel habit et le castor a plume ; 
 Donnez le tablier, le bonnet de coton ; 
 Eh bien, n'ai-je pas l'air d'un bon gros marmiton ? l 
 
 The following extracts are from the Complaint of M. 
 Malouet, deputy to the National Assembly, against Camille Des- 
 moulins, author of the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant : ' 
 
 To the Criminal Lieutenant of the Chatelet at Paris. 
 
 The petition of Victor-Pierre Malouet, deputy to the 
 National Assembly, setting forth that during the past year he 
 has been constantly vilified by Camille Desmoulins, author 
 of the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant.' 
 
 Malouet imputes to Camille 'the excesses and the violence 
 of a populace, led astray by incendiary writings, and his title 
 oij>rocureur general de la lanterne' He represents him as an 
 enemy of order and of the public peace, a calumniator, a 
 denunciator, who points out victims to the justice of the 
 people. 
 
 If, in a State with a police system, each citizen suffices for 
 the defence of his honour, society in general and the tribunals 
 ought to watch over his safety. 
 
 It is in vain to impute the inaction of the tribunals in 
 such cases to the silence of the legislative body on the license 
 of the press. 
 
 The life of the complainant has been in danger. Pursued 
 at Versailles, insulted at the door of the Assembly, over- 
 
 1 All this is dull enough, and not worthy of the Athenian wit of Camille. 
 
Camille and Malouet. 473 
 
 whelmed with anonymous letters, reduced to carry fire-arms 
 with which to defend himself, the complainant attributes all 
 this to Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 In No. 31 of the .' Revolutions de France et de Brabant' 
 the complainant believes that there are symptoms of madness. 
 He cannot believe that, if the author had been in his right 
 mind, he would have threatened the complainant to imprint 
 lasting diameters upon his cheek, to call him infamous, and 
 to state that he had been driven out from among the galleys 
 at Brest and his name struck off the list of convicts. A man 
 like Desmoulins ought to be more used to receive than 
 imprint durable characters of this kind, and the extravagant 
 statements which he makes can only be the result of mad- 
 ness. 
 
 The complainant begs that Camille may be seen and 
 examined by the physician to the Chatelet, and taken to 
 any madhouse which may be decided upon, as a violent and 
 dangerous lunatic ; or, otherwise, demands that he be obliged 
 to make full retractation in the presence of a witness, and be 
 bound over not to molest the complainant in future. 
 
 (Signed) Malouet et Lemit, procureur. 
 
 To be placed before the procureur du roi. July 7, 1790. 
 
 (Signed) BACHOiS. 
 
 I offer no opposition on the part of the 'king to giving 
 action to the complainant's plea on the grounds set forth in 
 the present requisition, and consequently I give him leave to 
 summon the said Camille Desmoulins with the object named 
 in the said requisition. 
 
 Given on July 7, 1709. 
 
 (Signed) Flandre de Brunville. 
 
 The following is taken from a contemporary pamphlet : — 
 
 Letter from an Impartial to M. Camille Desmoulins, author 
 of the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant.' 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I hesitated about writing to you ; I said to myself, 
 What is there, what can there be in common, between Camille 
 
474 Appendix. 
 
 Desmoulins and the Societe des Impartiaux ? I remembered 
 what one of our members at' Marseilles had said : There is a 
 long distance between the steel of the assassin and the heart 
 of the honest man ; but since you have cleared the distance, 
 and your calumnies have reached us, we must answer them. 
 
 We are indulgent towards error, but implacable towards 
 cabals ; we hate brigands who have recourse to the lamp- 
 post ; we execute ambitious men who make use of bri- 
 gands ; and we despise journalists who devote themselves 
 to the praise of the ambitious, of brigands, and of lamp-posts. 
 The author concludes by saying : Every honest man may be 
 admitted to the sittings of the ' Impartiaux,' presented by a 
 member, ' if you cannot find anyone to present you there 
 exceptionally.' 
 
 M. Emmanuel des Essarts. 
 
 A poet of rare ability, and who has closely studied the 
 revolutionary epoch, has described Camille in the following 
 verses : — 
 
 Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 Effroi des Feuillants a. l'ceil terne, 
 Qu'il joue et qu'il dejoue, et qu'il bat et qui'l berne, 
 C'est 1' Horace de la Lanterne. 
 
