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CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
C AMI LLE 
 DESMOULINS 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY VIOLET METHLEY 
 
 LONDON: MARTIN SECKER 
 NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI 
 
First Published tgi^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PART ONE: THE NORTH WIND 17 
 
 PART TWO: THE WEST WIND 91 
 
 PART THREE : THE EAST WIND 155 
 
 PART FOUR: THE SOUTH WIND 223 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 319 
 
 INDEX 321 
 
PART ONE 
 THE NORTH WIND 
 
" Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern Wind." 
 J. G. Whittier. « Mountain Pictures." 
 
I 
 
 ON an early spring day in the year 1760 a son 
 was born to Maitre Jean-Benoit-Nicholas 
 Desmoulins, civil and criminal lieutenant- 
 general o£ the Bailiwick of Guise, and to 
 Dame Marie-Magdeleine Godart, his wife. 
 
 No doubt there was great rejoicing in M. Des- 
 moulins' small whitewashed house in the Rue Grand 
 Pont. It is only once in a lifetime that a father can 
 celebrate the birth of his eldest son. 
 
 The following day, March 3rd, the little boy was 
 baptised in the Church of St. Pierre and St. Paul, and 
 received the names of Lucie-Simplice-Camille-Benoist, 
 Years later, in writing to his father, he was to say with 
 Republican enthusiasm: "Did you guess that I 
 should be a Roman, when you christened me Lucius, 
 Sulpicius, Camillus ? " 
 
 The little white house with the slated roof stands, 
 or, at least, stood quite recently, in the street " in 
 front of the Place d'Armes." The low-ceiled 
 panelled rooms remained a few years ago • much 
 as they were when Camille played in them as a 
 child. 
 
 Nevertheless, the memories o£ that " gamin of 
 genius " which linger in the town of his birth, after 
 the lapse of a century and a half, are very vague and 
 scanty. In 1871, when the historian, Jules Claretie, 
 visited Guise, he could find few people who had any 
 remembrance of the family of Desmoulins. Their 
 house was easily identified, some of the older residents 
 recalled dini traditions of Camille's tempestuous 
 
 19 
 
20 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 boyhood, a fly-blown portrait was discovered amongst 
 heterogeneous rubbish in the attics of the town-hall — 
 and that was all. 
 
 In his native town, a statue of Camille Desmoulins 
 has since then been erected. Such a reminder is not 
 needed by France, and by the world. There was that 
 touch of genius in the man which makes him as much 
 a bodily presence now in his writings as he was in the 
 Paris of 1789. Whilst we read, we seem to feel him 
 very near; his reckless laugh, his hurried, hesitant 
 speech are almost audible. . . . He lives still for us, 
 one of the most intimate and virile figures of the 
 great Revolutionary period, yet another of the "boys 
 who will not grow up " of the world's history. 
 
 Camille's father, as we have said, was lieutenant- 
 general of the Bailiwick of Guise, a sufiiciently dignified 
 and honourable post. For the rest, he was a country 
 lawyer and something of a scholar besides, who toiled 
 in his leisure moments at the compilation of a learned 
 and weighty " Encyclopsedia of Law " which was 
 destined never to arrive at publication. 
 
 We have a very good portrait of M. Desmoulins the 
 elder. It may be found in those letters which passed 
 between him and his son during the years which 
 Camille spent in Paris. It is impossible not to admire 
 and reverence the man who is revealed to us. He is 
 wise and just, essentially well-balanced and even- 
 tempered — ^he has every quality, in short, which 
 Camille lacked. 
 
 The father and son represent two distinct types of 
 the Picard character. In M. Desmoulins the elder 
 was exemplified that sound common sense and shrewd 
 reason which should pertain to the province of Calvin, 
 St. Simon and Condorcet. 
 
 As to the younger man, he belonged to the breed 
 which an old author, C. M. Saugrain, described in his 
 " Nouveau Voyage de France." 
 
 Writing as he did in the year 1720, and speaking of 
 
THE NORTH WIND 21 
 
 the Picards in general, M. Saugrain's words might 
 well apply to Camille in particular. 
 
 " We believe that the name of Picardy," he says, " is derived 
 from the fact that the Picards are easily piqued or offended. 
 ... It is commonly reported that the Picards are hot-headed, 
 and as they are angered with very little reason, one willingly 
 leaves their province for fear of being involved in quarrels ; 
 for the rest, they are very sincere." 
 
 Camille often found his father lacking in ambition, 
 and over-fond of deliberation ; there was even one 
 period when he thought him callous and hard. But 
 these were only temporary misunderstandings. A 
 fundamental love subsisted between the father and 
 son which nothing really affected, a love which only 
 grew stronger until death separated them. 
 
 We know very little of Dame Marie-Magdeleine 
 Godart, the mother of Camille. That little is well 
 summed up in the few sentences written by M. 
 Desmoulins to his son on the day of her death, and 
 received by that son when he was himself in the very 
 shadow of the scaffold. 
 
 " I have lost the half of myself. Your mother is no more. 
 . . . She is worthy of all our regrets ; she loved you tenderly." 
 
 It is an epitaph of which no woman would have 
 cause to be ashamed. 
 
 M. Desmoulins had four other children besides 
 Camille, two sons and two daughters. 
 
 It is evident that , Camille himself, in later years, 
 knew curiously little about these younger brothers of 
 his, Du Bucquoy and Semery. 
 
 AH, practically, that we can learn of them is con- 
 tained in a letter from M. Desmoulins to his eldest 
 son in 1792. This letter was pubHshed by the " Journal 
 de Vervins " in 1884, and it was plainly written in 
 answer to one of Camille's. 
 
 " You ask me, my son," says M. Desmoulins, " for the name 
 of your brother, Du Bucquoy, as well as for that of Semery. The 
 
22 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 former is called Armand Jean Louis Domitille, who was born on 
 May 5tli, 1765. For the past seven years he has served in the 
 late Royal Roussillpn cavalry regiment, or the nth Regiment 
 of the Army of the Midi, and which I believe is either in the 
 interior at Saumur or at Saint-Jean-d'Angely, for I have had 
 no news of him for the last twelve months. 
 
 " The latter is named Lazare Nicolas Norbert Felicite, born 
 on June 6th, 1769, and for the past two years in the loth 
 BattaHon of Chasseurs, late Gevaudan, with the Army of the 
 North, in which he shows much zeal. He tells me in his last 
 letter that he is a forlorn sentinel in a wood, and congratulates 
 you on the birth of a son. 
 
 " ' As for me,' he says, ' I also am married. My wife is a 
 musket, and I take greater care of her than of myself.' " 
 
 A short time after this letter was written, in 1793, 
 Desmoulins Du Bucquoy was killed in the Vendean war. 
 
 The younger brother, the " forlorn sentinel in a 
 wood," was captured at the siege of Maestricht, and 
 from that time his family seem to have lost sight of 
 him and to have believed him to be dead. He was, 
 however, known to be living in 1807. 
 
 It is a plain record, this, of the lives of two 
 honest soldiers of- the Republic. Camille, in the heat 
 of his own battle at Paris, fighting with his own weapon, 
 was to envy what he thought to be the cleaner warfare 
 of his brothers, and to wish that he could exchange 
 his pen for a sword. 
 
 The two sisters were named Marie Emilie Toussaint 
 and Anne Clotilde Pelagie Marie. The elder, born in 
 1763, was married twice, first to a M. Morcy and 
 secondly to a M. Lagrange. She was still alive in 
 1837. The younger, who was born in 1767, became 
 the wife of a M. Lemoine. Beyond these bare facts 
 we know little or nothing of their after lives. 
 
 Camille was first sent, whilst quite a little boy, 
 to a religious boarding-school at Cateau-Cambresis. 
 Amongst his schoolfellows there was his first cousin, 
 Marie Joseph Benoit Godart, son of Godart Brisieux, 
 Madame Desmoulin's brother. 
 
THE NORTH WIND 23 
 
 It would seem that from his very earliest youth 
 Camilla showed unusual precocity and intelligence. 
 His father, although so diffident on his own account, 
 was not by any means lacking in ambition for his son, 
 as he watched the development of the boy's talents. 
 He planned that Camille should become a great 
 lawyer, an advocate to the ParUament of Paris, but 
 unfortimately the money necessary for a thorough 
 education was not forthcoming. 
 
 The DesmouUns were a good bourgeois family, 
 not in any way aristocratic, but what might be called 
 " well-connected." M. Desmoulins, moreover, was a 
 comparatively poor man. His wife only brought him 
 a small dowry, and he had to provide for a growiilg 
 family. 
 
 It seemed that Camille's brilliant career would end 
 very prematurely, that the boy must resign himself to 
 become, like his father before him, a quiet, provincial 
 man of the law. But the life of a country lawyer was 
 not for Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 A certain aristocratic connection of the family, one 
 M, de Viefville des Essarts, came to the rescue and 
 obtained for the little boy a scholarship at the College 
 Louis-le-Grand in Paris. 
 
 This was exactly the opportunity for which M., 
 Desmoulins had longed, and one day in the month of 
 October Camille left his peaceful home in Guise, and 
 set out in the Noyon stage-coach for his new life in 
 Paris. 
 
 One can imagine the excitement of the quick- 
 witted, impressionable child at this entry into the 
 strange world of France's capital city, a world where 
 men thought and acted in such a different fashion from 
 the citizens of Guise. Probably, however, Camille 
 soon adapted himself to his changed surroundings ; 
 his was not a shy or retiring temperament, and he 
 always made friends easily and whole-heartedly. 
 
 A modern writer, M. Georges Cain, himself a pupil 
 
24 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 at Louis-le-Grand, describes his old school in no very 
 enthusiastic terms. He speaks of it as black and 
 gloomy enough, with its hea Ay-leaved gate of dread 
 memories leading into the Rue St. Jacques. He tells 
 of its moss-grown playgrounds, its smoky class-rooms, 
 its punishment chambers high up under the roof, 
 where unfortunate culprits were stifled in summer and 
 frozen in winter. 
 
 The college was structurally very much the same in 
 Camille's day, although the lapse of a century may 
 have served to increase its discomforts. In any case, 
 it would appear that this boy's school life was a very 
 happy one. In after years he always looked back to 
 that time with tenderness and regret. 
 
 The College of Louis-le-Grand was at this period 
 very fortunate in its head-master. Many of his pupils 
 bear witness to the scholarship of the Abbe Berardier, 
 and the love which they retained for him all through 
 their after lives proves in itself that he was worthy to 
 win it. 
 
 We know well what were Camille's feelings towards 
 his teacher. Years afterwards, when the pupil was at 
 the height of his fame, when he had won the love of 
 Lucile Duplessis, when, as he said himself, he had 
 nothing left to desire, he would have no other priest 
 save his old schoolmaster to marry him and to preach 
 the wedding sermon. 
 
 Many of Camille's contemporaries at College were 
 destined like him to play prominent, although widely 
 differing parts, in the days which followed. There 
 were at least three who became prominent journalists ; 
 J. S. Peltier of Nantes, Stanislas Freron, afterwards 
 Camille's friend and collaborator, and Louis Francois 
 Suleau, the brilliant and unfortunate Royalist writer, 
 whom Camille christened the " Don Quixote of the 
 aristocracy," and who was to die so miserably at the 
 hands of a woman. 
 
 There was another of Camille's school companions 
 
THE NORTH WIND 25 
 
 who bore a far more famous name than these ; he 
 was Maximihan Robespierre. 
 
 Somehow, it is difficult to imagine that Robespierre 
 and Camille can ever have been friends — friends, that 
 is, in the true sense of the word. Yet it is undoubted 
 that they had a real affection for each other, then and 
 later, and Charlotte Robespierre could write in her 
 memoirs : — 
 
 " I know that my brother loved Camille Desmoulins dearly, 
 they having studied together. . . . My brother's friendship 
 to 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." 
 
 The two men — and therefore the two boys — ^were 
 so utterly unlike in character that it must indeed 
 have been a case of the attraction of opposites. 
 Possibly what they found to admire in each other was 
 the possession of those particular qualities which they 
 themselves lacked. 
 
 Robespierre, at least in after years, may have 
 admired and envied Camille's power of expressing 
 himself in his writings, and thereby moving the 
 very souls of men ; perhaps he may have envied 
 yet more his power of inspiring love. 
 
 And Camille ? It is possible that he, who described 
 himself, by one of his touches of genius, as the weather- 
 cock, showing the influence of each changing wind, 
 it is possible that he may have envied Robespierre's 
 self-sufficient, unbending nature, " which stood four- 
 square to every wind that blew." 
 
 Be it as it may, the two always spoke of each other 
 with affection, even up to the end — that tragic end, 
 when Maximilian, " my old comrade," proved so 
 plainly what was the worth of his friendship. 
 
 Like many, one might almost say, like most young 
 writers, Camille's first literary attempts took the form 
 of verse-making. Indeed, he always believed that he 
 
26 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 was by nature a poet ; as he said at the end of his life, 
 writing from prison to his wife : " I was born to make 
 verses." Nevertheless, his own opinion notwithstand- 
 ing, one is bound to confess that there is little or no 
 trace of genius in such of Camille's poetry as has sur- 
 vived to this day. One of his earliest attempts at 
 versifying belongs to this period. It is a poem, 
 written on the occasion of his leaving college, and 
 while the verses are irreproachable in their sentiments, 
 they are wholly undistinguished from a literary point 
 of view.' 
 
 It was certainly fortunate for the world that Camille 
 gave up his ambition to become a poet, when he dis- 
 covered within himself that power which made him 
 finally one of the most briUiant journalists of aU time. 
 
 During the years which he spent at Louis-le-Grand 
 Camille received a very sound classical education. 
 His knowledge of the great Latin authors was both 
 wide and comprehensive, and it had an immense effect 
 upon the literary style of his later years. 
 
 It was the fashion in those days for writers to over- 
 burden their pages with quotations and references 
 from the classics. Ancient Rome and its manners of 
 speech and thought were very much in the mode, even 
 before the Revolution. 
 
 There was little or nothing pedantic, however, in 
 Camille's use of classical tags and phrases. The atmo- 
 sphere of Rome had become, as it were, his native air. 
 As a consequence, his quotations have a spontaneity 
 and an aptness which is found in the writings of no 
 one of his contemporaries. 
 
 Camille, as we shall see later, could take the dry 
 bones of a Latin historian, and make of them a sentient 
 thing, his own, yet not his own. Perhaps his greatest 
 literary work is that third number of the " Vieux 
 Cordelier," which directly brought about his downfall. 
 Yet it is little more than a paraphrase from Tacitus, 
 transcribed with that touch of genius which struck 
 
THE NORTH WIND 27 
 
 at the very heart o£ the " System of Terror " of which 
 the Roman " Law of Suspect " was but a prototype. 
 
 Jt was at College that Camille gainecj that scholar- 
 ship which later became such a powerful weapon in 
 his skilful hands : but it was not only the literary 
 craftsmanship of the great writers of Rome and 
 Athens which stirred him to admiration ; he was 
 moved to a deep and lasting enthusiasm for the spirit 
 of the laws of the early RepubHcs. It was not for 
 nothing that this boy wore out six copies of Vertot's 
 " Revolutions Romaines " and carried with him every- 
 where a volume of the " Philippics " of Cicero. 
 
 We can best judge of the effects of this education 
 from Camille's own words in 1793. In his " L'Histoire 
 Secrete de la Revolution " he makes the well-known 
 statement : " There were perhaps ten of us Re- 
 publicans in Paris on July 12th, 1789," and in a foot- 
 note he adds, in fuller explanation of this assertion : 
 " These republicans were, for the most part, young 
 men who, nourished on the study of Cicero at College, 
 were thereby impassioned in the cause of liberty. We 
 were educated in the ideas of Rome and Athens and in 
 the pride of republicanism, only to live abjectly under a 
 monarchy in the reign, so to speak, of a Claudian or a 
 VitelHus. Unwise and fatuous government, to suppose 
 that we, filled with enthusiasm for the elders of./ the 
 Capitol, could regard without horror the vapapires of 
 Versailles, or admire the past without condemning 
 the present ; ulteriora mirari, praesentia secutura." 
 
 In this passage Camille uses the word " republican " 
 in its literal sense, the sense in which we now under- 
 stand it, namely, as one who wishes for a republican 
 form of government. 
 
 Nevertheless it is impossible to realise the point 
 of view of the men of that day unless we are aware 
 that the term was habitually used during the eighteenth 
 century in what can only be described as a theoretical 
 and abstract way. 
 
28 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 M. Aulard, in his masterly " Political History of the 
 French Revolution," presents this aspect clearly and 
 succinctly, after the most patient and exhaustive 
 study of the political writings of the period. He en- 
 tirely discredits the existence of a Republican party 
 in France before 1789, but he believes that the illusion 
 has arisen through the frequent employment of the 
 word " Republican " to denote those who were not 
 in the least desirous of estabhshing a republic in France, 
 but who hated despotism and desired some system of 
 general social reform. In fact, as he says, there had 
 arisen amongst the French " a republican state of 
 mind, which was expressed by republican words and 
 attitudes." 
 
 " A repubHcan state of mind " — nothing could 
 express more exactly the spirit of the time. It was a 
 habit of thought which spread through all classes of 
 society, from the Court downwards. 
 
 Versailles set the example, when it played with the 
 fire which was afterwards to destroy it. Franklin and 
 Washington could not be made the fashion without 
 that for which they stood becoming fashionable also. 
 La Fayette, as the hero of the populace, represented 
 the cause for which he fought in America. 
 
 It is a generally accepted fact that the germ of the 
 French Revolution was carried across the Atlantic 
 by that band of ardent young men who returned to 
 find themselves the idols of the French people, after 
 lending their swords and their fortunes to the support 
 of a rebellion against kingly authority. 
 
 Yet there was also inspiration to be drawn from a 
 source nearer at hand in point of geography, if further 
 removed by time. Although CamlUe and those who, 
 like him, were of a classical turn of mind, might seek 
 for examples amongst the heroes of antiquity, the 
 leaders of the modern English Revolution were well- 
 known and well-admired by the liberal Frenchmen 
 of the reign of Louis XVI. Pym and Hampden were 
 
THE NORTH WIND 29 
 
 names to conjure with amongst the leaders of the new 
 thought in France, and the works o£ Algernon Sidney 
 were even more widely read on the Continent than in 
 his own native country. 
 
 It was then in this atmosphere o£ theoretical re- 
 publicanism that Camille Desmoulins grew from a boy 
 to a man. The weathercock now for the first time 
 vibrated to the touch of that keen northern wind, 
 blowing from across the Atlantic, and telling of the 
 young nation that had so lately broken the chains of 
 royalty. 
 
 The wind was only a light breeze as yet, but it 
 whispered of freedom and the downfall of tyranny, it 
 recalled to Camille the memory of the spacious days 
 of antiquity, it was the precursor of the storm, 
 heralding that great hurricane which was so soon to 
 sweep over France, overturning all things, both old 
 and new, which opposed its course. 
 
II 
 
 IT was at the beginning of the year 1784 that 
 Camille finally left the College Louis-le-Grand 
 and returned to Guise for a time, to study there 
 for the Paris Bar. He was now twenty-four 
 years old, at about the age, in fact, when modern 
 Englishmen leave the University. 
 
 Like his comrade Robespierre, Camille probably 
 received a handsome gratuity when he left the 
 College. This the administrators were in the habit of 
 bestowing upon impecunious students who had 
 particularly distinguished themselves. 
 
 His teachers prophesied a brilliant career for the 
 young man, and doubtless he thoroughly agreed with 
 them. Self-depreciation was never one of Camille's 
 faults, and unquestionably at this time he had an 
 extremely good opinion of his own talents and 
 capabilities. 
 
 He returned then to Guise, to his father's house, 
 under the impression that he was certainly a person to 
 be reckoned with, and expecting to be received with 
 a certain amount of awe and consideration. It was 
 not long before he made a discovery which has fallen 
 to the lot of many another before and since, that 
 discovery to which he afterwards bitterly referred in a 
 letter to his father, when he said : " I know that no- 
 body is a prophet in his own country." 
 
 The humdrum, conservative Guisards were by no 
 means prepared to take Camille at his own somewhat 
 high valuation. More than that, he both shocked and 
 displeased them, and probably fully intended to do so. 
 
 30 
 
THE NORTH WIND 31 
 
 We may feel quite sure that he did not keep his dis- 
 quieting opinions to himself ; it was not in his nature 
 to do this, then or afterwards. 
 
 The town of Guise in 1784 was old-world and old- 
 fashioned in the extreme. Even as late as the year 
 1871, it struck M. Claretie as a " city of the past, 
 of strange, calm, sleepy aspect." Narrow streets of 
 sedate houses, the dwellings of prosperous, hard- 
 working citizens were dominated by the great, fortified 
 citadel, which towered, an emblem of decaying feudal 
 power, on a steep ascent above the town. 
 
 Certainly Guise was not the place to encourage 
 new ideas ; the old ones were quite good enough for 
 these staid, well-to-do people, occupied with their 
 own private business and pleasure. 
 