 Mieux encor, c'est Camille, un accord singulier 
 
 De poete et de cordelier, 
 Pour aimer sans egal, sans pareil pour railler ; 
 
 Riant d'un rire qui m'effare, 
 Jetant jsur l'avenir les lueurs d'un grand phare, 
 Tour a tour sifflet ou fanfare. 
 
 Souvent au fer de lance aiguisant ses chansons, 
 
 Trempant de venin les soupcons, 
 II enfonce ses mots comme autant de poinoons. 
 
 II tue alors tous ceux qu'il blesse : 
 Le Maury, le Veto, la cour et la noblesse, 
 La force et m£me la fabilesse. 
 
 Sa verve meurtriere est toujours a l'assaut ; 
 
 Gare au mediant et gare au sot, 
 A l'honnete homme aussi. . . . Gare a toi, cher Brissot. - 
 
A Poet's Estimate of Camille. 475 
 
 Tel un dieu d'Orient, funeste 
 Et bon, fait alterner 1'abondance et la peste, 
 Fdcondant ou broyant d'un geste. 
 
 Tour a tour c'est M6nippe aboyant au passant, 
 
 Aristophane 6blouissant, 
 Diogene parfois 6clabouss6 de sang. 
 
 Mais bient6t par une eclaircie 
 La Liberty visible a sa verve associe 
 L'apre accent de la Boetie. 
 
 II lance unjiat lux impeVieux et fier, 
 
 ReVant sur les debris d'hier 
 Une Lutece aux pieds caresses par la mer ; 
 
 Une Grece parisienne, 
 Sous nos brumes du Nord, lumineuse et pafenne, 
 La r^publique ath6nienne. 
 
 Et tous heureux, et tous ravis, et tous chantants, 
 
 La pompe des arts dclatants, 
 Et les Muses faisant abdiquer les Titans. 
 
 Voila le vrai Camille, une ame 
 Enfantine, et mobile, et folle ; oiseau de flamme, 
 Esprit de faune et cceur de femme ! 
 
 Unpublished Poems on the Revolution. 
 
 Something remains of the history of Desessarts the 
 actor, who was chiefly distinguished, however, by his quarrel 
 with Camille Desmoulins. Denis Dechanet, called Desessarts, 
 who was formerly a procureur, acted the parts of financiers, 
 dotards, and spies remarkably well. He had come from 
 Marseilles to Paris to replace Bonneval at the Com^die 
 Francaise. He made his first appearance on October 4, 1772, 
 as Lisimon in ' Le Glorieux,' and Lucas in ' Le Tuteur.' 
 He was received as a Soci^taire on April 1, 1773. 'Good- 
 nature mingled with bluntness, frankness, gaiety and keenness,' 
 such were, according to the testimony of contemporaries, his 
 qualities. In Moliere's comedies he was excellent. But he was 
 so stout that when he played ' Orgon ' a table had to be 
 made on purpose for him to hide underneath' it. In the rdle 
 
476 Appendix. 
 
 of Petit-Jean, in ' Les Plaideurs,' he excited general hilarity 
 .by the line, 
 
 Pour moi, je ne dors plus, aussi je deviens maigre ! 
 
 In the ' Reduction de Paris,' by Desfontaines, Desessarts 
 played the ' Prev6t des Marchands ' attenuated by famine. 
 Many anecdotes were told about Desessarts, of which Lablache 
 was afterwards made the hero. The former, having chal- 
 lenged Dugazon to a duel, Dugazon took a piece of chalk 
 from his pocket, marked a circle with it on the stomach of 
 his adversary, and said : ' Let us fight fairly ; all outside 
 the ring is not to count.' ' How on earth is the fight to come 
 off? ' cried Lamazurier. The absurd duel ended in a break- 
 fast. Desessarts died at Bareges, aged 59 (Brumaire, Year II.) 
 of the shock caused by the announcement of the death of a com- 
 rade. Beneath the portrait of the former procureur du roi these 
 words were placed : ' / would rather make men laugh than ruin 
 them ' (Galerie Historique des acteurs du Theatre Francais, par 
 P. D. Lamazurier, 18 10, vol. i. p. 227). In Saint-Just's poem, 
 ' Organt,' the following verse relative to Desessarts, whom 
 Loustallot calls a ridiculous monster, occurs : 
 