 Later it was to be otherwise. The changes in which 
 Camille was to be so actively concerned made them- 
 selves felt even in the quiet backwater of his native 
 town. There came a day when Guise, in that Revolu- 
 tionary craze for giving new names to old things, was 
 to re-christen itself Reunion-sur-Oise. One cannot 
 imagine that the ultra-modern fashion became the old 
 town well. 
 
 But all this was in the hidden future. In 
 the meantime, rumours and hints have come down 
 to us which prove that Camille was considered 
 to be a very firebrand by the honest townsfolk of 
 Guise. They thought hiip a dangerous revolution- 
 ary, one whom quiet folk might well be very shy 
 of asking to their homes, who could not be trusted 
 not to lead, their sons astray, or make love to their 
 daughters. 
 
 It is very likely that their fears were well-founded ; 
 in both these respects Camille had undoubtedly great 
 capabilities, from their point of view. It was rather, 
 as though an undergraduate were to return to his 
 home in a sleepy English country town loudly voicing 
 his opinions as a red-hot Socialist and flaunting scarlet 
 
32 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 neckties, and Fabian pamphlets in the faces of his 
 quiet law-abiding friends and relations. 
 
 Even while quite a small boy, during his first holi- 
 days from College, Camille had succeeded in scandal- 
 ising the good townsfolk of Guise. It is said that one 
 day he was arguing so loudly with his brothers and 
 sisters, and declaiming so vehemently against tyranny, 
 that the Prince de Conde, who was the owner of much 
 property in the neighbourhood and who had come to 
 see M. Desmoulins on business, took the small orator 
 by the ear and pushed him out into the street. 
 
 A story is told of Camille's behaviour in later years 
 at a respectable provincial dinner-party which gives 
 a fair idea of the young man's attitude towards his 
 neighbours at this time. 
 
 M. Jules Claretie, Camille's painstaking biographer, 
 believes this anecdote to be much exaggerated in the 
 version given by M. Edouard Fleury, but it probably 
 rests on more than a slight foundation of truth, 
 and it is, moreover, quite consistent with Camille's 
 character as we know him. 
 
 He was staying at the house of his relation, Madame 
 Godart, who lived at the village of Wiege, near Guise. 
 A few local celebrities had been invited to meet the 
 young man, whose talents were apparently admired, 
 although distrusted. 
 
 After dinner, one of those present proceeded to make 
 fun of Camille's well-known and loudly-expressed 
 opinions ; it seems that the young people of Guise 
 looked upon it as a fine joke to endeavour to provoke 
 the hot-headed collegian into one of his fits of anger. 
 
 This time the plan succeeded only too well. To the 
 day of his death, Camille could not bear to be laughed 
 at, and he was provoked past bearing by his com- 
 panions' gibes at his Republican views. 
 
 It is said that at last he lost his temper completely, 
 flung his napkin at the head of his opponent, and sprang 
 upon the table, amidst the ruins of the glass and china. 
 
THE NORTH WIND 33 
 
 He proceeded to harangue the guests from this im- 
 provised tribune, arousing the laughter of some, and 
 the undisguised anger of others. 
 
 Stammering, with his words faUing over each other 
 in his wild excitement, Camille poured forth his ideas, 
 talking of an ideal Republic, of Liberty, Equality and 
 Fraternity, all of which things sounded to his amazed 
 hearers like so many empty phrases, a rnere wind 
 of words. 
 
 Yet, after all, it was only a kind of burlesque re- 
 hearsal of that great scene five years later, in the 
 gardens of the Palais Royal. 
 
 One can well imagine, however, the scandal which 
 such proceedings as these must have caused in quiet, 
 law-abiding Guise. One can picture the townsfolk 
 shaking their worthy heads over the doings of this 
 scapegrace of a Camille, repeating the story of his 
 latest prank, exaggerated no doubt, but none the less 
 thrilling for that, prophesying disgrace to the good 
 name of Desmoulins. 
 
 It is to this period of his life that Camille's first 
 love affair — of a kind — would seem to belong. . He had 
 a certain affection for a little cousin of his, Flore Godart, 
 but she was only a child, sofne nine years younger than 
 himself. Camille accordingly calmly announced his 
 intention of waiting until the girl was old enough 
 to marry. 
 
 But the Godart family opposed the whole idea of 
 this match very strongly on the grounds of " Camille's 
 political opinions and the dangers to the durability and 
 happiness of this union which were to be anticipated." 
 
 Rose Flore Amelie Godart was not to be the 
 wife of Camille Desmoulins. Only a short time 
 afterwards he met the one woman who was really 
 to win his heart, and from that day it is to be 
 feared that poor Flore had no real existence as far as 
 Camille was concerned. In 1792 she was married to 
 M. Tarrieux de Taillan. 
 
34 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Nevertheless, years later, we catch a faint echo of 
 the old dead-and-gone love affair. Lucile, Camille's 
 wife,' has heard some rumour of the business, and she is 
 delightfully and quite unreasonably jealous. Here is 
 what Camille himself writes to his father on July 9th, 
 1793 •■— 
 
 " You complain that I do not write to you. . . . Lucile is 
 so frightened that I shall be seized with a desire to embrace 
 you that she would be alarmed if she saw me writing ; so I am 
 taking advantage of the office provided by the Committee of 
 War, of which I have been made Secretary, to write to you 
 freely without her seeing over my shotllder that I am writing 
 to Guise. I imagine that the cause of her anxiety is the 
 recollection of some cousin who has been mentioned to her." 
 
 In the meanwhile, «the time which Camille spent at 
 his birthplace was not wasted. He was industriously 
 studying law, and he took his bachelor's degree in the 
 September of 1784. There is no doubt that these 
 legal studies were an advantage to him in his future 
 career. They gave him that reasoning faculty, that 
 power of setting forth a case which he undoubtedly 
 possessed, and without which his brilliancy and wit 
 would have lacked that ballast which made his argu- 
 ments carry conviction to his readers. 
 
 Camille seems to have passed his examinations 
 creditably ; he became a licentiate in the spring of 
 1785, and was sworn later in the same year as an 
 advocate to the Parliament of Paris. 
 
 Having attained to this position, he was now, of 
 course, obliged to take up his residence permanently 
 in the capital, and we have no reason to suppose that 
 he felt any particular regret at leaving Guise. 
 
 He had been keenly disappointed by his reception 
 in his birthplace. Even after he became a successful 
 man, Camille never quite lost a certain feeling of 
 soreness where the Guisards were concerned. 
 
 We read this plainly in his letters to his father. 
 Although ha protests that he takes no further interest 
 
THE NORTH WIND 35 
 
 in Guise, that he wishes to cut himself off from the 
 provincial narrowness of his native town, one can see 
 plainly beneath the surface of his words that he is 
 eager to prove to his unappreciative fellow-townsmen 
 that their estimate of him was not the true one. 
 One of the sharpest spurs to his ambition was the 
 desire to make a great name in order that Guise might 
 be humbled and be forced to allow that Camille 
 DesmouUns was a son of whom she might well be 
 proud. 
 
 With this in his mind it must have been very galling 
 to Camille when the discovery was borne home to him 
 that he was unfitted by nature for the career to which 
 he had been destined from his childhood. 
 
 Although he was now what we should call a barrister 
 at the Paris Bar, his briefs were few and unprofitable. 
 Camille was from the first doomed to failure as a 
 pleader. He had no oratorical gifts, and although 
 occasionally he could overcome his hesitation and 
 express himself clearly and well, it was only when he 
 was carried quite outside himself, under very ex- 
 ceptional circumstances, that he could forget his 
 nervousness. 
 
 It is curious that one who as a writer was extra- 
 ordinarily fluent, expressing himself readily and 
 without hesitation, should have been practically 
 incapable of an extemporary speech. In later years 
 he wrote down beforehand all the addresses which he 
 made in the Convention or at the Jacobin Club, and 
 these orations of his were, moreover, composed in an 
 entirely different style from that which he used in 
 his journalistic or literary work. They are stilted, 
 academic, wholly without spontaneity. 
 
 Camille's voice, when he attempted to speak in 
 public, was harsh and unmusical ; a certain physical 
 weakness in the chest and throat would be sufficient 
 to account for this, and he later often referred to this 
 delicacy as an excuse for not speaking more often 
 
36 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 in the Convention. Besides, he stammered slightly, 
 although this did not proceed from any malformation 
 or actual impediment of speech. 
 
 It was rather that kind of hesitation which is so 
 often to be observed in nervous or excitable people ; 
 it would really seem to arise from the fact that their 
 thoughts spring up too rapidly to be put into coherent 
 speech. 
 
 Camille's stammer took the form, as many contempo- 
 rary writers tell us, of a deprecatory " hon-hon ! " 
 before beginning to speak, a trick which afterwards 
 earned for him his wife's affectionate nickname of 
 " Monsieur Hon." 
 
 Camille soon found that he could not hope to make a 
 living at the Bar, although we learn that MM. Perdry, 
 de Denisard, Perrin and Forget gave him a few cases. 
 He was forced to earn a little money by executing 
 law-copying for those others of his profession who 
 were more fortunate than himself, and by drawing 
 up petitions for the procurators at threepence- 
 halfpenny each. One can guess how galling this 
 drudgery must have been to a man of his tempera- 
 ment. 
 
 Very few and scanty are the facts which can be 
 discovered respecting Camille's life in Paris, during 
 the period between 1784 and 1789. Nobody thought 
 of recording his doings at that time ; he was of little 
 or no interest to anyone except himself. 
 
 Moreover, when he had become a famous man, he 
 preferred to be entirely silent on the subject of these 
 years. They were no source of pride to him, and he 
 even tried to cover and hide them by stating, quite 
 falsely, in 1790, that he had been residing in the Rue 
 de Theatre Frangais for the " last six years." 
 
 As a matter of fact, we do not really know with any 
 exactness where he lived during those early days in 
 Paris. It is true that he says himself, in a letter to 
 his father, that his lodgings were in the Hotel de 
 
THE NORTH WIND 37 
 
 Pologne, but, as M, Lenotre tells us, at that time 
 there were no less than three Hotels de Pologne in 
 Paris. However, from other indications it would seem 
 that Camille lived in that one which was situated 
 in the Rue Saint- Andre-des- Arcs. 
 
 It is possible to deduct from his letters, and still 
 more from their discontinuance at certain periods, 
 that Camille did not remain in the capital during the 
 whole of the time between 1784 and 1789. Probably, 
 when life became unbearably hard and money im- 
 possibly scanty, he returned to Guise for a time, 
 doubtless to be comforted by his mother and reproved 
 by his father, both alike for his good. 
 
 It seems plain that it was not until after, the opening 
 of the States-General that Camille absolutely and 
 decidedly settled in Paris, with the avowed intention, 
 as he says, of " abandoning Guise definitely." 
 
 Egotistical as Camille was, and by no means in- 
 clined to self-depreciation by nature, he must have 
 sometimes lost faith in that self of his during those 
 weary years. He must have suffered under a sense 
 of failure, as he wandered through the street's, watch- 
 ing the men around him, independent or with others 
 dependent upon them, whilst he could scarcely keep 
 his own body and soul together. 
 
 Sometimes he would forget his miserable life for a 
 time whilst he sat drinking and arguing on the affairs 
 of France and the universe in the famous Cafe 
 Procope (now the Cafe Voltaire), where his portrait 
 is still preserved. 
 
 Sometimes he would spend happy, innocent days 
 with the Duplessis family, to whom he had been 
 introduced as a boy by his college friend Stanislas 
 Freron. M. Duplessis was kind and good-natured, 
 Madame, his wife, was still young and pretty, and 
 they had two charming little daughters, mere children 
 as yet, named Annette and Lucile. Occasionally 
 Camille would spend Sunday with them at their 
 
38 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 pretty country house of Bourg-la-Reine, where they 
 would picnic in the fields amongst the long grass aiid 
 play childish games to amuse the little girls. Late in 
 the sweet summer evenings they would return to Pans 
 in a rough country cart, pleasantly sleepy after their 
 day in the open air. 
 
 Such occasions as these were good for Camille. 
 We can be sure that he enjoyed them, in spite of his 
 disappointed hopes and his embittered poverty- 
 stricken life. Until the day of his death Camille 
 remained a very boy, mercifully interested and 
 pleased by small and homely things. 
 
 And it was gradually, during these days and after- 
 wards during mornings spent with Madame Duplessis 
 and her daughters in the gardens of the Luxembourg, 
 that Camille's feelings towards little Lucile almost 
 imperceptibly changed. At first it had only been an 
 elder-brotherly liking for a child ten years his junior. 
 There is a great gulf between a young man of twenty- 
 two and a child of twelve. 
 
 But the child was growing into a charming girl, and 
 Camille's love increased and altered with her growth, 
 hopeless and more than hopeless as his affection 
 appeared at this time. 
 
 Doubtless he had other friends, although we do not 
 know who they were. Maximilian Robespierre was at 
 Arras, building up a career fo!r himself in his native 
 town, where he did not, like Camille, suffer from the 
 consciousness of being misunderstood by his fellow- 
 townsfolk. The people of Arras were proud of 
 Robespierre ; later they were to give him his great 
 opportunity by sending him to Paris as their deputy 
 to the States-General. 
 
 There was another man, like himself an advocate 
 in Paris, whom Camille certainly knew, although at 
 this time it does not appear that they were in any way 
 intimate friends. This was Georges- Jacques Danton, 
 whose life was in later years to be so closely bound 
 
THE NORTH WIND 39 
 
 up with that of his younger colleague. Danton was 
 already a prosperous lawyer, in a very different 
 position from Camille. It is not until many years later 
 that the young man mentions him in a letter to his 
 father, dated April, 1792, as " a college comrade, who 
 is in the opposite party to myself and who esteems me 
 sufficiently not to extend to my person the hatred 
 which he holds for my opinions." 
 
 If one were to judge Camille only by the writings 
 of his enemies, it would be necessary to beheve that 
 in ^ his private life he was a monster of depravity ; 
 this, however, may be emphatically denied. 
 
 On the other hand, some of his friends, flying to 
 the other extreme, would have us to understand that he 
 was a paragon of virtue ; this assertion also cannot be 
 accepted as a fact. 
 
 The real truth would seem to be that Camille was 
 morally neither much better nor much worse than 
 most of the young men of his age and class — until 
 he became engaged to Lucile Duplessis. 
 
 After his marriage it is impossible to prove, it is 
 equally impossible to believe, that he was ever, in word 
 or act, unfaithful to his wife. To quote from one of 
 his own writings : " My marriage is so blissful, my 
 domestic happiness is so great that I feared I was 
 receiving my reward on earth and I lost my faith in 
 immortality." 
 
 A man who could write these words as Camille did, 
 honestly and without affectation, can have had no 
 temptation to seek for happiness elsewhere. 
 
 Before his marriage, before he had won for his own 
 the girl whom he had so long and truly loved, there 
 was a side of Camille's life which he made little or no 
 attempt to conceal. A man who wrote that he longed 
 for a religion " gay, the friend of delights, of women, 
 of the population and of liberty ; a religion where 
 the dance, the spectacles and the festivals are a part 
 of the cult, as was that of the Greeks and Romans," — 
 
40 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 such a man was not likely to be an ascetic in his own 
 private life. 
 
 It can never be sufficiently recognised that in 
 judging the men of this time it is necessary to bear in 
 mind that the standard of morality was very low in 
 France, even lower than in the England of that day. 
 A young man living alone in Paris, especially a young 
 man with such a temperament as Camille's, who led 
 even what we should think a fairly decent life, was a 
 being rather out of the common. 
 
 Under these circumstances, to labour to find 
 excuses is a profitless employment. A nature like 
 Camille's was not Hkely to set up a stricter rule of 
 conduct than his compeers, and if one were to en- 
 deavour to prove that he did so, at the expense of 
 truth, the portrait of the man thus presented would 
 be absolutely valueless. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of poverty and of unremunera- 
 tive and uncongenial drudgery, in spite of endless 
 disappointments and apparently fruitless hopes, these 
 years of Camille's life were not wasted. 
 
 He was passing through a period of apprenticeship, 
 as it were, a time of probation before entering on his 
 real career of journalism. 
 
 It is certain that he must have written much during 
 these years. There is nothing amateurish in the 
 literary style of the " France Libre," his first important 
 printed work. Not only constant practice in writing, 
 but deep and thorough reading went to the making of 
 that really extraordinary pamphlet. 
 
 Probably, together with a large amount of more or 
 less creditable prose, Camille wrote also a vast quantity 
 of more or less bad verses. Most of these poems have 
 dissolved into well-deserved obscurity, but some 
 few have been preserved. M. Claretie, in an appendix 
 to his biography, gives as a specimen some couplets 
 written in honour of a young English lady. One 
 verse«^vill probably convince most people that Camille's 
 
THE NORTH WIND 41 
 
 claims to the title of poet were not well-founded. 
 " To Miss L . . ., a young English Lady." 
 
 " Pardon, si, sur les traces, 
 On me volt chaque soir ; 
 Mais pour suivre les graces 
 Est- 11 besoin d'espoir ? 
 Sans pouvoir m'en defendre 
 Mas jours vont s'6coTiler, 
 Le matin a I'attendre, 
 Le soir a I'admirer." 
 
 At this time, as we have said, although Camille's 
 love for Lucile Duplessis grew with each meeting, his 
 suit appeared too hopeless to be even hinted at to the 
 girl's parents. M. Duplessis would simply -have 
 laughed at him ; Madame Duplessis might have been 
 kinder, but she most certainly would not have con- 
 sented to think of the young man as her daughter's 
 lover, desperately poor and desperately unsuccessful 
 as he still was. 
 
 For M. Duplessis, although only the son of a village 
 blacksmith, had risen to the creditable position of 
 First Clerk in the Office of the General Control of 
 Finance. It was not likely that such a prosperous and 
 well-considered citizen would seriously consider poor 
 CamiUe's claims. 
 
 As to Lucile's own feelings, it is somewhat hard to 
 fathom them ; indeed, at this time she did not know 
 her own heart. She was scarcely more than a child, 
 and, like many young girls, inclined to be morbid. 
 Nevertheless, she was no fool. She had opinions and 
 views of her own. Some of her notebooks and diaries 
 havfe been preserved, and they show that she was 
 widely read for those days and also accustomed to 
 think for herself. 
 
 Sitting up in bed, whilst her family slept, Lucile 
 scribbled down, half furtively, her thoughts and dreams 
 in these little exercise 'books. To be sure, her ideas 
 
42 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 are mainly those o£ her idol, Rousseau, but there is a 
 strain of originality as well. It is when she is most 
 coloured by her master that one likes her least. 
 
 In common with other girls, before and since, she 
 thinks that she will never marry, she doubts her 
 capacity for love. She is a stone, she says, cold as ice, — 
 at the advanced age of sixteen ! She imagines that she 
 hates men, that she is a being set apart. 
 
 It is not until 1789 that we begin to see the dawn of a 
 new feeling, and even then it is only an idea which 
 she loves. It is impossible to say when the idea 
 materialised into the shape of shabby, fascinating 
 Camille Desmoulins. 
 
 Nevertheless, Lucile is learning that she does not 
 hate one particular man. Later, she will know that 
 she loves him well enough to live for him — well enough 
 to die for him. 
 
 It is a quaint, pathetic little manuscript, that early 
 diary of Lucile's ; a manuscript to bring a smile to 
 the lips and tears to the eyes. 
 
 So the pretty, wilful girl passed her days and nights 
 in dreams and self-analysis, while the real romance of 
 her life was waiting for her, close at hand, in the 
 person of the impecunious young lawyer, who lived 
 in such poor apartments in the Hotel Pologne. 
 
 Camille cordially hated his dwelling-place, but it had 
 at least this one great advantage ; it was quite near 
 to the house of M. Duplessis. From his garret window 
 the young man could catch an occasional glimpse of the 
 girl he loved, the girl who at that time must have 
 seemed to him almost as inaccessible, as far as he was 
 concerned, as one of those angels to which then and 
 afterwards he so often compared her. 
 
 At this period of his life, when he was dejected and 
 shabby, people, no doubt, passed Camille by as an 
 ugly, uninteresting young man. The impression 
 which he made upon outsiders was always immensely 
 dependent upon his mood at the moment, but, apart 
 
THE NORTH WIND 43 
 
 from this, he was probably now in appearance very 
 much as he is described a few years later. 
 
 The portraits of Camille are contradictory; they 
 differ so much from one another that we may obtain 
 the impression either of an extremely ugly, or of a 
 decidedly handsome man. Neither is written testi- 
 mony much more in agreement. 
 
 He remarked himself in a letter to Arthur Dillon : 
 " I am not a handsome fellow, it must be allowed," 
 and, if the essayist Sainte-Beuve's father is to be 
 believed : " Desmoulins had a disagreeable exterior." 
 
 One who was decidedly inimical to Camille, the 
 writer of the " Souvenirs de la Terreur," says : — 
 
 " He had a bilious complexion like Robespierre's, a hard and 
 sinister eye, more like that of an osprey than that of an eagle. 
 I saw him often, and he never seemed to me to be better- 
 looking than at first. I know that there were some who tried 
 to make him out a handsome fellow, but either they were 
 flatterers, or they had never seen him." 
 
 Not a pleasing portrait this, — but it comes from an 
 enemy. 
 