 ' Organt vit la Mole, dont le talent 
 Est d'^corcher Moliere impunement, 
 Et Desessarts, le Sancho de I'Ecole, 
 Qui croit l'Olympe assis sur son ^paule.' 
 Desessarts was used to sarcasm ; he ought to have been 
 bucklered against the jests of Camille. 
 
 The following is the text of the letter referred to by 
 the author, and used in the prosecution of General Wester- 
 mann. It was written by one Bare, a soldier in the line, 
 and is a curious document : 
 
 De Saint-Maixent ce 24 juillet 1793 Ian deuxem 
 de la Respublique fransaise.. 
 Mon cher pere et ma cher mere pour faire responce a 
 votre laistre an date du 18 que jai resu le 21 que jaites de 
 bivac je nets pu vous faire responce plus to sai pour main 
 formee de les ta de votre santee pour la mienne elle ay fort 
 bone epour vous faire quelques dee taille de notre si tuation 
 quar je nets pas en core tous marquee comme nous somme 
 
Bare" 's Letter. 477 
 
 de pui paris en' na rivent a. Nior on nous a mi couchez dans 
 les glise Notre Dame sur la paille apree avoire fai san dits 
 lieux pour nous repausee tandise que les autre couchez chez le 
 bourjoits car Ion donne la pree fai ranee au parisien pour 
 couchez sur la dur encore apree san nous avon raistee 8 jour 
 dans les glise a Nior apree ce la nous avon couchez deux jour 
 dans les lit apree cela nous avon parti pour allee a Tours 
 quand nous a von arrivez a potier nous avons resu ordre de 
 retournet d Saint Maiscent et de la apartenait pour re juindre 
 I'arm/e de Vestermane qui ai tes all6e a Chatillon arrivez a 
 partenait le lendemain nous avons resu ordre de partire a 
 quatre heur apres midi pour bellessuire trois eur apree nous 
 avon batu en retraite car larme'e de Vestermane ai tes des faite 
 il ne raistes plus que sa cavallerie pour- linfanterie il nan avez 
 plu nous avon retournet sur les auteur de partenait ou nous a 
 von bivacquee deux bataillon que nous aition a troisheur du 
 matin le generalle Vestermane ai venu nous passets en re vue 
 et nous lavon restee au bivac le len de main on nous a fai 
 prendre une autre posision don il a eu du mal en ten due car 
 ai ten des sandue dans un font on na criet soi dissen a la tra'f- 
 son don le genetrall fut instrui et on lui a vai di que saites 
 notre capitaine Rouy tandiquil ni ai tes pas quil aites allee a 
 lhaupitalle pour conduire un homme qui avait resu un cou- 
 defusi au bra dan la pres.midi comme je cherchai a diner dan 
 partenait le commendan de notre bataillon celui qui avai dit 
 au genetralle que saites notre capitaine me dit voit la belle 
 affaire vot capitaine et le capitaine Bare von avoire la taite 
 cassee moi qui ne savai rien de cela je lui demande pour coi 
 il me dit quil avai dit que nous aition tra'fs moi je reste aimu 
 et surtous quan je vie le genetralle Vestermane au sito passes 
 a vec sa cavallerie qui san nallai au bivac je di a un de mais 
 camarade que si on nallai faire mourire mon capitaine jallai 
 desertee puiquil naite plus permi de parlee car je vie le genet- 
 ralle qui ajissai en maitre absollu san assamblee le consaille 
 de gere et san vouloire entandre le capitaine Rouy qui lui 
 disai quil ne savai pas ce con voulai lui dire le genetralle Ves- 
 termane agisan en despote lui dit qu'il voulles faire un aiscem- 
 ple et lui dit maitee vous a jenous don le capitaine le fit ausito 
 lorsque le grenadier aites pree a tirer et que le chasseur a 
 
478 Appendix. 
 
 chevalle faisait fron a notre bataillon don le genetralle leur 
 avaidit que siles vollontaire branlai quil les ache par morsau 
 aussito que le capitaine fu a jenou son fils se jeta dans les 
 bras de son pere en disen quil voulles mourire avec son pere 
 au sito un commendant dun bataillon. dorlean dit au genetralle 
 que les troupes demandai grace pour ce capitaine il n'an avai 
 pas besom pusquil na pas fait de faute voiet comme la' libertee 
 raigne je vous le laise a pensee nous aition tous consterries de 
 voir un gugement au sibien rendu ce pendan comme par mis 
 erricorde le genetralle dit au capitaine re le vai vous cette 
 homme qui na vait pas manquee na vai pas besoin de son 
 pardon car on ne fai grace qua un coupable il fallu passee par 
 la de pui ce moment ce genetralle ne pouvai plus nous sou- 
 frire nous a von quit^e Partenait la maime nui pour re tour 
 net a Saint Maixent ou le genetralle fit maitre la troupe dans 
 des li et notre bataillon de parisien par preferance il nous fit 
 loger ale vaichez et voila trois semaine que nous isomme ce 
 qui fai voire que les parisien son aimais je ne se pourcoi car 
 il a des bourjoit quil en sont et tonnet car on a laugee jusqua 
 5 mille homme dans cette ville et nous n'aition pas 2 mille 
 quand nous i avon arrivez et apree sen nous ne somme pas 
 encore 5 mille voila comme nous somme je croi quon net 
 fachez de nous voire dans sai pa'fs nous somme presque tout 
 mariet et pair de fammille et voila la ree compance con nous 
 donne voila Vestermane parti pour paris le citoyen Daillac 
 quil la remplacee apree sen sa net plus Daillac je croi que sai 
 le genetralle Vajusquit et c6 pourquoi je pri de me marquee si 
 Vestermane ais a paris et quaice quil a de nous veau car je 
 sui tous jour a mon poste mais si Vestermane re venel dans ce 
 pals ci je serai au bliger de ment n'all^e car si savez ce que je 
 vien des crire il me ere~e mourire et cependant nous couchon 
 tous jour partere de preTairance, autre chose je vous dires 
 que je vien de re ce voire une laitre de ma femme qui ma fait 
 grand plesir pour le cabinet que vous me dite je vous pri de 
 faire comme pour vous. Marquee moi ou elle aura louet jes- 
 pere ce pen dan aitre de retours sou peu, je vou pri de prendre 
 bien garde a qui vous montrer^e ma laitre je fini mon pere et 
 ma mere de tous mon cceur. Votre fils. 
 
 E.-P. Bar£ 
 
Lucile's last Letter to Frdron. 479 
 
 ' Marquee moi ce qu'il a de nouv'eaux au sujet de Vester- 
 mane et de Paris.' ' 
 
 The following is the text of Lucile's last letter to 
 Freron : — 
 
 24 Nivdse Pan deux de la Republique une et indivisible. 
 
 ' Revenez, FreVon, revenez bien vitte. Vous n'avez point 
 de terns a perdre, ramenez avec vous tous les vieux Cordeliers 
 que vous pourrez rencontrer, nous en avons le plus grand 
 besoin. Plut au ciel qu'ils ne se fussent jamais s^par^s ! Vous 
 ne pouvez avoir id6e de tout ce qui se fait ici ! Vous ignorez 
 tout, vous n'appercevez qu'une foible lueur dans le lointain 
 qui ne vous donne qu'une idee bien l^gere de notre situation. 
 Aussi je ne m'6tpnne pas que vous reprochiez a Camille son 
 comiti de cUmence. Ce n'est pas de Toulon qu'il faut le juger. 
 Vous etes bien heureux la ou vous etes ; tout a ete au grd de 
 vos d^sirs, mais nous, calomni6, persecute' par des ignorants, 
 des intrigants, et meme des patriottes, Robespiere (sic) votre 
 boussolle, a ddnonce' Camille aux Jacobins ; il a fait lire ces 
 numeVos 3 et 4, a demand^ qu'ils fussent brulez lui qui les 
 avoit his manuscrit. Y concevez-vous quelqtie chose? Pendant 
 deux stances cons^cutives il a tonnd ou plutdt crie" contre 
 Camille. A la troisieme seance on avoit raye' Camille. Par une 
 bisarie (sic) bien singuliere, il a fait des efforts inconcevables 
 pour obtenir que sa radiation fut rapport^, elle a 6t6 rappor- 
 t^e, mais il a vu que lorsqu'il ne pensoit pas ou qu'il n'agis- 
 soit pas d leur la volonte' d'une certaine quantity d'individus, 
 il n'avait pas tout pouvoir. Marius n'est plus 6cout£, il perd 
 courage, il devient faible. Ddglantine est arr£te, mis au Lux- 
 embourg ; on l'accuse de faits tres-graves. II n'^tait done 
 pas patriotte ! lui avoit si bien 6t6 jusqu'a ce moment. Un 
 patriotte de moins e'est un malheur de plus.* 
 