 It would appear that Camille, while possessing little 
 beauty of feature, could yet, on occasion, seem 
 exceedingly attractive. Possibly the truest idea 
 to which we can attain may be obtained from the few 
 words which are to be found in an anonymous 
 pamphlet, relating to the Sainte-Amaranthe family. 
 The author was a woman, Madame A. R., and she 
 says : " He was ugly, but with that intellectual 
 ugliness which pleases. ... It was a humorous and 
 pleasing ugliness." 
 
 This description certainly agrees far the best 
 with that most attractive of Camille's portraits, 
 painted by Rouillard, which is now to be seen at 
 Versailles. These few words bring him before us 
 irresistibly ; they harmonise with what we learn of 
 him from his writings and letters ; it might almost be 
 
44 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 said that they sum up the man himself in a deeper 
 and wider sense than that of mere outward appear- 
 ance. 
 
 To pass from general impressions to details, Camille 
 was very dark and sallow in complexion. His hair was 
 bladk, and, although in his extreme youth he wore 
 it dressed and powdered, in later years he suffered it, 
 in accordance with the Republican fashion, to grow 
 long and to fall over his shoulders, loose and un- 
 powdered. His eyes were always his best and most 
 striking feature ; they were very dark, and extra- 
 ordinarily bright and expressive. His mouth was 
 large and mobile, and his forehead noticeably fine. 
 For the rest, he was slightly built and. not tall, but 
 active and singularly boyish in his movements and 
 bearing. 
 
 Such was Camille when his long period of probation 
 was drawing near to its close. Those days of prepara- 
 tion, of weary, unremunerative toil, were at last to 
 bear fruit. 
 
 France and the whole world was on the verge of an 
 upheaval, in which Camille's fortune and Camille's 
 life were but as drops in the ocean. Yet that huge 
 cataclysm was to give the obscure young man his 
 opportunity, to throw him to the surface of events 
 as it were. In a day, in an hour, in a moment, Camille 
 Desmoulins was to be transformed from a struggling, 
 unknown lawyer into the idol of Paris. The mere 
 nobody, who was not considered worthy either of 
 praise or blame, was to become someone with immense 
 opportunities for good or evil, using those oppor- 
 tunities both for good and evil. The transformation 
 was sudden and dramatic ; there have been few such 
 scenes in the whole course of history. 
 
 This is not the place to reconsider at length, for the 
 thousandth time, what causes, gradual or immediate, 
 led to the French Revolution. The smouldering 
 discontent, the class hatred, the sense of injustice 
 
THE NORTH WIND 45 
 
 which had been growing beneath the surface of 
 things for centuries had at last reached a point when 
 it could be suppressed no longer. Many causes had 
 contributed to bring matters to a climax, many- 
 influences, both open and secret, had been at work 
 during the preceding generation. 
 
 The part which Voltaire, Rousseau and the En- 
 cyclopaedists played in the inception of the Revolution 
 has always been recognised, but the development of 
 their principles was almost necessarily confined to the 
 intellectual classes. Therefore it is essential to look 
 deeper if we would hope to find by what power the 
 masses of the proletariat were stirred in France. 
 
 A recent writer, Miss Una Birch, in her most 
 instructive essay on " Secret Societies and the French 
 Revolution," gives a lucid and reasonable explanation 
 of this otherwise almost inexplicable phenomenon. 
 She traces the undoubted disaffection of the lowest 
 classes in the kingdom to the effects of the propaganda 
 work of the Masonic societies and especially of that 
 great and mysterious association which is generally 
 known as the " Order of the Perfectibilists " and of 
 which the Illuminate, Weishaupt, was the moving 
 spirit. 
 
 The aim of this society was, literally speaking, the 
 establishment of Rousseau's Utopian theories in a 
 practical form, and its accredited agents worked 
 exclusively through the existing Masonic lodges in 
 France, which in time were all infected with the 
 Perfectibilist doctrines. 
 
 One of the most famous Parisian lodges was that 
 of the " Neuf S'ceurs," to which Camille Desmoulins 
 was associated. The decoration which he wore at the 
 Masonic ceremonies is still preserved, a little triangular 
 badge which bears the image of a pelican tearing its 
 breast. Many of Camille's brother Masons in this 
 lodge afterwards took prominent parts in the Revolu- 
 tion ; one need only mention such names as those of 
 
46 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Brissot, La Rochefoucauld, Fauchet, Romme, Danton 
 and Petion. 
 
 It seems certain that an enormous amount o£ 
 preparatory work was done underground, as it were, 
 by the Masonic societies during the years which 
 immediately preceded the Revolution. In this work 
 it is only fair to presume that Camille played his part, 
 although what exactly that part was we have no means 
 of knowing. 
 
 From their very nature the Secret Societies acted in 
 secret, but their influence in shaping events has 
 certainly not been duly estimated by historians. We 
 have no space here to consider the subject further, 
 but fuller information may be found in Miss Birch's 
 most interesting book. 
 
 For the French Revolution was no mere inconse- 
 quent outbreak, inevitable and foreordained as an 
 upheaval of nature. It was a carefuUy engineered 
 movement, at least so far as its initial stages were 
 concerned, although later the torrent broke its bounds 
 and overwhelmed those who had at first directed its 
 fury. 
 
 The time was coming when the strength of the strong- 
 est went for nothing in the conflict with the mighty 
 powers let loose in France. One by one, men were to 
 arise and, in their turn, strive to govern the storm — 
 Mirabeau, Danton and Robespierre, with a mighty 
 host who bore lesser names. One by one they were to 
 sink, powerless and vanquished, overwhelmed by that 
 monster which they themselves had helped to arouse. 
 
 It was small wonder that, where these men failed, 
 Camille could not hope to hold his own for long. 
 He was like a feather blown here and there by the 
 varying breeze — no, his own comparison is the 
 truer. He was the weathercock, which showed the 
 way of the wind. 
 
Ill 
 
 IT was in January o£ the year 1789 that Louis 
 XVI, King of France and Navarre, yielded to 
 the importunities of his people and convoked 
 the States-General, that States-General which, 
 eighteen years before, the " Dictionnaire Universelle 
 de la France " had pronounced obsolete. 
 
 The great and unbounded joy with which the down- 
 trodden peasantry of the kingdom heard the news of 
 this convocation was, paradoxically enough, one of 
 the causes of the excesses which followed. The people 
 hoped too much ; they hoped for more than any 
 power on earth could give them, above all the well- 
 meaning, ineffective man who was their king. 
 
 This being so, their disappointment was the keener 
 when the bright hope faded, when reforms seemed as 
 far away as ever, when, where they had looked for 
 peace, they were met with the sword. 
 
 But all this was as yet hidden in the future. In the 
 meantime the spring of this year, afterwards to be 
 known as the first year of Liberty, saw the first assem- 
 blies called together in Paris and the provinces for 
 the election of deputies. 
 
 The mass of the people heard, with almost incredu- 
 lous joy, that, at last, they would be able to voice their 
 wrongs, that, at last, the King, their true father, as 
 they still called him, was to hear and consider their 
 complaints. And so, in every corner of France, the 
 " cahiers " or statements were drawn up, those 
 pathetic documents, written as it were with the very 
 life-blood of the people, yet with hope vivifying them 
 
 47 
 
48 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 all, the sure and certain hope that the King had only 
 to hear in order to understand, to understand and to 
 make all things new. 
 
 They are unspeakably sad reading, these statements 
 of the sufferings and wrongs of a nation, often ill- 
 written and ill-spelt, and plainly drawn up by unedu- 
 cated, illiterate men. 
 
 For it was not only in theory that the lowest classes 
 of the French people nominated -gnd instructed their 
 deputies. The States-General of 1789 was elected 
 on a system of practically universal suffrage, even 
 women, in some instances, Ijeing amongst the electors. 
 
 In common with almost the whole of France, 
 Camille Desmoulins looked upon this convocation of 
 the Three Estates of the Kingdom as the beginning of 
 a new era, the dawn of a better day, to use the phrase- 
 ology of the time. For the moment, all his private 
 cares were laid aside, and, eager and alert, he waited 
 for the work of regeneration to begin. 
 
 Not that he was altogether content to stand aside 
 and watch others effect this great work. Camille, 
 in his youthful ardour, felt capable of representing 
 the people of his province in the Assembly most 
 worthily — if they would only elect him. 
 
 Unfortunately, his townsfolk thought otherwise ; 
 perhaps their opinion is not altogether surprising. 
 Notwithstanding all his fine ambitions, the young man 
 had made no mark in Paris, and the Guisards could 
 scarcely be expected to have much faith in his capa- 
 bilities. 
 
 It was now that Camille was to regret bitterly that 
 he had not practised his profession permanently in 
 his native town, like his school comrade Maximilian. 
 Had he been content to remain peacefully at Guise, 
 he might by now have been someone of importance, 
 and worthy of consideration. 
 
 For Robespierre, his boyish contemporary, very 
 little his senior, was chosen as one of the representa- 
 
THE NORTH WIND 49 
 
 tives for Arras, his birthplace, where he had earned 
 quite a reputation for integrity, justice and rectitude 
 — a reputation which, in the future, he was to remake 
 for himself in Paris. 
 
 Camille did not fail in his ambitions for want of 
 trying. He hastened back to Guise before the first 
 electoral meetings took place, and it is evident that 
 he canvassed for himself most diligently. He managed 
 to secure the support of three hundred electors of 
 Vermandqis, and he was one of those sent from Guise 
 to Laon as a deputy to the preliminary assemblies. 
 He advanced no further than this ; indeed, he can 
 scarcely have expected to be himself elected to the 
 States-General. 
 
 It was otherwise where his father was concerned. 
 M. DesmOulins, senior, might have been sent to Paris 
 as one of the representatives of his province if he had 
 chosen to say the word. He was a man of importance 
 in the district, and was, moreover, universally liked 
 and respected. M. Desmoulins, however, was not an 
 ambitious man ; his son, indeed, considered him 
 culpably lacking in enterprise and initiative. He was 
 also disinclined to accept the position on the score of 
 ill-health, and, for one reason and another, much to 
 Camille's chagrin and disappointment, he was not 
 amongst the deputies who were finally elected. The 
 young mail could only console himself with the 
 reflection that the representative nominated by Guise 
 was his cousin and former benefactor, de Viefville des 
 Essarts. 
 
 At the end of 1788 or the beginning of 1789, before 
 the elections had really commenced, it would appear 
 that Camille had produced his first pamphlet. The 
 " Moniteur," in giving a list of publications which 
 appeared at this time, mentions " La Philosophic au 
 Peuple Fran9ais " par M. Desmoulins. As far as is 
 known, there is not a copy of this essay extant, but 
 the writer in the " Moniteur " states that the author 
 
50 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 develops the principles of a plan for a Constitution. 
 It would seem that the pamphlet was only an earlier 
 form of " La France Libre." 
 
 The work does not, in any case^ appear to have 
 attracted particular attention. Camille's name was 
 unknown and carried no authority, and, moreover, an 
 overwhelming mass of political writings of more or 
 less interest was published at this time. This was 
 principally on account of a decree issued on July 5th, 
 
 1788, in which the King invited information and 
 memorials on the " present decree " to be sent by 
 " all the learned and instructed persons of his 
 Kingdom." 
 
 At about the same time Camille also wrote an ode 
 upon the " Opening of the States-General," but 
 neither does this appear to have brought him 
 any special fame. It is exceedingly bad poetry, 
 although its sentiments are irreproachable. The 
 chief interest of the effusion lies in the fact that 
 it is distinctly monarchial in tone. King Louis is 
 coinpared to the greatest emperors of Rome, and 
 called upon, in high-flown language, to regenerate 
 his country. 
 
 After manifold delays and postponements the 
 elections were finally completed, and on May 5th, 
 
 1789, the States-General was formally opened at 
 Versailles with great pomp and ceremony. 
 
 Many writers have described this day and the 
 mingled feelings which the proceedings aroused both 
 in themselves and in the mass of the people. For our 
 present purpose, since it is Camille's point of view 
 which we are considering, we cannot do better than 
 give the account in his own words, used in writing to 
 his father. 
 
 It is now that the young man's letters become really 
 valuable. They describe briefly all that happened at 
 Paris and Versailles within Camille's ken, in a style 
 which is, in its way, quite inimitable. 
 
THE NORTH WIND 51 
 
 Camille had apparently returned to the capital 
 especially to see this ceremony, and he writes to his 
 father enthusiastically on the following day : — 
 
 " Yesterday was one of the brightest days of my life. One 
 must needs have befen a very bad citizen not to take part in the 
 festivity of that sacred day. I believe that if I had only come 
 from Guise to Paris to see this procession of the three orders 
 and the opening of our States-General, I should not regret this 
 pilgrimage. I only had one cause for discontent, and that lay 
 in not seeing you amongst our deputies. One of my comrades 
 has been more fortunate than I, this is Robespierre, deputy for 
 Arras. He had the sense to plead in his own province. . . . 
 One noticed yesterday the duke d'Orleans in his rank as deputy 
 to the bailliage of Crespy, and Count Mirabeau with the dress 
 of the Third Estate and a sword. . . . The costume of the 
 nobility, exactly the same as that of the dukes and peers, was 
 magnificent. . . . How proudly our deputies carried them- 
 selves ! they had caput intra nubes. . . . The abbe de Bour- 
 ville, one of my friends, took me to dine with his uncle, 
 Chevalier M , . ., Major-General. It was there that I noticed 
 how the bulk of the nobility were irritated against M. Necker. 
 
 " They cried by thousands and thousands : ' Long live the 
 King ! Long live the Third Estate ! ' There were some cheers 
 for the duke d'Orleans, none for the cloth of gold, nor for the 
 cassocks. The face of the King was alight with joy. It is four 
 years since he heard the cry : ' Long live the King ! ' . . . 
 
 " I wrote yesterday to Mirabeau to try, if possible, to be put 
 on the staff of the famous gazette which will describe all that 
 takes place at the States-General. Thousands are subscribing 
 to it here, and it will bring the author 100,000 crowns, they 
 say. Shall I subscribe for you ? " 
 
 It is easy to imagine Camille, dressed in all his 
 best, hastening along the road to Versailles on that 
 brilliant spring morning. 
 
 The royal town was ablaze with flags and decora- 
 tions glittering in the May sunlight. It seemed a day 
 of festival for rich and poor alike. 
 
 We can picture the young man, his vivid, ugly face 
 alight with enthusiasm, standing wedged amidst the 
 
52 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 close-packed crowd, cheering the sombrely dressed 
 deputies of the Third Estate as they passed, cheering 
 the King, too, heartily enough, and the King's cousin, 
 the future " Equality " Orleans, but silent when the 
 Queen passed, beautiful and proud as ever, unhappy 
 both for public and private reasons, yet hiding her 
 sorrow under a mask of cold indifference. 
 
 In the letters which Camille wrote to his father 
 during the month of June it is easy to see what a change 
 had come over the young man's life. The days of 
 weary waiting and preparation were over, all was 
 stir and excitement around him ; Paris was in a state 
 of effervescence, and in such an atmosphere Camille 
 was in his element. 
 
 True, Chateaubriand describes him at this time as 
 " sallow, shabby and needy," and we know for a 
 certainty that he was as much in need of money as 
 ever, but he was beginning to feel within himself 
 a measure of power. 
 
 He was even conscious, rightly or wrongly, of being 
 considered by others to be a person of importance. 
 He writes on June 3rd : — 
 
 " I received your letter upon my return from Versailles ; 
 where I went to see our dear deputies. ... I dined there with 
 our deputies from Dauphiny and Brittany ; they all know me 
 as a patriot, and they aU pay me attentions which flatter me." 
 
 In the same letter he describes very vividly his 
 manner of life at that time : — 
 
 " I am at present occupied with a patriotic work. The 
 -J pleasure that I experience in hearing the admirable plans of 
 our zealous citizens at the club and in certain cafds leads me 
 there. 
 
 " I left this letter upon my desk. A week has passed. 
 To-morrow, Sunday, I return to Versailles. I go to inflame 
 others and to be myself inflamed. We are about to enter 
 upon a great week. That which has passed at Versailles ought 
 to give marvellous courage to our deputies. . . . The States- 
 General has attracted to Paris a crowd of strangers and of 
 
THE NORTH WIND 53 
 
 French from all the provinces. The city is full, Versailles the 
 same. . . . You have no idea of the joy which our regeneration 
 gives me. Liberty must be a beautiful thing, since Cato tore 
 out his entrails sooner than have a master." 
 
 In a very few words Camille gives us here an extra- 
 ordinarily clear impression of the state of Paris during 
 those fervent midsummer days. 
 
 We have only one description to match it, and that 
 is to be found in the Journal of our own English 
 traveller, Arthur Young. The impressions of this 
 writer may well find a place here ; they supplement 
 and accentuate, as it were, those of Camille. There 
 were odd points of likeness in the characters of these 
 two men, opposite as they were in many respects. 
 
 " Paris," vprites Young, " is at present in such a ferment 
 about the States-General, now holding at Versailles, that 
 conversation is absolutely absorbed by them. Not a word, of 
 anything else talked of. . . . The business going forward at 
 present in the pamphlet shops of Paris is incredible. . . . 
 Every hour produces something new. Thirteen came out 
 to-day, sixteen yesterday, and ninety-two last week. . . . 
 At Desein's and some other shops here one can scarcely squeeze 
 from the door to the counter. . . . Nineteen-twentieths of 
 the§e products are in favour of liberty. ... It is easy to 
 conceive the spirit that must thus be raised among the people. 
 But the coffee-houses in the Palais Royal present yet more 
 singular and astonishing spectacles ; they are not only crowded 
 vnthi'n, but other expectant crowds are at the doors and 
 windows, listening a gorge d^floye to certain orators who from 
 chairs or tables harangue each his little audience ; the eagerness 
 with which they are heard and the thunder of applause they 
 receive for every sentirnent of more than common hardiness 
 or violence against the present government cannot easily be 
 imagined." 
 
 Probably by this time Camille had ceased to make 
 any pretence of practising his profession. He was 
 occupied, as he told his father, in writing his first 
 great literary work " La France Libre." 
 
 It is only fair to Camille and his principles to say 
 
54 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 that he wished to publish this pamphlet then and 
 there. It was not by his will that the production was 
 postponed until the dawn o£ that day of July 14th, 
 which changed the whole current of public opinion in 
 France, by proving that the populace had might as 
 well as right upon their side. 
 
 However, the printer Momoro was cautious. This 
 man, who was afterwards to proclaim himself the 
 most ardent of democrats, the " first printer of the 
 National Liberty," declined for the moment to bring 
 out such an incendiary piece of work as this of 
 Camille's. He preferred to wait events — and it was 
 not long before events developed themselves. 
 
 This refusal of Momoro to print his work exasperated 
 Camilla beyond measure. He writes to his father after 
 June 20th : — 
 
 " I have had a tremendous disagreement with my printer 
 and publisher; if I had the cash I would buy a press, the 
 monopoly of these rascals revolts me so much. It rains pam- 
 phlets, each more brilliant than the last." 
 
 Meanwhile things did not advance so rapidly at 
 Versailles as had been hoped. Step by step the 
 members of the Third Estate fought for their rights, 
 hampered and obstructed by the deputies of the 
 two aristocratic orders, who obstinately opposed the 
 smallest measures of reform. 
 
 It is not perfectly certain that Camille was at 
 Versailles on that famous 20th of June, when the 
 Deputies of the people were expelled from the hall 
 of the Assembly on the feeble pretext that it was 
 necessary to prepare it for the Royal seance. All the 
 world knows how, in the pouring rain, they repaired 
 to the dilapidated open tennis court, still to be seen 
 in the Rue St. Frangois at Versailles, where, with 
 only one exception, they unanimously took the solemn 
 oath never to dissolve until France was given a Con- 
 stitution. 
 
THE NORTH WIND 5$ 
 
 Although Camille does not, in his letters, definitely 
 mention the episode of the Tennis Court oath, it is 
 very possible that he was present amidst the curious 
 crowd, who watched the proceedings from the covered 
 galleries round the building. In any case he is full of 
 enthusiasm at the firm stand taken by the popular 
 deputies, and he says positively that he was at Versailles 
 on Monday and Tuesday, June 22nd and 23rd. 
 
 It would certainly appear from what he writes in a 
 letter to his father on June 24th that he was present 
 at the Royal sitting on the latter date. He gives a 
 brief and pointed account of that historical scene : — 
 
 " The sitting lasted thirty-five minutes. The King annulled 
 all that the Third Estate had done, threw an apple of discord 
 amongst the three orders, proposed fifty-three articles of a 
 crafty edict, where he feigned to accord part of what the 
 cahiers demanded ; he finished by saying ' No remonstrances ' 
 and concluded the sitting. The nobles applauded, a great part 
 of the clergy did the same. The most mournful silence in the 
 Third Estate. The two orders departed, with the exception of 
 thirty or forty deputies, who remained with the Third. It was 
 eleven o'clock. The Third Estate remained assembled until 
 three. They protested, confirmed the dehberations of the 
 17th and annulled all which had been done. 
 
 " M. de Breze came to order them to separate. * The 
 King,' said Mirabeau, ' can cause us to be killed ; teU him that 
 we all wait death ; but that he need not hope that we shall 
 separate until we have made the Constitution.' 
 
 " M. de Breze came a second time ; the same response and 
 they continued their deliberations. They declared by a second 
 decree their persons to be sacred and inviolable, hy a third 
 decree they declared that they could not obey the wiU of the 
 Prince, and ordained that the door of the Assembly should 
 always be open to the nation. 
 
 " In a word, all have shown a Roman firmness, and are re- 
 solved to seal our liberties with their blood. AU Paris is aflame ; 
 the Palais Royal is as full as an egg ; they applaud the duke 
 d'Orleans with transport. The King passes ; everyone is 
 silent : M. Bailly, President of the Assembly, appears, all clap 
 their hands ; they cry r ' Long live the Nation ! '" 
 
S6 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 It will be noticed that Mirabeau's famous answer 
 to the order of the King conveyed to the Assembly 
 by de Breze is, as given by Camille, at the same time 
 briefer and more dignified than in the more generally 
 accepted version. Moreover, he does not put into 
 Mirabeau's mouth the well-known phrase, " We will 
 not be expelled save at the point of the bayonet," a 
 phrase which many modern historians are inclined to 
 consider more or less mythical. 
 
 In any case Camille's impromptu description of this 
 event shows many of the qualities of a good journalist. 
 The facts are all there, presented dramatically enough 
 and without a superfluous word, and at the end of this 
 brief passage the state of public opinion in Paris is 
 presented to us very impressively. 
 
 The hostility of the Court party against the re- 
 bellious Third Estate grew from the day of the Royal 
 sitting onwards. The King temporised, yielding as 
 usual first on one side, then on the other, but his wife 
 and ministers were always with him, and naturally 
 they and their followers obtained, the greatest con- 
 cessions. 
 
 Louis was induced, by the advice of the Queen and 
 his brothers, to send for a large number of rnercenary 
 troops, and these German and Swiss soldiers were 
 stationed in several camps near Versailles and in the 
 Champ-de-Mars. These regiments were intended to 
 intimidate Paris and the popular section of the States- 
 General, now known as the National Assembly, and 
 to cast the fear of death upon those who dared to 
 resist the royal authority. As a matter of fact the 
 chief effect produced by the presence of the troops 
 was to irritate the citizens of Paris still further and to 
 suggest to them the possibility of an armed resistance 
 since arms were to be employed against them. 
 
 The temper of the city was becoming dangerous; 
 it required very little to stir the people to fury. It is a 
 foretaste of the horrors which were to follow which 
 
THE NORTH WIND 57 
 
 Camille gives us in describing the slaughter o£ a police 
 spy in the Palais Royal at the beginning of July. He 
 tells us that the unfortunate wretch was stripped, 
 thrown into the basin of one of the fountains in the 
 garden, and forced under the water. He was stoned 
 and beaten with canes, and one of his eyes was knocked 
 out of its socket. Camille concludes by saying that : 
 " His punishment lasted from midday until half-past 
 five, and he had quite ten thousand executioners." 
 
 Camille, it must be noticed, has no word of pity for 
 this unfortunate servant of a cruel system. He speaks 
 of him only as a " vile rascal." It v^ould almost seem 
 as though he were infected with the madness of the 
 crowd, and considered such rough justice allowable if 
 not commendable. It is the first sign in his writings 
 of that dangerous theory that the mob can do no 
 wrong, that, as he wrote afterwards in his journal : 
 " This much calumniated people is moved by prin- 
 ciples of equity ; it has wholesome notions in this 
 respect and nothing angers it so much as injustice." 
 
 Camille was to learn for himself, five years later, 
 how little one can trust to the justice and equity of 
 the mob. 
 
 In his letters written at the beginning of July 
 Camille speaks much of the " thirty thousand men 
 around Paris " and of the " three or four little camps 
 garnished with artillery," but he tells his father also 
 that many of the soldiers, including numbers of the 
 French guards themselves, are deserting from their 
 regiments and have come to espouse the cause of the 
 people in that " camp of patriots," the Palais Royal. 
 
 It is with more triumph than apprehension that he 
 writes these words at the beginning of one of his 
 letters : " The conflagration increases : Jam proximus 
 ardet Ucalegon." 
 
IV 
 
 THE morning of the I2th of July, 1789, 
 dawned bright and sunny, that day which 
 was to be the most momentous in all the 
 life of Camille Desmouiins. 
 
 He can have had no idea when he awoke of 
 what this summer Sunday was to bring forth, of 
 that extraordinary event which was to transform him 
 with dramatic suddenness from a briefless lawyer to a 
 personage of the first importance in Paris and in 
 France. 
 
 It is not clear whether at this time Camille was 
 staying at Versailles, or whether, as is more probable, 
 he only hastened there from Paris in the morning, to 
 learn at first hand what had passed in the Assembly 
 and at the Chateau. It was, in any case, at Versailles 
 that he heard the news which fell like a thunderbolt 
 upon him and upon all the members of the popular 
 party, Necker, the people's minister, the idol of the 
 moment in Paris, had been dismissed from office, and 
 was even then hurrying to his Swiss exile. 
 
 The personality of Necker had an extraordinary 
 hold upon the populace at this time. In spite of very 
 various opinions of the character of the Swiss financier, 
 there can be no doubt that he possessed this power 
 of imposing his own self-belief upon others. The 
 Parisians were soon to discover that this saint of tlieirs 
 was only whitewashed plaster ; in the meantime, his 
 very name could stir them to enthusiasm or fury. 
 
 Camille must have returned hastily to Paris on hear- 
 ing the news of Necker's dismissal. It is hard to say 
 
 S8 
 
THE NORTH WIND 59 
 
 whether there was any definite plan in his mind o£ 
 inciting the populace to rebellion. Probably his first 
 idea was to make his way to the Palais Royal and 
 there to tell the assembled crowd his tragic tidings. 
 A dramatic situation of this kind had always the 
 strongest appeal for Camille ; he had the child's love 
 for imparting news, good or bad. 
 
 A dense throng filled the gardens of the Palais Royal. 
 At the least computation there were six thousand 
 persons present, of all ages and classes, all irritated and 
 excited by the presence of the foreign troops round the 
 capital, all knowing little or nothing, and therefore 
 ready to believe anything. 
 
 The streets had been placarded overnight with 
 enormous posters, inviting peaceable citizens to remain 
 within doors, to feel no alarm, to gather in no crowd. 
 But if these placards were intended to reassure, which 
 is doubtful, we may be certain that the very fact of 
 their appearance in the city would have exactly the 
 opposite effect. 
 
 It was into this crowd that Camille made his way, 
 flushed and heated. The young man was almost beside 
 himself with anger and excitement, and no doubt 
 these feelings were plainly visible in his face. 
 
 One can imagine those of his friends and acquaint- 
 ances who were present crowding around him to hear 
 the latest news from Versailles, one can almost hear 
 Camille's stammering answers, nearly incoherent prob- 
 ably, as he strove for words in his nervous excite- 
 ment. More and more people pressed towards him, 
 trying to catch his news, realising that there was some- 
 thing seriously amiss. 
 
 It was now, it would appear from his own words, 
 that the definite intention came to Camille to stir 
 up the crowd to rebellion. 
 
 He himself gave in his writings two descriptions of 
 this, the great day of his life. The first is to be found 
 in a letter to his father dated July i6th, the second is 
 
6o CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 contained in the fifth number of the " Vieux Cor- 
 deUer," where Camille described the scene once 
 more in detail to remind the fickle mob of this, his 
 greatest service to Liberty and to France. 
 
 These two versions agree in the main, although the 
 later account is the more detailed, and the words and 
 phrases have evidently been carefully thought out and 
 polished. Probably one is not far wrong in thinking 
 that these expressions represent what Camille after- 
 wards thought that he ought to have said rather than 
 the actual words which he used. His call to arms 
 appears here less an impulse of the moment than a 
 carefully premeditated action. 
 
 But the first description was written whilst the 
 episode and the events which arose from it still 
 absorbed Camille, body and soul. The very inco- 
 herence of its diction stamps it as a true relation of 
 what took place. 
 
 " My very dear father," Camille begins his letter. " Now at 
 last one can write to you, the letter will arrive. Myself, I have 
 posted a sentinel to-day in the post-office, and there is no more 
 a secret cabinet where the letters are unsealed. How the face 
 of things is changed since three days ago ! On Sunday aU Paris 
 was dismayed at the dismissal of M. Necker ; I had tried to 
 stir up the people, yet nobody took arms. I mixed with the 
 crowd ; they saw my zeal ; they surrounded me ; they pressed 
 me to mount upon a table ; in a moment I am surrounded by 
 six thousand persons. 
 
 " ' Citizens ! ' I said then. ' You know that the nation has 
 demanded that Necker should retain office, that a monument 
 should be raised to him ; he has been dismissed ! Could they 
 defy you more insolently ? After this, they will dare any- 
 thing, and for this night they meditate, they prepare perhaps, 
 a St. Bartholomew for the patriots.' 
 
 " I was stifled by the rush of thoughts which flowed into my 
 mind. I spoke without ordering my words. 
 
 " ' To arms ! ' I cried. ' To arms ! Take, all of you, green 
 cockades, the colour of hope ! ' 
 
 " I recollect that I finished with these words : ' The 
 
THE NORTH WIND 6i 
 
 infamous police are here. Ah, well, let them watch me, let 
 them observe me carefully. Yes, it is I who call my brothers to 
 liberty ! ' And, lifting a pistol, ' At least, they shall not take 
 me alive, and I shall know how to die gloriously. Only one 
 misfortune can touch me, it is that of seeing France become 
 enslaved.' 
 
 " Then I descended ; they embraced me, they stifled me 
 with caresses. 
 
 My friend,' said several, ' we are going to make a guard 
 for you ; we will not abandon you, we will go where you 
 wish.' 
 
 " I said that I did not wish to have the command, and that 
 I would only be a soldier of the fatherland. I took a green 
 ribbon and fastened it the first to my hat. With what rapidity 
 the conflagration spread ! " 
 
 Camille's review o£ the circumstances, written 
 nearly five years later, somehow lacks the life of the 
 former version. Yet it is not without a particular 
 interest of its own. 
 
 " It was half-past two," he writes. " I came to sound the 
 people. My anger against the despots was turned to despair. 
 I saw that the groups, although keenly moved and dismayed, 
 were not ripe for an upheaval. Three young men appeared to 
 me to be animated by more vehement courage ; they held 
 each other by the hand. I saw that they had come to the Palais 
 Royal with the same design as myself; some passive citizens 
 followed them. 
 
 " ' Sirs,' I said to them, ' here is the beginning of a civic 
 enlistment ; it is necessary for one of us to devote himself, and, 
 mounted upon a table, to harangue the people.' 
 
 " ' Mount, then ! ' 
 
 " I consented. I was rather Ufted upon the table than 
 mounted there. Scarcely was I raised than I saw myself sur- 
 rounded by an immense crowd. Here is my short harangue, 
 which I shall never forget. 
 
 " ' Citizens, there is not a moment to be lost. I come from 
 Versailles. M. Necker is dismissed. This recalls the tocsin of 
 a St. Bartholomew to patriots ; this evening all the German 
 and Swiss battalions will come from the Champ-de-Mars to 
 assassinate us. There only remains to us one resource ; it is to 
 
62 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 take up arms and to adopt cockades by which we may know 
 each other.' 
 
 " I had tears in my eyes, and I spoke with a vigour that I 
 could never again either recall or paint. My motion was 
 received with infinite applause ; I continued. 
 
 " ' What colours will you have ? ' Someone cried : 
 ' Choose.' 
 
 " ' Will you have green, the colour of hope, or the blue of 
 Cincinnatus, the colour of American liberty and of demo- 
 cracy f ' 
 
 " Voices were raised : ' Green ! The colour of hope ! ' 
 
 " Then I cried : ' Friends, the signal is given. Here are the 
 spies and satellites of the pohce who watch us. I will not fall 
 living into their hands.' Then, drawing two pistols from my 
 pocket, I said : ' Let all citizens imitate me ! ' " 
 
 It was in this fashion that Camille Desmoulins 
 made the one great speech of his life, and, by a strange 
 paradox, he, whose elocutionary powers were ever of 
 the weakest, leapt into fame by means of ^oratory. But 
 indeed it must be confessed that his outburst owed 
 its success mainly to the fact that it was wonderfully 
 well-timed. It came precisely at the right moment. 
 
 Thus Camille is the central figure of one of the 
 most vivid and memorable scenes in the Revolution. 
 We can picture him, reared above the madly excited 
 crowd on his rickety platform, composed of a chair 
 mounted on a table and supported by one Citizen 
 Beaubourg. 
 
 For that instant, stammering, insignificant Camille 
 was beside himself — nay, inspired. With face aglow 
 and black eyes blazing, with his long, dishevelled hair 
 flung back wildly and his hoarse, weak voice strained 
 to the utmost to reach to the outskirts of the crowd, 
 he flung out the words which called a nation to arms. 
 
 For it was not only in Camille's own opinion that 
 this speech made him one of the most prominent men 
 in Paris. Even those who had never heard his name 
 spoke of the act and its immediate effect. Here is the 
 description given by Helen Maria Williams, that 
 
THE NORTH WIND 63 
 
 extraordinary and eccentric woman who was in France 
 at the time. 
 
 " I have heard several persons mention a young man of 
 insignificant figure, v^ho, the day before the Bastille was taken, 
 got up on a chair in the Palais Royal and harangued the 
 multitude, conjuring them to make a struggle for their liberty 
 and asserting that now the moment was arrived. They 
 Hstened to his eloquence with the most eager attention and, 
 when he had instructed as many as could hear him at one time, 
 he requested them to depart, and repeated his harangue to a 
 new set of auditors." 
 
 This account would seem to imply that Miss 
 Williams believed the address to have been more or 
 less premeditated, an opinion which is certainly 
 supported by Camille's own latest version of the affair. 
 
 It is the view also which Heinrich von Sybel takes 
 in his great and learned history of the French Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 " Camille Desmouhns," he says, " incited the people to 
 resistance from the windows [sic] of the Caf6 Foy. The popu- 
 lace had been so well prepared that the effect of his address 
 was tremendous." 
 
 It is interesting to compare the point of view of an 
 ardent royalist with regard to this event and to 
 Camille himself. Here is how Bertrand de Moleville 
 describes it in his " Annals " : — 
 
 " The news [of Necker's dismissal] was not confirmed tiU 
 between eleven and twelve o'clock by persons coming from 
 Versailles to the Palais Royal, where the concourse of Patriots 
 was such that it was hardly possible to take half a dozen steps 
 in the garden without being stopped by a group. In the middle 
 of this immense crowd, Camille Desmoulins, one of the most 
 inflammatory Demoniacs of the Revolution, mounting upon 
 a table, cried out with a thrilling voice : ' Citizens, Necker is 
 dismissed.' " 
 
 The remainder of the speech de Moleville gives 
 practically in the same words as Camille. 
 
64 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 There stands a bronze statue in the garden o£ the 
 Palais Royal, which represents Camille, as the sculptor, 
 Boverie, imagines him to have appeared upon this, 
 the greatest day of his life. The figure has a lonely 
 and deserted air, for the glory of the Palais Royal is 
 departed. This " Camp of the patriots," as Camille 
 called it, has become a desert, with hqre and there a 
 solitary passer-by to accentuate its emptiness. Only 
 those who would fain recall the memories of the wild 
 past seek for them here, as though the shadows of the 
 dead might still be expected to haunt the stage where 
 they played their strenuous parts. 
 
 In Camille's own day his exploit was commemorated 
 in a more humble fashion. Last summer at an old 
 pottery very far from Paris, in the mountains of the 
 Bernese Oberland, we discovered an earthenware 
 plate, which bears the date 1789. On it, in crude 
 blues and yellows, the hero of July 1 2th is represented, 
 standing on the rickety table, with pistol and hat 
 upraised. And I do not think that Camille was the 
 man to despise even such homely fame as this. 
 
 Thus Camille's first public act was performed ; 
 from henceforth, as Jules Claretie says : "In him are 
 incarnate now, and shall be incarnate for the future — 
 the Revolution and Hope." 
 
 When the young man descended, panting and ex- 
 hausted, from his improvised tribune, he was seized 
 with rough friendliness and borne in triumph round 
 the gardens. The trees were stripped of their leaves 
 to furnish the green cockades, and the excited crowd 
 surged out into the streets, echoing Camille's cry : 
 " To arms ! To arms ! " 
 
 They happened to pass the shop of a Swiss image- 
 maker, one Curtius, iii whose window were displayed 
 the effigies of Necker and of another popular idol, 
 the duke d'Orleans. The mob broke into the shop 
 forthwith, seized the busts and raised them as 
 standards, swathing the image of Necker in a scarf of 
 
THE NORTH WIND 6$ 
 
 crape. A littlie girl watched the stormy scene in 
 frightened excitement. She was Curtius' niece, 
 afterwards to be known all the world over as Madame 
 Tussaud. 
 
 In this manner the procession paraded the streets, 
 growing in numbers at every by-road and alley 
 which flowed, as it were, into the main stream. 
 
 Camille was doubtless borne in the van, although 
 he himself does not mention the part which he played ; 
 however, it is not likely that the Parisians were willing 
 to relinquish readily this new idol of theirs, the man 
 who had given them their rallying cry. 
 
 For some little time the procession marched through 
 the streets undisturbed. Possibly if no opposition had 
 been made to them, they would have dispersed peace- 
 ably, at any rate for the time. They had, at the 
 moment, no particular object in view. 
 
 But the foreign troops were thickly distributed 
 throughout and around Paris. The procession was 
 almost bound to come into collision with them, and 
 the feeling of hostility against the Swiss and German 
 mercenaries was very strong amongst the mob. What 
 happened was only that which might have been 
 expected. 
 
 Several regiments were hastily summoned from the 
 camp in the Champ-de-Mars and opposed the crowd 
 as it debouched into the Champs Elysees. The 
 soldiers of the Royal AUemand retreated before 
 showers of stones and other missiles, but the mob was 
 driven back when the cavalry under Prince Lambesc 
 charged upon the people, literally trampling them 
 under the feet of the horses. 
 
 Although several of the crowd were more or less 
 seriously wounded, one man only was killed, a soldier 
 who was assisting to carry the bust of Necker. 
 But this was enough to rouse the people to madness. 
 The first blood had been shed in the Revolution. 
 
 For an instant the mob was driven back, intimidated. 
 
66 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Lambesc must have congratulated himself upon the 
 success of his measures. He had not reckoned on a 
 certain amount of reorganising power which existed 
 in these apparently undisciplined throngs. Moreover, 
 a stiU more important factor had now to be reckoned 
 with : the defection of the regular troops. 
 
 A regiment of the French guards had been known 
 to be disaffected, and Lambesc had tried to overawe 
 them by placing them in their barracks under the 
 supervision of a squadron of loyal dragoons. His 
 precaution was useless ; when the mutinous regiment 
 heard that fighting was going forward in the Tuileries 
 Gardens, they broke through their guard, driving the 
 cavalry before them, and joined the mob, ranging 
 themselves between the people and the Royal troops. 
 
 The crowd re-formed, thus supported by the guards, 
 and presented a solid front when another charge was 
 attempted. 
 
 The troops were driven back, without having suc- 
 ceeded in dispersing the people, and retired sullenly 
 into their camps, where they awaited orders which 
 never came. Versailles, as usual, was unprepared for 
 an emergency. 
 
 The mob had put its strength to the test and it had 
 been victorious. The undisciplined throng had driven 
 back the feared and hated troops ; henceforth the 
 soldiers might be hated, but they would not be feared 
 in the same measure. 
 
 There was little sleep in Paris that night. The 
 people were terrified at what they had done, when 
 there was time for consideration. After all, the town 
 was practically invested by the King's troops ; what 
 could the Parisians expect but swift and terrible 
 punishment ? 
 
 , A spirit of fear and anxiety was abroad. Men might 
 be seen lying with their ears to the ground, awaiting 
 the first sound of the cannon. 
 
 To add to the general alarm, bands of smugglers 
 
THE NORTH WIND d'] 
 
 both from within and without the city seized the 
 opportunity offered by the unrest and confusion to 
 burn the Customs' barriers, and the sight of these 
 conflagrations gave rise to the beHef that the mer- 
 cenary troops had already begun to assault the 
 city. 
 
 According to Camille's account, people attacked 
 and plundered the armourers' shops, to provide them- 
 selves with weapons as early as this Sunday evening. 
 The cafes were full until a late hour ; a plan was 
 growing in men's minds, but it must be discussed, 
 thought out. 
 
 Camille, as far as we can gather, was here, there and 
 everywhere. With General Danican, he seems to 
 have been looked upon as one of the leaders of the 
 movement, although, according to his own showing, 
 he had refused to take the command. 
 
 As he wrote himself in later years : " I had at that 
 time all the daring of the Revolution." 
 
 On Monday morning the tocsin sounded from the 
 belfries of Paris ; the people found themselves with 
 at least one definite object in view. They must be 
 armed, by fair means or foul. It is probable that few, 
 as yet, contemplated more than self-defence, but 
 with an armed mob it needs only a word to incite 
 them to go farther and to attack in their turn. 
 