 Ces monstres la ont ose reprocher a Camille d'avoir ^pouser 
 une femme riche. Ah ! qu'ils ne parlent jamais de moi, qu'ils 
 ignorent que j'existe, qu'ils me laissent aller vivre au fond des 
 deserts, je ne leur demande rien, je leur abandonne tout ce 
 que je possede pourvu que je ne respire pas le m£me air qu.'eux ! 
 (Ici, —Mail qui donne je ne sais quoi de sinistre et de trop 
 
 1 National Archives. Trial of the Dantonists. 
 
480 Appendix. /■> 
 
 vivant d ce document qui sent la mort, — Lucile laisse khapper 
 de sa plume une tache d'encre, et cette plume allant mal; elle 
 essay e de la faconner en tracant en marge des barres, des zig- 
 zags qui rendent cet autographe plus e"trange et plus pricieux 
 encore?) Puissai-je les oublier, eux et tous les maux qu'ils nous 
 causent, je ne vois autour de moi que des malheureux. Je suis 
 trop faible, je l'avoue, pour soutenir un si triste spectacle. La 
 vie me devient un pesant fardeau. Je ne scais plus penser. 
 Penser, bonheur si pur, si doux. Helas, j'en suis priv^e. . . . 
 Mes yeux se remplissent de larmes. . . . Je renferme en mon 
 cceur cette douleur affreuse, je montre a Camille un frond 
 serein, j'affecte du courage pour qu'il ne perde pas le sien con- 
 tinue d'en avoir. 
 
 Vous n'avez pas lu a ce qu'il me parroit ses cinq numeros. 
 Vous y etes cependant abonnd 
 
 Oui le serpolet est cueilli tout pret. C'est a travers mille 
 f oucis que je l'ai cueillis. Je ne ris plus, je ne fais plus le chat, 
 je ne touche plus a mon piano, je ne reve plus, je ne suis plus 
 qu'une machine. Je ne vois plus personne, je ne sors plus. II y a 
 long terns que je ne vois plus les Robert. lis ont eprouve 
 des desagrements par leur faute. Us tachent de se faire 
 oublier. 
 
 Adieu, lapin, tu ' vous allez encore m'appeler folle. Je ne 
 le suis pourtant pas encore tout a fait, il me reste asse de rai- 
 son pour souffrir 
 
 Je ne saurois vous exprimer la joie que j'ai eprouv£ en ap- 
 prenant qu'il n'^toit point arrive de malheur a votre aimable 
 sceur [et a Paris] j'ai it6 tout inquiette lorsque j'apris la prise 
 de Toulon. Je pensois sans cesse quel seroit leur sort ? 
 Parlez leur quelquefois de moi. Embrassez les tous deux 
 pour moi. Je les prie de vous le rendre en mon intention. 
 
 Entendez-vous, mon loup qui crie Martin, mon pauvre 
 Martin, te voild, viens queje t'embrasse, reviens bien vltte. 
 
 Revenez, revenez bien vitte, nous vous attendons avec 
 impatience. 
 
 1 Crossed out in the MS. 
 
 Spottiswoode &° Co., Printers, New-street Square, London. 
 
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