 That long summer day was stiflingly hot ; there was 
 thunder in the air in more senses than one. 
 
 And Paris was arming itself. The people neglected 
 their daily work ; only the smithy shops were busy, 
 crowded with men who brought weapons to be made 
 or mended. Scythes and daggers were fixed on to 
 poles, and the blacksmiths were beating out pikes, 
 those terrible pikes which were to make the Paris mob 
 more formidable than an army of trained soldiers. 
 Early in the morning a number of men and women 
 attacked and broke into the Garde Meuble, where 
 they found a great quantity of ancient and modern 
 
68 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 arms which they promptly distributed amongst 
 themselves. 
 
 Meanwhile, at the Hotel de Ville the Revolution 
 was in process of organisation. The central committee 
 of Parisian electors, which had been sitting there 
 since July 4th, took over the government of the 
 insurrection. 
 
 They proclaimed that a voluntary force of forty- 
 eight thousand men must immediately be raised for 
 the defence of the capital, each of the eighty electoral 
 districts furnishing a battalion eight hundred strong. 
 This force, in the formation of which the Govern- 
 ment was in no way consulted, was first called the 
 Parisian Militia, and it was under the command of 
 M. de la Salle d'Offremont, the director of the 
 Arsenal. 
 
 Although, of course, at such short notice it was 
 impossible to think of providing uniforms, a badge 
 was chosen for this Militia or National Guard, a badge 
 which was later to become of world-wide fame. The 
 red and blue of the city and the white of the army 
 were joined in one cockade to form the famous tri- 
 colour. 
 
 This central committee also busied itself with the 
 arming of the mob. 
 
 It is not easy to say precisely how or by whom the 
 impulse was given which led the Fauxbourgs St. 
 Antoine and St. Marceau to first conceive the idea of 
 taking the Bastille. It is true that in some of the 
 " cahiers " the destruction of this prison was expressly 
 demanded ; the desire was evidently a widespread one. 
 
 Certainly the plan was not entirely new. In a letter 
 to his father at the end of June or the beginning of 
 July, Camille says that at the time when the French 
 guards first mutinied there was a question of marching 
 at once upon the Bastille or the fortress of Vincennes, 
 although the scheme came to nothing for the time 
 being. 
 
THE NORTH WIND 69 
 
 It seems that the thought was dormant in the minds 
 of many. Repeated vaguely again and again, the germ 
 of an idea spread from one to another, until it grew 
 into a definite plan. To the inhabitants of the two 
 great " slum " fauxbourgs the Bastille was the in- 
 carnation of tyranny and oppression. The great, 
 lowering building dominated the district. Legends 
 were rife amongst the people of hundreds of prisoners 
 incarcerated there, forgotten by all the world. These 
 stories were false in the main, as the mob was soon to 
 prove for itself, but the theory was the same. 
 
 Here was the Bastille, a concrete emblem of tyranny. 
 The people were in arms against tyrants ; let them 
 overthrow the great dungeon. 
 
 There was besides a more practical reason for the 
 assault. The fortress was connected with a huge 
 arsenal, containing a vast quantity of arms. It was 
 weapons and ammunition which the people required ; 
 therefore when the men of St. Marceau had obtained 
 them from the Invalides, St. Antoine resolved that 
 its necessity should be supplied by the Bastille. 
 
 The affair was not unpremeditated. Regular plans 
 for taking the fortress were suggested to the Electoral 
 Committee at the Hotel de Ville. Some suggested 
 huge catapults, like those used by the ancients, while 
 Santerre, the Brewer, brought forward a scheme 
 which was even more ingenious. He proposed to set 
 fire to the Bastille by means of oil of turpentine and 
 phosphorus, forced through the pumps of fire engines. 
 ' So feasible did this plan appear to the Committee that 
 the engines were actually taken to the spot, although 
 it was not found possible to use them. 
 
 Some historians assert that matters Were brought 
 to a climax when a courier was intercepted by the 
 mob 'on his way from Versailles to de Launay, governor 
 of the Bastille, carrying an order which enjoined 
 that the fortress was to be held to the last extremity. 
 
 It is said that this order was carried straightway 
 
JO CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 to the Hotel de Ville, and that the Central Committee 
 at once resolved to attack the Bastille, before the 
 Governor could receive another despatch to the same 
 effect. 
 
 Although we have no absolute proof of the fact, 
 there can be little doubt that Camille was busied 
 during this day in stirring up the people. Very Hkely 
 he caught up and propagated everywhere the idea of 
 taking the Bastille. He had the instincts of the 
 agitator and the journalist in a sufficiently large measure 
 to make him see the importance of giving the mob an 
 objective. 
 
 Of one thing we may be quite certain ; Caniille 
 was not in the background during that feverish 
 Monday. Popularity was very sweet to him now and 
 always ; moreover, it was a new sensation to him to be 
 someone of consequence, and he was not, at this or 
 any other time, particularly level-headed. 
 
 So the hot, steaming day wore on. Towards evening 
 there was a heavy thunderstorm which drove the 
 Parisians to take shelter for a time, but meanwhile 
 another storm was brewing, which was to break in its 
 full fury next day. 
 
 The following morning dawned dull and cloudy ; 
 the sun did not shine at the breaking of this day, the 
 most momentous in all the stormy history of France. 
 July 14th — the first day of the first year of Liberty, 
 the day when the earliest blow was struck at the 
 foundations of the monarchy — all this and more the 
 mention of that summer morning was to mean in after 
 years. 
 
 The Fauxbourgs of St. Antoine and St. Marceau 
 were astir at dawn ; men had slept but little that 
 night. They were ready now for whatever the day 
 might bring forth. 
 
 Early that morning a deputation from the Hotel de 
 Ville, headed by the Procureur du Roi, had led the 
 insurgents to the Invalides and forced M. de Sombreuil 
 
THE NORTH WIND 71 
 
 to open the gates and allow the mob to provide 
 themselves with weapons out of his vast store of arms. 
 
 Camille was one of those who accompanied the 
 populace to the Invalides. He tells his father that : 
 " I descended myself under the dome at the risk of 
 being stifled. I saw there, as it seemed to me, at least 
 a hundred thousand muskets. I armed myself with a 
 brand-new one, provided with a bayonet and with 
 two pistols." 
 
 It was in this way that the mob armed themselves ; 
 such as were able to do so. The rest must needs wait 
 for their weapons. 
 
 Gradually the crowd gathered, always concentrating 
 upon one point. Towards ten o'clock in the morning 
 a huge throng was assembled round the gates of the 
 Bastille, and de Launay, the Governor, tried to 
 intimidate them with a volley of musketry. This 
 fusillade had quite a contrary effect ; it enraged the 
 insurgents, and the noise attracted a host of others to 
 join them. From the towers of the Bastille could be 
 seen the advance of a surging mob from all directions, a 
 mob which thickened with every moment that passed. 
 
 If the fortress had not been absolutely inadequately 
 garrisoned and provisioned, it would have been 
 impregnable. The eight huge towers and the walls 
 ten feet thick might indeed have resisted any human 
 onslaught. But de Launay had but a hundred and 
 thirty-eight men to support him, of whom one half 
 were veteran pensioners. There was no means of 
 preventing the water supply from being cut off — and, 
 moreover, he had but two sacks of flour. 
 
 The Governor's only hope was in the succour 
 which he momentarily expected from de Besenval, 
 who commanded the troops in the Champ-de-Mars. 
 That succour never came. 
 
 And then the extraordinary assault took place, 
 which is known to history as the taking of the Bastille. 
 The event has been described again and again, yet 
 
72 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 historians of every shade of thoiight agree in this : 
 that the thing was an apparent impossibihty, accom- 
 pHshed in an incredibly short space of time. 
 
 The first entrance of the mob into the fortress was 
 effected by two half-pay soldiers, Louis Tournay and 
 Aubin Bonnemere, who contrived to climb in by way 
 of the Governor's house, and to lower the outer 
 drawbridge. Once within, the men of the fauxbourgs 
 beat back all resistance by sheer force of numbers. 
 The stand made against them was pitifully weak ; the 
 small garrison fought half-heartedly, and one only of 
 the great guns was fired on the people. 
 
 De Launay was urged, by his own men, to surrender, 
 but, after waiting for de Besenval's relief as long as he 
 dared, he resolved to blow up the fortress himself, 
 rather than yield it to the mob. As he was in the 
 act of applying a match to the powder-magazine, 
 some of the garrison interposed, and forced him to 
 capitulate. He did so after an assurance from Elie 
 and Hulin, once officers in the French Guards, now 
 leaders of the mob, that : " on the honour of French 
 soldiers, no injury shall be done to you." 
 
 If the matter had rested with these two, both brave 
 and honourable men, this promise would have been 
 faithfully kept, but in spite of all their efforts, the mob 
 massacred the unfortunate de Launay and de Lorme, 
 his second in command, as they were being taken to the 
 Hotel de Ville. During the actual assault ninety-eight 
 of the besiegers and one only of the besieged were killed. 
 
 With regard to Camille's part in this, the first great 
 " day " of the Revolution, he says, writing to his father 
 on July 1 6th, that he hastened to the scene at the first 
 sound of the cannon. 
 
 " But the Bastille was already taken in two and a half hours, 
 a thing which appears miraculous. The Bastille could have 
 been held six months, if anything could be held against French 
 impetuosity; the Bastille was taken by the citizens and by 
 private soldiers without a chief, without one single officer ! " 
 
THE NORTH WIND 73 
 
 We learn, from another source, that Camille was 
 one of the first to mount the ramparts of the conquered 
 fortress. 
 
 In an incredibly short space of time, all was over. 
 The Bastille had fallen ; the victorious leaders handed 
 the great keys of the fortress to the Paris Munici- 
 pality — and it was now that the invincible, omnipotent 
 mob sullied their victory. Not only were de Launay 
 and several of his garrison cruelly murdered, but also 
 de Flesselles, Provost of the Merchants, who, men 
 said, had not whole-heartedly supported the in- 
 surrection. 
 
 A wild night followed that wild day. The people 
 of Paris were mad with success, yet haunted by the 
 fear of reprisals. They ransacked the Bastille in the 
 search for prisoners. Only seven were found, seven 
 miserable, terrified beings, knowing nothing of what 
 had passed, conscious only of a hell-like din raging 
 outside their cells. They were carried in triumph 
 through the streets of Paris, heroes for this one night, 
 forgotten next day in the swift rush of events. 
 
 And under this date of July 14th, when the French 
 people took the first step on that road which was to 
 lead them to victory and their king to the guillotine, 
 that same King Louis wrote in his diary the one word : 
 " Nothing." 
 
 Camille gave to his father and gives to us a vivid 
 picture of this night and the following day. 
 
 " All the streets were lighted," he says. " They threw out 
 into the road chairs, tables, casks, piles of everything, carts and 
 carriages, in order to make barricades and to break the legs of 
 horses. There were 70,000 men under arms this night. The 
 French guard patrolled with us. I mounted guard aU night 
 long. . . . 
 
 " Yesterday morning [the iSth] the alarmed King went to 
 the National AssemTsly ; he threw himself upon the mercy of 
 the Assembly and all his sins were forgiven. Our deputies 
 reconducted him in triumph to the Castle. . . . Target tells 
 
74 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 me that it was a fine procession. In the evening the procession 
 was still more beautiful ; one hundred and fifty deputies of 
 the National Assembly, clergy, nobility and commons were 
 mounted in the King's carriages to carry the news of the peace 
 to Paris. 
 
 " They arrived at half-past three at the Place Louis XV, 
 descended from their vehicles, and went on foot to the Hotel 
 de Ville, traversing the Rue St. Honore. ... I marched, with 
 sword drawn, beside Target, with whom I conversed ; he was 
 full of inexpressible joy. It shone from the eyes of everyone, 
 and I have never seen anything like it. It is impossible that the 
 triumph of Paulus Emilius was more splendid." 
 
 In that hour of triumphant joy, when the millen- 
 nium seemed at hand, to Camille and others around 
 him there came no foreknowledge of a day, not long 
 distant for some of them, when they would retrace 
 their steps over the self-same route, on a very different 
 errand. 
 
 For on that later day, the order of the journey 
 would be so far changed that, starting at the gates of 
 the Conciergerie, and "traversing the Rue St. Honore," 
 it would end, and not begin, at the Place of the 
 Revolution, heretofore known as the Place Louis XV. 
 
IN one day, in one moment, Camille Desmoulins 
 had become a famous man. 
 On July nth he was a disregarded, shabby 
 little lawyer, with journalistic tendencies, of no 
 account to anybody except his few friends, and treated, 
 even by them, more with contemptuous kindliness 
 than with respect. 
 
 On July 1 2th he was suddenly thrown into promi- 
 nent relief against the flaming background of armed 
 rebellion which he had helped to stir up. The transi- 
 tion was rapid ; almost too rapid for Camille's 
 equilibrium. Decidedly his head was turned, and 
 it is not surprising that this should have been the case. 
 It must always be intoxicating to be set up as a popular 
 idol, and this is true, above all, of the heroes of that 
 fickle Parisian mob, which is always ready to fly to 
 extremes, whether of love or hate. 
 
 And it was ever part of Camille's nature to love 
 praise, admiration and popularity. For the very 
 reason that hitherto he had been undervalued, the 
 unaccustomed consideration of all around him now 
 tempted him to extravagances. 
 
 For the whole aspect of affairs in Paris and in France, 
 was altered. Momoro, the cautious printer of the 
 Rue de la Harpe, was now no longer afraid to publish 
 Camille's pamphlet, " La France Libre." 
 
 Momoro was a man indeed who moved with the 
 times. From henceforth he styled himself the 
 " First Printer of the National Liberty." Later, he 
 was to become one of the most violent supporters 
 of the Terror., an extremist whom at last the Terrorist 
 
 75 
 
76 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Government itself threw into prison for preaching the 
 /- " agrarian " law o£ ultra-socialism when sent on a 
 mission into the provinces. 
 
 On July 15 th, the very day after the taking of the 
 Bastille, " La France Libre " was published. The 
 pamphlet met with instantaneous success. This 
 " song of the Gallic lark," as it has been called by 
 M. Louis Combes, voiced the thoughts which many 
 were now formulating in their minds, although as 
 yet they dared scarcely express them in words. 
 
 On the title-page Camille inscribes himself as 
 
 " M. Camille Desmoulins, Avocat au Parlement de 
 
 .^Paris, Electeur du Bailliage de Vermandois." 
 
 1 A motto or epigraph follows, according to the 
 
 i custom of the time, and, according to Camille's own 
 
 ' custom, the quotation is taken from the classics. 
 
 He uses Cicero's phrase : " Quae quoniam in foveam 
 
 incidit, obruatur," translating it with characteristic 
 
 freedom in the words : " Puisque la bete est dans le 
 
 piege, qu'on I'assomme." 
 
 Camille strikes a note of daring at the very beginning 
 of the pamphlet by stating boldly that : — 
 
 " There have always been in France patriots who have sighed 
 for liberty. The return of that liberty to the French people 
 was reserved for our days. , . . I thank Thee, O Heaven, for 
 permitting me to be born at the end of this century." 
 
 Then follows a violent tirade against the clergy 
 and the nobility — " the Aristocrats, the Vampires 
 of the State " — who have crushed out liberty. After 
 describing the oppression, the almost slavery which 
 the people of France have suffered for so long, Camille, 
 with an abrupt transition which is at once extraor- 
 dinarily clever and extraordinarily cynical, holds up 
 before the sovereign People another and still more 
 tangible inducement to rebeUion. 
 
 " For myself I feel courage enough to die for the liberty of 
 my country, and a very powerful motive will draw those 
 
THE. NORTH WIND 77 
 
 whom the righteousness of this cause is not sufficient to 
 determine. 
 
 " Never was richer spoil offered to the victors. Forty 
 thousand palaces, hotels, castles, two-fifths of the riches of 
 France to be distributed amongst them, will be the prize of 
 valour." 
 
 Camille discourses at length on this subject and 
 then makes another dramatic change of front. 
 
 " But we will turn our eyes from these horrors," he says 
 feelingly. "And may Heaven deign to withdraw them from 
 above our heads ! No, without doubt, that which we dread 
 will never take place. I only wish to frighten the aristocrats 
 by showing them their inevitable extinction if they resist longer 
 the call of reason, the wish and supplication of the people. 
 
 " These gentlemen will be in no hurry to expose themselves 
 to lose the riches which it is easy for them to preserve, and of 
 which assuredly we have no wish to despoil them." 
 
 This whole preamble reminds one irresistibly of 
 Mark Antony's famous speech, where Shakespeare 
 pictures him stirring up the worst passions of theS-,, 
 Roman mob, whilst affecting only to assuage their 
 anger. 
 
 The two next sections treat of the moot questions 
 of the deliberation by head or by order in the States- 
 General, and of that other burning theme of the 
 day : " What is a Constitution ? " 
 
 Camille's arguments touching these points are 
 simple enough and those which were most likely to 
 appeal to the popular spirit of the time. He avers 
 that every usage, such as the vote by order, must have 
 been originally ratified by the people. Therefore, 
 this same people who have decreed may also annul 
 and make the vote by head obligatory : — 
 
 " The present will derogates the will of the past. The 
 generation which is no more must cede its powers to us who 
 live, or, otherwise, let the dead rise from their tombs and come 
 to maintain their old usages against us." 
 
78 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 In the second section there is a curiously anti- 
 sociaHstic paragraph, one of those strange contradic- 
 tions which are so common in the Republican writings 
 of that day, and which prove how very rarely it was 
 that the men of the Revolution wished to carry into 
 practice their theories of absolute equality. 
 
 After making use of the decidedly weak argument 
 that because the majority of the people have never 
 yet passed an agrarian law, it is certain, therefore, 
 that they never will, Camille goes on to say : — 
 
 " Legislators have deleted from the body politic the class of 
 people whom they called at Rome proletariats, as being useful 
 only to breed children and to recruit society ; they have rele- 
 gated them to a division without influence over the assemblies 
 of the people. Withdrawn from political aflairs by a thousand 
 cares, this division can never become dominant in the State. 
 
 " The very consequences of their condition bar them from 
 the assemblies. Can the servant give his opinion with the master, 
 and the beggar with those upon whose alms he subsists ? " 
 
 So much for Camille's views of Liberty, Equality 
 and Fraternity when he was discussing the question 
 of putting the theory into practical use. 
 
 The third section is perhaps the most famous 
 portion of the pamphlet. It treats of the clergy, and 
 begins with the words : " C'est la clergie qui a fait le 
 clerge," which means, literally, " It is clericalism 
 which has made the clergy." 
 
 Camille then proceeds to argue rather appositely 
 that, if it is not as clerics or clerks that churchmen take 
 the first place in the community, surely it cannot be 
 as ministers of that religion which commands that its 
 priests should take the lowest and not the highest seat. 
 
 There follows a bitter and sweeping tirade against 
 the priesthood, which is succeeded by a passage con- 
 taining a fairly clear and succinct exposition of 
 Camille's views on the subject of religion. 
 
 " Atheism is treated as a species of delirium, and with 
 reason. Yes, there is a God, we see it plainly as we cast our 
 
THE NORTH WIND 79 
 
 eyes around the universe ; but We see it like those unfortunate 
 children who, having been exposed and deserted by their 
 parents, perceive that they have a father ; the course of nature 
 ordains that they must have had one ; but it is in vain that 
 they call upon this father ; he does not reveal himself. 
 
 " It is fruitlessly that I seek to find what cult pleases him 
 most ; he does not manifest himself by any sign, and his 
 thunderbolt strikes alike our churches and the mosques of 
 others. 
 
 " It is not God who has need of religion, it is mankind. 
 God does not require incense, processions and prayers, but we 
 have need of hope, of consolation, and of one who will reward 
 us. In the face of this indifference which he manifests towards 
 all cults, can we not give ourselves a national religion i " 
 
 The passage follows which has been already quoted 
 in a previous chapter, where Camille pleads the cause 
 of a gayer religion, a religion like that of the Greeks 
 and Romans. Pagan as he was by nature, he rebelled 
 against the cult of Christianity, which promised him 
 no recompense in this world save poverty and sorrow. 
 
 He remarks, with some show of reason, it must be 
 confessed, that the worst kings of France were always 
 the most outwardly scrupulous in religious observances, 
 and finally concludes that : " We must be given a 
 courageous religion, beneficial to the State, if its 
 ministers wish still to belong to the first order." 
 
 In the fourth section, which treats of the nobility, 
 Camille inveighs bitterly against the arbitrary barriers 
 of rank and caste. 
 
 He calls upon his fellow-citizens to annihilate these 
 absurd and onerous distinctions. He ends by assuring 
 the nobles themselves that, if they willingly resign 
 their rights, with a good grace, the people will re- 
 ciprocate by restoring those rights to them again, 
 which strikes one as neither logical nor consistent 
 after the diatribe which has gone before. 
 
 Camille afterwards proceeds to give a concentrated 
 history of all the kings of France from Philippe le Bel 
 downwards. This portion of the pamphlet is frankly 
 
8o CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 copied, in scheme at least, from one of the works of 
 Mirabeau, " Lettres de Cachet." Camille's comments 
 certainly do not err on the side of flattery ; indeed, 
 in many instances his remarks are grossly and wilfully 
 exaggerated. According to him, the whole line of French 
 kings were forgers, coiners, murderers and worse, and, 
 contrary to expectation, he becomes no milder in his 
 statements as he approaches nearer to his own times. 
 
 It is possible for us now, after the lapse of almost 
 two centuries, to see what a large proportion of truth 
 there is in Camille's estimate of the characters and 
 reigns of Louis XIV and his immediate successors, 
 the Regent Orleans and Louis XV. At the time when 
 he wrote it certainly required courage to describe in 
 this fashion the reigning monarch's own forbears. 
 
 In concluding this section Camille uses his new- 
 found weapon of bitter raillery. 
 
 " Such was the reign of Louis the Well-Beloved ; but he 
 was not wicked. And what more could he have done, cried 
 Mirabeau, if he had been ? Tarquin, nevertheless, cried 
 Cicero, was not wicked. He was not cruel, he was only proud, 
 and our fathers have expelled him ; but these were Romans. 
 And we . . . pardon, dear fellow-citizens, when I attended 
 the National Assembly I said : We are worth more than -the 
 Romans, and Cyneas has seen nothing equal to this in the 
 Senate." 
 
 In reading such words as these one does not wonder 
 that Momoro hesitated to publish this pamphlet. As 
 Camille himself naively remarks : " Je m'attends aux 
 clameurs que ce paragraphe va exciter." 
 
 But if he is outspoken here, in the last section the 
 bold writer is even bolder. He there discusses : 
 " What Constitution is the best for France ? " 
 
 Camille argues with plenty of skill that it is the 
 kingly state which corrupts even the best of men, 
 not the man who, by his faults, lowers the kingly 
 state. If absolute power is placed in the hands of 
 any one man, it invites him to become a tyrant. 
 
THE NORTH WIND 8i 
 
 Camille avows his own Republican views in an 
 extraordinarily open manner when one considers that, 
 as Aulard says in speaking of this exact period: " I 
 have searched thoroughly and I have found only one 
 Frenchman who, at this time, called himself a Re- ) 
 publican ; it was Camille Desmouhns. In his ' France 
 Libre,' written at the end of June, 1789, and placed 
 on sale on the July 17th following, he declares his 
 preference for a Republic before a Monarchy." 
 
 Notwithstanding this, Camille does not yet avowedly 
 wish to throw the King overboard. He would still 
 accept a limited — a very limited — monarchy. Except 
 in that he has not fulfilled his promises to the people, 
 Camille has no quarrel with the King as an individual. 
 In speaking of him, indeed, he uses the old argument 
 of Brutus : " I love Louis XVI personally, but the 
 monarchy is none the less odious to me." 
 
 Finally, Camille paints a word picture of the 
 millennium to come, when the National Assembly shall 
 have completed the work which it has so nobly begun. 
 In what are by far the finest passages of the whole 
 pamphlet Camille acclaims the time when there 
 will be liberty of commerce, liberty of conscience, 
 liberty to write, liberty to speak ; a national army, a 
 national treasury, and then, carried away by enthusi- 
 asm, he cries : " Why should we wish to be Bretons, 
 Bearnais, Flemings ? Could there be under heaven a 
 finer name than that of Frenchman ? To that famous 
 name all ought to sacrifice their own ! " 
 
 Camille brings the whole work to a conclusion with 
 one of those classical parallels of which he was always 
 so fond : — 
 
 " Following the example of that Lacedemonian, Otriades, 
 who, alone, and wounded to death upon the field of battle, 
 raised a trophy with his trembling hands and wrote in his 
 blood : * Sparta has vanquished,' I feel that I could die joy- 
 fully for such a splendid cause, and, pierced with wounds, I 
 also would write in my blood : ' France is free 1 ' " 
 
82 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 This pamphlet is a very characteristic example of 
 Camille's early work. From a literary point of view, 
 it is exceedingly interesting. The style is clear, easy 
 and unforced ; the choice of words is just ; the 
 writer seems to gain his effects without effort. Every- 
 where may be found that distinction and felicity of 
 phrase which causes Camille's writings to stand out in 
 such vivid relief against those of his fellow- journalists 
 of the Revolutionary period. Indeed, to receive full 
 justice the " France Libre " must be read in its original 
 language. 
 
 As to the boldness of expression, that is the more 
 remarkable when we remember that, at this time, no. 
 more servile press could have been found than that of 
 France. This reckless disregard of consequences, this 
 literary outspokenness was always one of Camille's 
 most marked characteristics. It was at once the curse 
 and the honour of his life and work. In the beginning 
 it brought him fame ; later, it was to draw down upon 
 him the bitter hatred of the Royalists and Moderates. 
 Yet later still, he was to be overwhelmed with self- 
 reproach when he saw the consequences of some of 
 those written words of his, and in the end it was his 
 rash and generous frankness which led him to death. 
 
 " La France Libre," as we have said, was enormously 
 successful. It firmly established Camille's name as a 
 writer. Nevertheless, from a pecuniary point of view 
 the publication was not satisfactory. The author 
 ^j received only thirty louis for the pamphlet, and but 
 r- twelve louis for his next work, the " Discours de la 
 Lanterne," which was probably published at about 
 the middle or end of August. The only date given 
 on the title-page is that of " L'an I" de la Liberte." 
 
 In this " Discours de la Lanterne aux Parisiens " 
 we find Camille at his best and worst. It is not a 
 studied and reasoned piece of work like its predecessor, 
 written in the full knowledge that publication meant 
 probable imprisonment or even worse. Now that the 
 
THE NORTH WIND , 83 
 
 Bastille had fallen and the first year of liberty had 
 dawned, Camille could say what he pleased. He was 
 the spoilt favourite of the mob, and it is the mob 
 whom he addresses. 
 
 The " Lanterne " made a direct appeal to the 
 populace, and it is an appeal which is unworthy of its 
 author. He played to the gallery when he called 
 himself " Procureur-General de la Lanterne," using 
 that title which was afterwards to be so often cast in 
 his teeth. 
 
 It is in order to attract attention, to make a laugh, 
 as it were, that Camille writes in the person of that 
 ill-famed " lamp-iron " in the Place de Greve, at the 
 corner of the Rue de la Vannerie, where so many 
 impromptu executions had taken place, including that 
 of the wretched Foulon. 
 
 Not that the whole pamphlet bears the imprint of 
 bloodthirstiness. Cruel as it is, this work of Camille's 
 has a worse reputation than it deserves — chiefly 
 amongst those who have never read one word of it. - - 
 
 The " Discours " bears as an epigraph the famous 
 passage of St. John's Gospel : " Qui male agit odit 
 lucem," Camille's free and irreverent translation of 
 which runs : " Rogues object to the lamp-post." 
 
 The author opens the pamphlet in that lightly 
 jesting spirit which was afterwards to render him so 
 famous. 
 
 " Brave Parisians," he writes, in the person of the lamp- 
 post, " what thanks do I not owe to you ? You have rendered me 
 for ever celebrated and blessed amongst lanterns. What are 
 the lanterns of Sosia and of Diogenes in comparison with me ? 
 He sought for one man, and I have found two hundred 
 thousand. . . . Yes, I am the queen of lanterns. Citizens, 
 I wish to render myself worthy of the honour which you have 
 done me by your choice." 
 
 Camille then goes on to eulogise at great length 
 that famous night of August 4th, when the nobility 
 voluntarily and on the impulse of the moment gave' 
 
84 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 up their feudal rights : " It is this night which has 
 reinstated the French people in the rights of man, 
 which has declared all citizens equal." 
 
 In this passage and in many of the pages which follow 
 there is no sign of cruelty or vindictiveness. Certainly 
 Camille complains later that certain proved con- 
 spirators against the sovereign people have been allowed 
 to slip from the hands of the law, but he adds : — 
 
 " Not that I love too hasty justice ; you know that I gave 
 evidences of discontent during the execution of Foulon and 
 Berthier ; I broke the fatal cord twice in succession. I was 
 perfectly convinced of the treason and of the faults of these 
 two rascals ; but the executioner put too much precipitation 
 into the affair. I would have liked an interrogatory and the 
 revelation subsequently of a number of facts." 
 
 Yet, in spite of this, he continues throughout the 
 pamphlet to play with the idea of murder, treating it 
 as a thing of little account, palliating and excusing deeds 
 of violence, even while not openly advocating them. 
 
 Even in these early days Camille makes the famous 
 accusation which he and others were so often to repeat 
 later, the accusation that the counter-revolutionary 
 party were endeavouring to disgust the populace with 
 their own work by encouraging licence and extreme 
 measures. 
 
 Here is the germ of that idea which afterwards led 
 to Camille's violent diatribes against the " Hebertists " 
 and " Ultras." He warns the people against this 
 attempt, and especially against the books published 
 with that aim in view. 
 
 Yet after abusing one de Tellier for writing a 
 pamphlet of this description Camille with generous 
 inconsistency protests with all his might against the 
 fact that this journalist has been sent to the Abbaye 
 for his opinions, and demands, in his own unrivalled 
 manner, the instant liberation of the " poor devil of 
 an author." 
 
THE NORTH WIND 85 
 
 This is followed by an enthusiastic address to 
 Mirabeau, whom Camille was just beginning to look 
 upon as his most powerful friend : afterwards, by a 
 rather abrupt transition, he breaks into an impassioned 
 defence of the Palais Royal, which he speaks of as the 
 " Forum of Paris." 
 
 The rest of the pamphlet is mainly taken up with 
 one of Camille's usual denunciations of a dominant 
 cult in religion. A national, universal, unsectarian 
 religion is the only one that he will recognise — such a 
 religion as was put to the test by the Conventional 
 Government after Camille's death, only to fail most 
 ignominiously. Indeed the attempt was so hopelessly 
 unsuccessful that men were fain to legislate for the 
 return of Catholicism. 
 
 But this was in the future ; in the meantime, 
 Camille declaims against dogmatism at great length, 
 supporting his remarks on a state religion by a phrase 
 which has become somewhat famous. 
 
 " Anyone in the woxld," he says, " would turn 
 heretic, schismatic, or even Jew, if it were necessary, 
 to avoid paying anything." . 
 
 If I have seemed to defend the " Discours de la 
 Lanterne " against the charges of bloodthirstiness 
 which are so freely brought against it, it is not from 
 any wish to palliate the dangerous tendencies of 
 this pamphlet. 
 
 Still, without in any way excusing Camille, it is 
 necessary to do justice to what is in many ways a very 
 brilliant piece of work. 
 
 There are fine passages in the " Discours," passages 
 which manifest nothing but patriotism and a real 
 desire for the well-being of France. Camille forgets 
 his audience, as it were, when he is describing his ideal 
 Republic, in which there shall be no sorrow nor blood- 
 shed, where all shall dwell together in happiness and 
 love. 
 
 Then he remembers that he is addressing a mob 
 
86 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 whose present sport is bloodshed and who require to 
 be humoured ; he promptly pulls himself up and 
 reverts to the playful cruelty of the opening para- 
 graphs. 
 
 Throughout the whole pamphlet Camille's scholar- 
 ship and erudition are always manifest, if never 
 ostentatiously displayed. Perhaps no writer of that 
 time could make use of classical quotations and 
 allusions with more skill or with less appearance of 
 pedantry. 
 
 In spite of everything which could and can be 
 advanced in its favour, it is very evident that Camille 
 himself was ashamed of this work of his. One 
 cannot read his letters at this time without seeing 
 that he took little or no pride in the " Discours." 
 It was published anonymously, and it was not until 
 the pamphlet proved an unexpected success that 
 Camille acknowledged its authorship, although one 
 cannot help fancying that the style must have been 
 unmistakable to any intelligent critic. 
 
 Writing to his father at the end of September, the 
 young man says : — 
 
 " The work of the ' Lanterne ' is not worth anything like 
 as much as the other, and it would have caused me to decline 
 in public opinion if I had put my name to it. However, I have 
 heard many nice things said about it, and, unless my publisher 
 wilfully deceives me, no one has spoken badly of it to him." 
 
 In a second letter, two days later, he refers to the 
 pamphlet again : — 
 
 " My ' Discours de la Lanterne ' is selling well, and the 
 edition is almost exhausted. It is the only brochure which is 
 being purchased in these days, but everyone is so tired of all 
 these pamphlets that I hesitate to allow a second edition to be 
 struck off." 
 
 It is really something of a relief to find that Camille 
 could take no honest satisfaction in this particular 
 piece of work. 
 
THE NORTH WIND 87 
 
 Mr. J. H. McCarthy, in his brilliant history of the 
 French Revolution, has given us his estimate of the 
 " Discours," an estimate which, if it errs slightly 
 perhaps on the side of severity, is nevertheless just 
 enough in the main. 
 
 " It was a very brilliant pamphlet," he says, " and it had a 
 great success. It is not pleasant reading now, after the interval 
 of more than a century, but it is easy to understand how it 
 affected and attracted the unstable, the agitated minds of 
 1789. ... It shows us a CamiUe whose epigrams are scrawled 
 in blood, who finds an amused delight in cruelty like a gamin. 
 . . . He came in the fullness of time to regret its utterances 
 bitterly. ... It is a horrible piece of work, and its influence 
 was incalculably evil, but with all its horror it charms by its 
 genius, by its dazzling insolence, by the wit which wings the 
 most venomed shafts of a murderous personality." 
 
 It is true that the very gaiety, eloquence and charm 
 of Camille's style were perilous. To him, hanging 
 is a jest, murder a very fine art ; at least, so it must 
 have appeared to his readers. 
 
 It was indeed a never-ceasing surprise to CamiUe 
 that his writings were taken so seriously, although he 
 would have disclaimed such a sentiment indignantly. 
 It was not that he did not mean what he wrote : he 
 was thoroughly in earnest — at the time. 
 
 Then . . . the wind changed, and Camille's 
 opinions with it, but the works of his pen remained, 
 a witness of what he had been, of what he was no 
 longer. 
 
 Very bitterly was CamiUe to regret during the last 
 months of his life that he " had written so much." 
 Sometimes remorse came to him swiftly, as in the case 
 of his " Brissot Unveiled." We shall see how in the 
 midst of the trial and condemnation of the Giron- 
 dists, the realisation came suddenly to the journalist 
 that it was he who had killed these men, his former 
 friends, by means of his book. And the bitterness of 
 that realisation lay in this : that he had already come 
 
88 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 almost to the point of abjuring the opinions which 
 had led him to write the fatal pamphlet. 
 
 As to Camille's consistent and unvarying rancour 
 against sectarian religion and its ministers, one must 
 remember that this was a characteristic both of his 
 time and of his nation. For his was an age which 
 absolutely lacked religion ; so much so, that the 
 simple, unaffected piety of Louis XVI was considered 
 something extraordinary, almost outside nature. 
 
 Camille did not go so far as many, nay, most, of 
 his contemporaries ; he was never, in word or deed, 
 an atheist. As he wrote in later days : " I have always 
 believed in the immortality of the soul." 
 
 But there is a strain of irreverence in his writings 
 which may be met with in those of French authors 
 of all ages. It is a strange and alien thing to us of 
 other nations, who blaspheme, should we wish to do 
 so, in more downright fashion. 
 
 Camille knew the Scriptures well ; he quotes from 
 them freely, and often appositely, but, as it were, 
 with his tongue in his cheek, in a manner which jars 
 on us. Again and again he uses and misuses texts to 
 serve his purpose. 
 
 For instance, in that famous number of the " Vieux 
 Cordelier," where he so vehemently denounced 
 Hebert and his followers, he paraphrases the Gospel 
 in this fashion, when he says, with terrible and bitter 
 raillery, referring to Hebert's scurrilous journal : 
 " II y aura plus de joie dans le ciel pour un Pere 
 Duchesne qui se convertit, que pour quatre-vingt- 
 dix-neuf Vieux Cordeliers qui n'ont pas de besoin de 
 penitence." 
 
 His famous answer to the interrogations before the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal has been often quoted as the 
 extreme of blasphemy. It is well known that when 
 asked his age he replied : " I am thirty-three, the age 
 of the Sansculotte Jesus ; a critical age for every 
 patriot." 
 
THE NORTH WIND 89 
 
 It is quite certain, however, that in speaking thus 
 Camille was not in the least degree deUberately 
 irreverent. 
 
 Before that Tribunal men were either silent, or set 
 themselves to make phrases, Danton had given 
 Camille an example of the latter course, and it was, 
 besides, natural to the journalist to speak on occasion, 
 as we should say, for effect. 
 
 Moreover, it must be remembered that the term 
 " Sansculotte " as applied to Christ was in no way 
 originated by Camille at the moment. It was a 
 phrase in common use at this time, as we learn from 
 the contemporary writer Mercier in his '* New Picture 
 of Paris," published in 1800. 
 
 " Who would have guessed," he says, " that our Lord Jesus. 
 Christ would have been called the Sansculotte Jesus, that he 
 would have no other surname in the Journals, in the Tribunals, 
 at the Jacobins ; and that this name was not given as a sarcasm, 
 but as a true title of respect. A prodigious change then has 
 taken place in the ideas of the people ; the permission of saying 
 everything created a peculiar kind of spirit, which, joined to a 
 good portion of ignorance, was only more humorous." 
 
 The publication of these, his first important 
 literary works, brings to a close the opening phase of 
 Camille's life. 
 
 From his early youth up till this time, the wind 
 which guided the young man's course had been 
 settled in the north. Bitterly cold and biting it blew, 
 clear and pitiless — a true wind of liberty — and the 
 weathercock obeyed its touch. 
 
 It is such an influence as this which is evident in 
 Camille's early work. All is clear and well-defined ; 
 there is nothing misty, nebulous, or indecisive in this 
 writing. Even that sunny gaiety which is never quite 
 absent from anything which Camille's hand has 
 touched appears now sharp and frosty, like sparkling 
 sunshine on snow. 
 
90 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Already there were signs that the wind was changing. 
 Camille's cold winter of discontent was over, for a 
 time. In a little while he was to feel the pleasant 
 warmth of the sun of prosperity and, under the 
 influence of the western wind of success and love, we 
 shall see our weathercock veer and point to another 
 quarter. 
 
PART TWO 
 THE WEST WIND 
 
" The winds come lightly whispering from the "West, 
 Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deeps serene." 
 
 Byron. 
 
I 
 
 WITH the publication of his two famous 
 pamphlets began the second period of 
 Camille's life, and that which was in 
 most respects the happiest. 
 
 Hitherto we have seen him gloomy, unsuccessful, 
 unhappy. Now he had become suddenly famous, and 
 it was not long before happiness followed on the heels 
 of success. 
 
 His first publications, as we have seen, were extra- 
 ordinarily well received, and they made for him a name. 
 As he naively remarks in a letter to his father on 
 September 20th : " On ne dit plus d'un auteur appele 
 Desmoulins, mais ' une brochure de DesmouHns.' " 
 
 Early in September a third production from 
 CamiUe's pen appeared, " The Protest in favour of 
 the Marquis de St.-Huruge." In this defence of the 
 famous mob orator, who had recently been arrested and 
 imprisoned in the Chatelet, the journalist made skilful 
 use of his legal knowledge, although the pamphlet, 
 like its subject, has lost much of its interest for us. 
 
 Camille's letters to his father at this time reflect 
 his state of mind very clearly. They are so uncon- 
 sciously self-revelationary, they display such ingenuous 
 conceit. He is flattered and spoilt, and he knows it — 
 he says so very frankly — but ... he certainly has a 
 very good opinion of himself. He is feverishly 
 anxious for the appreciation of his father ; above all, 
 he longs to make an impression upon the sceptical 
 Guisards, although he is careful to insist upon his 
 absolute disregard for their opinions. 
 
 93 
 
94 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 It is evident that M. Desmoulins, senior, had 
 heard an exaggerated account of Camille's exploits. 
 He believed that his scapegrace son had become more 
 notorious than famous. It is plainly in answer to a 
 reproving letter from his father that Camille writes 
 as follows on September 20th: — 
 
 " The best response to your letter full of reproaches is to 
 send you the three works. I have prepared an immense packet, 
 and you will find in it four copies of ' La France Libre,'' of the 
 ' Lanterne,' and a number of copies of a little leaflet which has 
 been infinitely praised, and upon which I am complimented 
 everywhere (the ' Defence of the Marquis de St.-Huruge '). 
 In addition I send with this letter a number of the ' Chronicle 
 of Paris ' : compare these written and printed estimates of 
 writers whom I do not know, and whose praise I am not rich 
 enough to pay for, with the insults of our Guisards, and with 
 what you call public indignation. 
 
 " For the rest, when I send you the witness of the journals 
 and when I tell you, as I did in my last letter, the infinitely 
 flattering things that I have heard about ' La France Libre,' 
 I do this on your account alone, in order that you may not 
 blush for me, and not that you should excite the envy of our 
 compatriots by repeating it all to them ; I know that nobody 
 is a prophet in his own country, and it is useless to try to open 
 the eyes of those whom the light wounds. 
 
 " If you hear ill spoken of me, console yourself with the re- 
 membrance of the testimony of MM. Mirabeau, Target, 
 de Robe^ierre and more than two hundred deputies. . . . 
 Recollect that a great part of the capital names me amongst 
 \/ the principal authors of the Revolution. Many even go so far 
 1 as to say that I am the sole author. . . . But the testimony 
 which flatters me the most is that of my own conscience, it is 
 the interior knowledge that what I have done is good. I have 
 contributed to free my country, I have made myself a name. 
 . . . Nothing can give me another moment so happy as that 
 one when, upon July 12th, I was, I will not say applauded by 
 ten thousand people, but stifled with embraces and tears. Per- 
 haps then I saved Paris from entire ruin, and the nation from 
 the most horrible servitude. . . . No, those who speak ill of 
 me deceive you ; they lie to themselves and at the bottom of 
 their hearts they wish to have a son like me." 
 
 ./ 
 
THE WEST WIND 95 
 
 The innocent vanity of this last paragraph is really 
 delicious. Certainly Camille's head was turned with a 
 vengeance. 
 
 For the first time in his life he was making an 
 appearance in Parisian society. As he tells us, Mercier, 
 the author of the " Tableaux de Paris," and others 
 introduced him into good houses, and he could dine 
 out whenever he wished. It was this fact which was 
 at once his greatest delight and his greatest shame. 
 Camille could be entertained, but he could not 
 entertain. 
 
 His literary work was enormously successful, but it 
 was very far as yet from being profitable. He had 
 sold his two first pamphlets outright for a ridiculously 
 small sum, and his finances were in an extremely 
 critical state. Nevertheless, Camille had come to the 
 conclusion, naturally enough, that his present squalid 
 lodgings were not suitable for a man of his improved 
 position. He wanted to furnish rooms of his own, 
 where he could receive his friends, and accordingly 
 he arranged to take a suite in the Hotel de Nivernais. 
 
 But inconsequent Camille had not reckoned upon 
 the cost of furniture and of housekeeping on his own 
 account. As he ruefully writes to his father on 
 September 22nd, the expenses have absorbed all that 
 he made by his last pamphlet. In short, he asks 
 M. Desmoulins tentatively to send him five or six 
 louis. 
 
 His father did not rise to the occasion. Possibly he 
 rather distrusted Camille's own account of his sudden 
 rise in the world, knowing this son of his of old. 
 However that may be, he seems to have taken no notice 
 of Camille's request, for on September 29th we find 
 the young man writing to enquire anxiously whether 
 his father has received his last letter. Apparently 
 M. Desmoulins' only response was highly unsatis- 
 factory, for on October 8th, the " chief author of the 
 Revolution " wrote again in a most piteous strain. 
 
96 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 With a certain show of reason Camille insists upon 
 the vital importance to him of a settled address, if he is 
 to take the part which is his due in municipal politics. 
 
 " With a domicile I should have been president, com- 
 mandant of a district, representative of the Commune of 
 Paris," he complains. " Instead of which, I am only a dis- 
 tinguished writer. ... 
 
 " But this is the astonishing part of it all ! For ten years 
 past I have complained in these terms, and ip the end it has 
 been easier for me to make a Revolution, to upset France, 
 than to obtain from my father a paltry fifteen louis, and a 
 helping hand to enable me to set up an establishment. What 
 a man you are ! With all your wit and all your virtues, you 
 have never been able to understand me. You have constantly 
 calumniated me, you have eternally called me a prodigal, a 
 spendthrift, and nothing could be more untrue. . . . 
 
 " Aid me in these circumstances and send me a bed, if you 
 cannot permit me to buy one here. Can you*refuse me a bed f 
 ... I have a reputation in Paris, they consult me upon great 
 affairs ; they invite me to dinner ; there is no pamphleteer 
 whose works sell so well. I only lack a domicile ; I beseech 
 you to help me, send me six louis, or at least a bed ! " 
 
 Camille explains that his ready money has been 
 exhausted in paying his debts. " I am almost without 
 creditors, but also without money ! " 
 
 Probably M. Desmoulins took these reproaches at 
 their right valuation, and made allowances like the 
 wise man that he was. It seems that Camille's letter 
 led to no quarrel and obtained for him the help which 
 he needed. A few months later we shall find the 
 young man writing to his home in very different 
 spirits. 
 
 It was during these summer months, immediately 
 after the fall of the Bastille, that the friendship began 
 between Camille Desmoulins and Gabriel-Honore de 
 Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau. This friendship was a 
 very real thing on both sides, although it was spoilt 
 and finally broken off by quarrels and misunder- 
 standings. 
 
THE WEST WIND 97 
 
 It would appear that Camille first brought himself 
 to the notice of the great Revolutionary Tribune as 
 early as the spring of 1789; by asking for a post on the 
 staff of the paper which Mirabeau edited. 
 
 This journal was designed to describe the proceed- 
 ings of the States-General in detail, but it only 
 appeared for a short time at the beginning of May 
 under its original title of " Journal des Etats-Gener- 
 aux." The paper was unauthorised, and Mirabeau 
 was not in good repute with the Government ; 
 moreover, he attacked Necker in one of the early 
 issues, and for this reason among others further 
 publication of the journal was forbidden by an order 
 of the Council. 
 
 Mirabeau, however, eluded this decree by con- 
 tinuing to publish the paper under the title of " Lettres 
 de Mirabeau a ses Commettants," and it was circulated 
 very freely in Paris and the Provinces. After the 
 fall of the Bastille and the subsequent enfranchisement 
 of the Press the name of the journal was altered to 
 that of " Courier de Provence." 
 
 Although there is no evidence that Camille ever 
 contributed personally to Mirabeau's paper, it is 
 probable that the great man foresaw that the journalist 
 might be useful to him in the future. No one ever 
 formed more rapid or more just opinions of the men 
 about him than Mirabeau, and there is no doubt that 
 he perceived the spark of genius in the impecunious 
 little lawyer — perceived too that it might be utilised 
 to serve Count Mirabeau and, through him, France. 
 
 He made much of Camille, he invited him to his 
 house, gave him such dinners as the young fellow had 
 never probably conceived as possible, showed him life 
 in more senses of the word than one. 
 
 Camille was absolutely dazzled, and small wonder. 
 Mirabeau was rapidly becoming the most prominent 
 man of his day, and he was as great in fascination as 
 in all else. Where he cared sufficiently to exert his 
 
98 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 power — and there is little doubt that he cared for 
 Camille — he could be irresistible. 
 
 And Camille, to use his own forcible words, loved 
 Mirabeau " comme une maitresse." We cannot do 
 better than quote from one of his letters to Brissot, 
 written after the death of Mirabeau : — 
 
 " Mirabeau made me live with him under the same roof at 
 Versailles," he says. " 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." 
 
 At first Camille thought of Mirabeau only as a 
 mighty patron, able, if he w^s pleased to do so, to give 
 him employment as a journalist. 
 
 On September 29th, however, we find the young 
 man writing to his father in high triumph, to tell 
 him that the great man now treats him as a familiar 
 friend : — 
 
 " For eight days past I have been staying at Versailles with 
 Mirabeau. Every instant he takes my hand, he pats me on 
 the back. ... I feel that his table, too delicate and too over- 
 loaded, wiU corrupt me. His burgundies and his maraschino 
 have an attraction which I seek vainly to hide from myself, 
 \, and I have aU the difficulty in the world to regain my re- 
 /■ publican austerity and to detest the aristocrats whose crime 
 it is to enjoy these excellent dinners. I prepare motions for 
 Mirabeau, and he calls this initiating me into great affairs." 
 
 It is very plain from this last remark that Mirabeau 
 was making use of Camille, as he made use of everybody 
 for one purpose or another. However, it would appear 
 that on this occasion the young man outstayed his 
 welcome, for we find him writing on October 8th : — 
 
 " I have passed two charming weeks with Mirabeau ; but, 
 seeing that I was no longer useful to him, I bade him farewell, 
 and I have returned to Paris. We have parted to meet again, 
 and we are good friends ; he has invited me to come and spend 
 eight days with him whenever I like. During my sojourn at 
 Versailles, he asked me to compose a memoir of the town of 
 Belesme against its sub-delegate and intendant. I have done it." 
 
THE WEST WIND 99 
 
 It was thus that the friendship began which was 
 to end sadly, at no very distant date, anaidst clouds of 
 doubt and dissension. 
 
 In the meantime the Revolution was not going for- 
 ward as fast as the people had confidently hoped and 
 expected. The retrograde Court party was still very 
 strong, although much weakened by the incessant 
 out-going tide of emigration. As for the National 
 Assembly, its work was more or less at a standstill, and 
 it had not yet given France the promised Constitution. 
 Its very composition militated against any combined 
 or united effort. Truer words were never spoken than 
 those of Mirabeau with reference to the States- 
 General. 
 
 " More than five hundred Frenchmefi," he said, " gathered 
 from all parts of the Kingdom, without a leader, without 
 organisation, all free, all equal ; none with any authority, 
 none feeling himself under any obligation to obey, and all, 
 like Frenchmen, wishing to be heard before they would listen." 
 
 At last, on October 5th, maddened by famine and 
 by the open insults of the Court, the people took 
 matters into their own hands. Everyone knows the 
 story of how a great concourse of men and women 
 executed the famous march to Versailles on that wet 
 autumn day, how they camped round the Palace, a 
 gaunt menacing throng, how, in the early dawn of 
 the following morning, they broke into the house of 
 their King, and would have assassinated the Queen but 
 for the self-devotion of a mere handful of Royal guards. 
 
 The market women of Paris, the men of the slum 
 fauxbourgs, gained their point. They brought back 
 the Royal family to the capital by main force, and 
 obliged them to take up their abode in the dilapidated 
 palace of the Tuileries, practically prisoners, so far 
 as free will over their own movernents was concerned. 
 
 Camille hailed this event as a fresh victory of the 
 populace — as a crowning victory. Writing on October 
 
100 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 5th, he says : " You have heard no doubt of the great 
 Revolution which has been effected : Consummatum 
 est." 
 
 It was at about this time that Camille began to 
 contemplate the possibility of publishing a journal 
 of his own. There was a fashion at that time for 
 personal news-sheets, usually produced weekly, of 
 which the entire contents, or at least the bulk of them, 
 were written by one man alone. 
 
 This form of journalism was born of the Revolution, 
 and the newly attained freedom of the Press. It was a 
 method of airing their views which appealed irre- 
 sistibly to the young writers of both parties, and it 
 had an especial fascination for Camille. 
 
 Probably he had no difficulty in finding a printer 
 willing to publish this new venture of his. Camille 
 was already well known as a writer ; more than that, 
 he was popular. 
 
 But whether the paper, when once started, would 
 be successful or not, was the question which must 
 have tormented Camille day and night before that 
 first number of his journal was published on November 
 28th, 1789. 
 
 The new publication was entitled the " Revolutions 
 de France et de Brabant," and it appeared weekly in 
 the form of a little octavo pamphlet in a grey paper 
 cover. An extract from the prospectus which was 
 distributed beforehand will give some idea of the 
 scope of the paper and also of the spirit in which 
 Camille published it : — 
 
 " This journal will appear every Saturday," it runs. " Each 
 number will be divided into three sections : ist Section. 
 France. 2nd Section. Brabant, and the other kingdoms 
 which, adopting the cockade and demanding a national 
 assembly, merit a place in this journal. 3rd Section. In order 
 to draw back, as far as possible, the frontiers of our censorial 
 empire, under the title of varieties this paragraph will embrace 
 all which can interest my dear fellow citizens and amuse them 
 
THE WEST WIND loi 
 
 this winter in their chimney corners. I await the maledictions 
 of the aristocrats ; I see them, extended idly on their couches, 
 spring up in fury and seize the tongs : ' Vile author, if thou 
 
 wert here ! ' But I remember what my dear Cicero said : 
 
 ' Subeundae sunt bonis inimicitiae ; subeantur.' 
 
 " We have neglected nothing in order to obtain fresh and 
 reliable news, and hold out to our subscribers the promise of our 
 epigraph : Quid Novi f The price of our publication is lo 
 livres 15 sols for Paris, and 7 Hvres 10 sols for the provinces, 
 for three months, carriage paid all over the kingdom." 
 
 The paper was illustrated by Garney, the publisher, 
 with a weekly caricature. These same engravings, by 
 the way, were often a cause of great offence to Camille, 
 for one reason or another. 
 
 Charles de Monseignat, in his " Histoire des 
 Journaux du France," inveighs most bitterly against 
 these pictures, as infamous productions, and evidently 
 considers that the journalist was responsible for them. 
 This was very far from being the case. The caricatures 
 were entirely provided by the publisher, much against 
 Camille's wishes, and the editor evidently did not 
 always even see them before publication. He very 
 often most vehemently and outspokenly disapproved 
 of them. 
 
 In the seventeenth number of the paper he states 
 expressly that the illustrations were not his affair. 
 
 " I protest," he says, " 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." 
 
 All those doubts and fears which Camille must have 
 felt respecting the reception of his journal were soon 
 dispelled. The paper was instantaneously successful ; 
 from henceforth the Revolution found a new voice. 
 
 On December 4th Camille writes exultantly to his 
 father : — 
 
 " I forwarded the first number of my journal to you ; 
 have you not received it f Please let me know whether it has 
 
I02 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 arrived. I send you two prospectuses. If it is possible to do 
 so, because nobody is a prophet in his own country, obtain 
 some subscribers for me. Behold me a journalist and deter- 
 mined to use to the full the liberty of the Press. My first 
 number is considered to be perfect ; but shall I be able to 
 keep it up to this standard ? I am so busy that I write this 
 to you at two o'cloiik in the morning." 
 
 Camille need not have doubted the continued 
 success of his venture. 
 
 On December 31st he was able to write again, after 
 several numbers had appeared : — 
 
 " Fortune herself grows tired of pursuing me. Judge of 
 the success of my journal. I have in the town of Marseilles 
 alone one hundred subscribers, in Dunkirk, one hundred and 
 forty. If I had foreseen such a sale I would not have agreed 
 to dispose of the paper to my pubHsher for two thousand 
 crowns a year ; it is true that he has promised me four thou- 
 sand when I shall have arrived at three thousand subscribers 
 (what Jews these publishers are !). 
 
 " Nevertheless, it is not money that I have looked for in this 
 enterprise, but the defence of my principles. What letters J 
 What flattering truths I receive ! ... I am become indifferent 
 to these eulogies, and as I appeared vain when people were 
 pleased to humiliate me, so I despise to-day the flattering things 
 which they address to me. That which touches me far more, 
 or rather, that which is the only thing which touches me, is the 
 friendship of patriots and the embraces of those republicans 
 who come to see me, and some of them from very far away." 
 
 One must not infer from this that Camille's paper 
 was ever popular in the same sense as " L'Ami du 
 Peuple " or " Le Pere Duchesne." 
 
 His style did not appeal to the lower classes to the 
 same extent as did the solemn invectives of Marat and 
 the blasphemous obscenities of Hebert. It was like 
 offering an agricultural labourer expensive champagne ; 
 he would infinitely prefer stout or ginger-beer. 
 
 Nevertheless there were many who could appreciate 
 that fine writing and ready wit of Camille's ; many 
 who recognised him, even then, as one of the few 
 
THE WEST WIND 103 
 
 great journalists who had sprung up amidst the 
 throng of mediocre writers. The feeling which one 
 experiences in reading Camille's journal has never 
 been better expressed than by Carlyle. 
 
 " If in that thick murk of journalism," he writes, " with Its 
 dull blustering, with its fixed or loose fury, any ray of genius 
 greets thee, be sure it is CamiUe's. The thing that Camille , 
 touches he with his Hght finger adorns ; brightness plays gentle, }>. 
 unsuspected, amid horrible confusions ; often is the word of 
 Camille's worth reading where no other's is." 
 
 Certainly from the very first Camille respected 
 nobody in the pages of his journal. He attacked the 
 Royalist party with the keen rapier of his wit, finding 
 their weak points unmercifully, evading with a light 
 laugh the heavy bludgeons with which they tried to 
 crush him. 
 
 Laughter was ever Camille's most deadly weapon — 
 as Mirabeau — Tonneau, the Royalist brother of the 
 great Tribune, and many others learnt to their cost. 
 Not that it was only the members of the monarchical 
 party whom he attacked. It was no idle boast which 
 he made later in Number 69 of the " Revolutions de 
 France et de Brabant." 
 
 " I am neither for Lameth, nor for Barnave, nor for the 
 Jacobins, I am for the country. ... I have ready for Mirabeau 
 sometimes the trumpet, sometimes the whip." 
 
 Necker, for whose sake he had called the people to 
 arms on July 12th, soon fell under the journalist's 
 displeasure, and the " Genevan hypocrite " is the 
 mildest term which he applies to him. 
 
 The fact was that Camille prided himself on saying 
 exactly what he thought in his journal without fear 
 of the consequences. He never paused to consider 
 that what he thought to-day he might not think 
 to-morrow — that, in the meantime, it was possible for 
 the wind to change. 
 
 It was this thoughtlessness which led him into so 
 
104 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 many terrible mistakes, mistakes which afterwards 
 he would have given his very life to retrieve, which he 
 did give his life in trying to retrieve. 
 
 Especially at this early period of his literary career 
 Camille was essentially, to use the words of Charles 
 de Monseignat, the " gamin de Paris du journalisme," 
 laughing at everything, bad or good, contemptible or 
 worthy of respect. 
 
 Under slightly different phraseology the modern 
 historian Lenotre uses precisely the same simile when, 
 speaking of Camille, he says i — 
 
 " In that mighty movement which upheaved France, 
 Camille is not to be classed with the thinkers ; he played the 
 part of a Gavroche, but, like Gavroche, he instinctively knew 
 what pleased Parisians ; a genius for theatrical effect, playful 
 audacity, and that bitterly satirical eloquence which carries 
 away the crowd." 
 
 That most painstaking biographer, Jules Claretie, 
 expresses the exact scope of Camille's talent very 
 truly. 
 
 " He sharpens the edge of his wit," he writes, " 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." 
 
 Finally the great German historian, von Sybel, has 
 given us his estimate of the young man with Teutonic 
 force and strength of language. 
 
 " The most gifted of these journalists," he says, speaking of 
 the generation of writers who sprang up at the outbreak of the 
 French Revolution, " was, indisputably, Camille Desmoulins, 
 in whose easy causerie patriotism and Ucentiousness, love of 
 freedom and venomous scorn, grace and cruelty were continually 
 mingled. His writings were like flowers upon a dung-hUl and 
 his life like a many-coloured but scorching and quickly ex- 
 tinguished firework." 
 
 Yet it must not be imagined that Camille did not 
 take the power of the Press seriously. In No. 17 of his 
 
THE WEST WIND 105 
 
 journal he shows that he knew what manner of edged 
 tool it was with which he played. 
 
 " At the present day," he says, " journalists exercise minis- 
 terial functions. They denounce, they decree, they rule in 
 unforeseen 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." 
 
 From November 28th, 1789, until the middle of 
 July, 1791, the " Revolutions de France et de Brabant " 
 appeared weekly, making in all eighty-six numbers. 
 When considered- as a whole they form a most remark- 
 able piece of work, witty, cruel, humorous or tragic, 
 turn by turn, but always brilliant and always fasci- 
 nating. 
 
 Throughout the winter of 1789 and the spring and 
 early summer of 1790 Camille edited and wrote the 
 journal entirely alone. It meant hard and constant 
 toil, but the work was congenial and, moreover, he 
 soon found himself in rather more comfortable 
 circumstances, although it would be a mistake to 
 suppose that the paper ever brought him in much 
 more than a bare livelihood. 
 
 It was not possible that Camille should continue 
 weekly to abuse all and sundry without rousing a vast 
 amount of antagonism against himself. In January, 
 1790, Sanson, the executioner of Paris, afterwards to 
 become so infamously famous, brought an action 
 against the journalist on the plea that he had called 
 him in his journal a " bourreau," and the Royalist 
 periodicals assailed him constantly with his own 
 weapons, although lacking their keen edge. 
 
 If Camille is sometimes fierce in his attacks, his 
 language pales before that of his opponents, the anti- 
 revolutionary journalists. These writers were proud 
 
io6 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 to consider themselves gentlemen, but nevertheless 
 they descend too often to utter vulgarity in these 
 coarse attacks upon their enemy. Their sole idea of 
 humour often seems to lie in the invention of clumsy 
 puns, such as that which styled Camille "I'anon des 
 moulins," which strikes one nowadays as a somewhat 
 schoolboyish class of wit. 
 
 At present Camille laughed at all these assaults. 
 He could afford to do so, at least in his own opinion. 
 He gives a very true picture of his normal, or abnormal 
 state of mind at this time in a letter to his father. 
 
 *' At one moment I think life a delicious thing," he says, 
 " and the moment after, it seems almost insupportable, and 
 this happens to me ten times a day." 
 
 The truth is, Camille was not yet completely happy. 
 He was successful in his chosen profession, he was 
 popular in a certain section of society, he was even 
 moderately prosperous, in comparison, that is, with 
 his former poverty, but all this did not seem to have 
 brought him much nearer to the desire of his heart. 
 Although he was now the avowed suitor of Lucile 
 Duplessis, her father would not hear of the betrothal. 
 Camille's sudden notoriety did not by any means 
 increase his value in the eyes of worthy M. Duplessis. 
 He wanted a safe, well-to-do husband for his lovely 
 daughter, not an inflammatory firebrand of a journalist, 
 who might be popular for the moment, but who, at 
 the next swing of the pendulum, would, as likely as 
 not, find himself in prison. 
 
 It would seem that Lucile had discovered that she 
 loved Camille ; there were clandestine meetings in 
 the Luxembourg Gardens, meetings which the girl's 
 mother connived at, if she did not actually arrange 
 them. These stolen hours must have been some con- 
 solation to Camille for the apparent hopelessness of 
 his suit ; the two could not be completely miserable 
 while they loved one another. 
 
THE WEST WIND 107 
 
 Probably it was during the winter of 1789-90 that \_,, 
 Camille moved into rooms in the Rue de Theatre 
 Fran^ais. It was an important^ step in one respect, 
 for it meant that he took up his residence in the 
 district of the CordeHers, the most progressive section 
 of Paris, where Danton was the ruHng spirit. 
 
 When the electoral Assemblies for the States- 
 General had completed their work in Paris in the 
 spring of 1789 they were not in all instances immedi- 
 ately dissolved. That of the CordeUers continued to 
 sit in the old convent of the Order from which it took 
 its name, and was known as the Club or " Republic " 
 of the Cordeliers. 
 
 This Club, which shares the fame of the Jacobins, 
 was, in these early days, even more advanced in 
 politics. Its sittings were almost as much frequented 
 as those of the Jacobins, and the speeches of its orators 
 were listened to nearly as eagerly. 
 
 Camille joined the club in February, 1790, and on the 
 very day of his initiation we find him mentioned in 
 connection with a curious little incident. He describes 
 in his journal his feelings of pride and enthusiasm on 
 finding himself a member of the famous club, and he 
 tells how at the conclusion of the sitting it was 
 announced that a young lady begged to be admitted 
 to the hall. This was Theroigne de Mericourt, the 
 famous courtesan, who appeared at the bar to propose 
 that a Temple of the National Assembly should be 
 erected on the site of the Bastille. 
 
 The enthusiasm with which the suggestion was 
 received is curiously indicative of the spirit of the 
 time. A committee, consisting of Danton, Camille, 
 Fabre d'Eglantine and others, was appointed by the 
 Club and entrusted with the task of drawing up an 
 address to the French Nation, to invite patriots to 
 subscribe to the foundation of this Temple of Liberty, 
 of Humanity, and of Reason, to which all people 
 should come to consult their oracle. 
 
io8 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 The address was drawn up on these lines, but it had 
 little or no practical result. Impressionable Camille, 
 however, waxes enthusiastic in his journal when 
 speaking of the beauty of Mademoiselle Theroigne : 
 " It is the Queen of Sheba," he exclaims, " come to 
 visit the Solomon of the Districts." 
 
 It is in this same month of February that we find 
 Camille at his cruellest in the pages of the " Revolu- 
 tions," where he seeks to justify the execution of the 
 Marquis de Favras. This Royalist, guilty, it would 
 seem, of no definite crime save that of Royalism, was 
 ignominiously hung as a scapegoat for the sins of the 
 Court. 
 
 In a number full of classical references and im- 
 passioned apostrophes to the justice and mercy of the 
 people, Camille protests vehemently that he will not 
 listen to " accusations of barbarity against a people, 
 /who rejoice that human justice sometimes acts in the 
 place of divine vengeance." 
 
 Later in the article the journalist even strives to 
 discount the undeniable bravery with which de 
 Favras met his death. 
 
 " The firmness with which he died," he says, " was that of a 
 gladiator, who, being mortally wounded, strives to fall with 
 decency and dignity." 
 
 On the fifth day of April, 1794, Camille was to learn 
 for himself that it is not always so easy a thing to die 
 with that decency and dignity of which he speaks so 
 lightly. 
 
 In the spring of 1790 a cloud came over Camille's 
 friendship with Mirabeau. The great orator did not 
 bear patiently what he no doubt considered the young 
 man's rather impertinent criticism of his conduct in 
 the " Revolutions de France." It appears that he 
 reproved Camille, and it is quite certain that the 
 journalist took offence, for he never bore reproof in 
 any form with equanimity. 
 
THE WEST WIND 109 
 
 It was apparently Mirabeau, too great a man to be 
 unforgiving, from whom came the first overtlires for 
 peace ; we find him writing to the younger man on 
 May 2nd. 
 
 " Well, poor Camille," he says, " has your head come right 
 again ? We have sulked with you, but we forgive you." 
 
 And again a little later, in a second letter. 
 
 " Adieu, good boy, you deserve to be loved, notwithstanding 
 your fiery flights." 
 
 In spite of these advances the coldness continued, 
 and there was no real revival of the friendship between < 
 this time and the death of the great man a year later. 
 If Mirabeau had but realised it, he did not set to work 
 in the right way to mollify the thin-skinned journalist. 
 " Poor Camille," " Good boy " — nothing could have 
 been better calculated to irritate a man of Camille's 
 peculiar temperament than these phrases. He hated, 
 to be laughed at ; he hated to be treated as young, 
 and yet it was always his fate to be spoken of in this 
 manner. 
 
 It was the same to the very end. Robespierre's 
 half-slighting, half-jeering reference to him as a spoilt 
 boy led to that rash outburst on Camille's part, which 
 was greatly instrumental in bringing about his arrest 
 and death. 
 
 Yet in justice Camille should have blamed his own 
 personality and character and not these friends and 
 enemies of his. He was indeed a boy who never grew 
 up, the very Peter Pan of the Revolution. People 
 could not take him seriously ; it is that which makes 
 him at once so faulty and so lovable. 
 
 One little fact seems to sum up the character of the 
 man. Everyone who knew him, friends and foes alike, 
 almost without exception spoke of him as " Camille." 
 There is no other man of that period of whom the 
 same can be said. What meaning, for instance, would 
 
no CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 it convey to most people if one talked of " Gabriel," 
 " Georges," or " Jean-Paul," yet such were the 
 Christian names of Mirabeau, Danton and Marat. 
 
 Robespierre, to be sure, is recognisable as " Maxi- 
 milian," but his contemporaries generally coupled the 
 name with a prefix, such as " St. Maximilian " or 
 " King Maximilian." 
 
 It is impossible to deny that Marat, in his sardonic 
 way, was a good judge of character. Hear what he 
 says of, and to, Camille in the " Ami du Peuple " of 
 August loth of this year of 1790 : — 
 
 " 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." 
 
 A very just estimate, this, of the self -named weather- 
 cock ; but perhaps we cannot wonder that Camille did 
 not love Marat. 
 
 A French poet, M. Emmanuel des Essarts, wrote 
 some verses which were inserted by M. Jules Claretie 
 in the appendix to his history of the Dantonists. No 
 better description of Camille could be found than that 
 which is contained in the last lines of this poem. 
 
 " Voila le vrai Camille, une ame 
 Enfantine et mobile, et folle : oiseau de flamme, 
 Esprit de fauna, et cceur de femme." 
 
II 
 
 THE winter and spring of 1789-90 was 
 marked by very few great political events. 
 On February 4th the people of Paris 
 and of France hailed with their usual 
 optimism the dawn of a new golden age, when 
 King Louis, apparently on his own initiative, came 
 to the Hall of the National Assembly to propose 
 that the whole country, led by himself in person, 
 should renew the National Oath, should swear to be 
 faithful to the King, to the Law and to the forth- 
 coming Constitution. The oath was accordingly 
 taken throughout all the districts of Paris with 
 enthusiasm and ceremonial ; the whole city was 
 illuminated, and the occasion was treated as a universal 
 festival. 
 
 From the autumn of 1789 until the early summer of 
 1790 Camille, as we have seen, edited the " Revolutions 
 de France et de Brabant " alone. The paper con- 
 tinued to be enormously successful, its circulation 
 increased daily, and the pressure of work at last became 
 too great even for the feverishly energetic journalist. 
 
 Accordingly early in July, 1790, Camille came to an 
 arrangement with Stanislas Freron by which the latter 
 agreed to collaborate in the editorship of the journal. 
 
 The paper at this time was published by LaflFrey, 
 and the agreement is still extant in which Camille 
 undertakes the post of editor for the sum of 10,000. 
 livres annually, out of which he is to pay Freron 3000 
 livres per annum, on condition that the latter contri- 
 butes one-third of the contents of the journal. 
 
112 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Freron was the son of the famous critic and reviewer 
 of that name. He was something of a scholar and a 
 capable journalist enough, although never a brilliant 
 writer in the same sense as Camille. He was already 
 editor-in-chief of the " Orateur du Peuple," a journal 
 which was distinctly more violent in tone than thdt of 
 Camille, and to which Marat was often a-contributor. 
 In fact, Freron's whole style of writing reflects that 
 of the author of the " Ami du Peuple," and Marat 
 refers to the young man in his letters as his " dear 
 lieutenant." 
 
 Freron was a more deliberately pitiless, possibly a 
 more consistent Revolutionary, than Camille. His 
 writings are quite as inflammatory, but strike one as 
 more cold-blooded, lacking as they do the charm and 
 grace of style of those of his collaborator. 
 
 This " Lapin " Freron, as he was called by his 
 friends, was indeed a curious, contradictory character. 
 His activities were by no means confined to journalism. 
 Later he was to distinguish himself, and that not 
 altogether enviably, as a deputy from the Convention 
 on mission to Toulon. He was one of those who carried 
 the Terror into the Southern provinces of France, and, 
 in the name of Liberty, filled Toulon and Marseilles 
 with smoking ruins and desolated homes. 
 
 History has written down Freron as cruel and 
 bloodthirsty ; one of the mildest names applied to 
 him is that of " singe-tigre " ; yet his friends loved 
 him. He was one of that little irresponsible band of 
 intimates whom we shall see soon at Bourg-la-Reine, 
 laughing and playing together through Camille's long 
 honeymoon. He has left to us the most charming 
 and touching portrait of Lucile Desmoulins which it 
 is possible to imagine, in a letter to her husband, from 
 which we shall have occasion to quote later. 
 
 That is the other side of Stanislas Freron — the side 
 with which history does not reckon. 
 
 Some of the best numbers of the " Revolutions dd 
 
THE WEST WIND 113 
 
 France " were those which Camille wrote at about 
 this time. In Nos. 34-36 he describes in vivid 
 and picturesque language the Festival of the Federa- 
 tion in the Champ-de-Mars. This fete, held on July 
 14th, was in celebration of the first anniversary of the 
 taking of the Bastille, and it was perhaps the only 
 occasion on which the dreams of the ardent Revolu- 
 tionists seemed reaUy about to be realised in a kind of 
 transport of universal brotherhood. 
 
 Paris and provincial France were to hold festival 
 around the vast altar of the country in the Champ-de- 
 Mars. Thousands of representatives assembled from 
 all parts of the country. An army of workmen was 
 busied in preparing the arena to seat this huge con- 
 course, with its banked tiers of seats, but at the last 
 moment it was found that even this army was in- 
 sufficient for the labour in hand. 
 
 But the work must be done somehow — ^let the citizens 
 of Paris complete it. A kind of frenzy of enthusiasm 
 seized upon the people. High and low, rich and poor, 
 aU hastened to the Champ-de-Mars until the great 
 plain looked like an anthill. 
 
 The work went forward merrily ; the many hands 
 did indeed make it light. In that lovely summer 
 weather the toil was turned into a kind of picnic, an 
 occasion for rejoicing and merriment. Deputies, 
 nobles, fishwives and actresses all mingled together 
 with priests and students from the Colleges. Youth- 
 ful, ascetic Saint-Just jostled Madame du Barry with 
 her wheelbarrow — or so Camille tells us ; we may 
 believe in that dramatic incident or not as we please. 
 
 One hundred and fifty thousand volunteers working 
 together with hearts and hands ; it was all very 
 charming, very French, and immensely app'ealing to 
 Camille, as we gather from his glowing description 
 of this " stage ballet " — the " Reunion of the Orders," 
 as he calls it. 
 
 After all the festival itself was something of an anti- 
 
114 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 climax to the time of preparation. The weather was 
 terribly bad on the great day, and it went near to 
 spoiling the whole affair. 
 
 Camille tells us how numbers of people passed the 
 night on the Champ-de-Mars, how numbers more 
 hastened there at daybreak. \ 
 
 But the wind was icy cold and the rain fell in sheets ; 
 it spoke well for the good humour of that vast crowd 
 that their spirits were not entirely damped. The 
 resplendent procession of King, Deputies, Churchmen 
 and Nobles, with the eighty-three white banners of 
 the Departments, the flags of the Districts, and the 
 Oriflamme itself filed into the Champ-de-Mars in a 
 downpour ; most of the ceremonies were gone through 
 under pelting rain. But the people danced and 
 laughed and sang, and when at about three o'clock 
 the weather cleared, all discomforts were forgotten 
 in spite of damp clothes and ruined decorations. 
 
 Probably Camille himself joined in the procession 
 as one of the National volunteers who formed a guard 
 of honour ; we know that many journalists were 
 amongst them. Possibly he was one of those who 
 received the brass medal representing the Bastille, 
 worn on a tricolour ribbon as a military order, which 
 was presented by the Municipality to all those who 
 had assisted at the taking of the fortress. 
 
 Certainly he was present at the Festival ; certainly 
 he has described it for his contemporaries and for us 
 in the most glowing and enthusiastic language. 
 
 Yet he has one complaint to make, and that is of 
 the King himself. He demands why " Capet the 
 Elder " did not leave his throne in the Champ-de- 
 Mars empty, to represent that the sovereignty rested 
 with the people. In fact all through his numbers at 
 this time Camille shows scant reverence for Louis, or 
 for Royalty in general. 
 
 He tells us afterwards of the rejoicings and merry- 
 makings in the Champs-Elysees and on the site of the 
 
THE WEST WIND 115 
 
 Bastille, transformed into a forest of " trees of 
 liberty " surmounted by Phrygian caps. 
 
 Camille also mentions Danton in a curious and 
 characteristic anecdote. The Cordeliers had held a 
 banquet of their own in celebration of the Federation, 
 and on this occasion Danton, already the leading 
 spirit of this body, refused to drink any of the official 
 toasts, save that to the health of the Fatherland. 
 
 It is in one of these numbers which describe the 
 July festivals so joyfully that Camille first shows 
 that he is beginning to feel doubts as to his own 
 position. He had gone rather too far, rather too 
 often. Malouet, over-powerful to be disregarded, was 
 preparing to denounce the rash journalist in the 
 National Assembly. In Number 34 of the " Revolu- 
 tions " Camille expresses his misgivings. 
 
 " I begin to doubt whether I ought to sharpen so many 
 daggers against myself, in order to enlighten ungrateful 
 federals, 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 obUged by his conscience to lead the 
 wandering and underground life of M. Marat. It is all very 
 well to jump into the gulf like Curtius when one beHeves that 
 one's death wiU save one's country." 
 
 In a letter to his father at about this period Camille 
 writes in much the same strain of the dangers which 
 surrounded him and which, he says, menace him 
 daily, but he ends on a more heroic note. 
 
 " Many men sell their lives to kings for five sous," he says. 
 " Shall I then do nothing for the love of my country, of truth, 
 of justice ? I apply to myself that verse which AchiUes says 
 to a soldier in Homer : ' And Patrocles, he also is dead, who 
 was worth more than I ! ' " 
 
 The list of disputes and lawsuits in which Camille 
 involved himself at this time was endless. This was 
 natural enough in the case of a journalist who wrote 
 
ii6 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 openly , that, in his opinion: "There is an excess of 
 good sense and of wisdofti which one ought to avoid." 
 
 His accusations of bribery and corruption against 
 men in high places could not be suffered to pass 
 unnoticed, and Crillon, Antoine Talon and Bergasse 
 each in their turn demanded reparation from the over- 
 bold journalist. It must be confessed that they rarely 
 obtained anyparticularsatisfaction; at the worst Camille 
 was condemned at the Chatelet by default, a sentence 
 which did not trouble him over-much, we may imagine. 
 
 The Royalist journals also continued to attack him 
 furiously, and with all the more spite and venom 
 because their writers so seldom scored a hit against 
 Camille, the agile and adroit. 
 
 It was on the last day of July that Victor Malouet, 
 in an impassioned speech, denounced Camille before 
 the National Assembly. He was listened to with 
 attention, for Malouet was respected as an honest 
 man and a good constitutional Royalist. He protested 
 that the cruellest enemies of the Constitution were 
 those who wrote and spoke with a view to making the 
 King and Royalty itself an object of contempt and 
 scandal, who seized on the occasion of a great festival, 
 at which the King had received unanimous testi- 
 monies of love and loyalty, to speak of the insolence 
 of the throne, of the slight to the people. 
 
 In support of his words, Malouet then read a passage 
 from Camille's paper, where the journalist spoke of 
 the triumph of Paulus Emilius as a National Festival, 
 because a king, in deep humiliation, ' followed the 
 triumphal car with bound hands. 
 
 " It is not," the orator protested, " that I wish to avenge a 
 private injury. After a whole year of silence and contempt, I 
 come here as the avenger of a public crime." 
 
 Notwithstanding Malouet's asseverations of disin- 
 terestedness, it is very plain, on reading the text of 
 his " Complaint " against Camille addressed to the 
 
THE WEST WIND 117 
 
 Criminal Lieutenant of the Chatelet of Paris, that he 
 had personal as well as public injuries to avenge. 
 
 We find it stated here that : " the Hfe of the 
 complainant has been in danger. Pursued at Ver- 
 sailles, insulted at the door of the Assembly, over- 
 whelmed with anonymous letters, reduced to carry 
 firearms with which to defend himself, the com- 
 plainant attributes all this to Camille Desmoulins," 
 
 Malouet further adds that he judges from the 
 violence of his writing, especially in No. 31 of the 
 " Revolutions," that Camille is mad. He begs that 
 the journalist may be seen and examined by the Physi- 
 cian to the Chatelet and taken to any madhouse which 
 may be decided upon, as a violent and dangerous lunatic. 
 
 Malouet carried his point to the extent that the 
 advocate to the Chatelet was instructed to prosecute 
 such writings as Camille's, on the plea that it was 
 treason against the nation on the part of authors, 
 printers and hawkers to publish or aid to distribute 
 anything which might be calculated to, in any way, 
 incite the people to insurrection. 
 
 Two days afterwards, however, on August 2nd, an 
 address in defence of Camille and written by Ijiimself 
 was read in the Assembly. In this he complained 
 that the treasonable number of his journal had not 
 been, publicly read by his accuser. 
 
 Camille was present, as he tells us, on this occasion, 
 in his very best ruffled shirt, in order that he might 
 make a good impression if he was forced to appear 
 at the bar of the Assembly. When Malouet challenged 
 the journalist to speak for himself, in his own defence, 
 he did so, rather unexpectedly. But Camille was no 
 more eloquent than usual on this occasion, and he 
 was soon howled down. 
 
 It would probably have gone hardly with him, and 
 he expected, as he says, that he would most certainly 
 have been arrested had it not been for the interven- 
 tion of " my dear Robespierre." 
 
ii8 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Camille himself describes his escape in light and 
 jeering fashion, although there is little doubt that, 
 at the time, he fully realised his danger, and did not 
 look upon it as hy any means a joke. 
 
 " It was half-past eleven," he says. " Mirabeau-Tonneau 
 was tormented with the wish to moisten his dry gullet, and I 
 was indebted for the silence which Camus obtained less to the 
 president's beU than to the official bell which called the 
 aristocrats and the ministerialists to supper. They at once 
 abandoned the field of battle ; I was led out in triumph ; and 
 scarcely had I tasted a little repose before a chorus of patriotic 
 news-vendors came to arouse me with the sound of my own 
 name, and cried under my windows : ' Great Confusion of 
 Malouet ! Great Victory of Camille Desmoulins ! ' " 
 
 As a matter of fact the result of the whole affair was 
 that, on Petion's motion supported hy Alexandre de 
 Lameth, the Assembly decreed that there should be 
 no prosecution for anything published up to that 
 time. The only work excepted from this amnesty 
 was Marat's pamphlet, " C'en est fait de nous." 
 
 It is said that a National Guard, on hearing of 
 Camille's acquittal, proclaimed that if he met the 
 journalist he would cut open his head with his sword. 
 Camille's comment is characteristic. " That man," he 
 remarks in his journal, " evidently does not like a joke." 
 
 Camille certainly was lucky in escaping with a whole 
 skin on this and other occasions. 
 
 He received, in common with most of the other 
 leading Revolutionaries, constant challenges from the 
 fiery little band of Royalists, whom their opponents 
 styled " assassinateurs " or " spadassinicides." 
 
 These men, fine swordsmen all, associated them- 
 selves together with the avowed aim of provoking 
 duels with the popular leaders, and by this means, if 
 possible, abruptly terminating their careers. These 
 Royalist champions were, as a rule, noblemen, accus- 
 tomed since boyhood to the use of the sword. The 
 men whom they tried to drive by insults and open 
 
THE WEST WIND 119 
 
 challenges to fight, were commonly, like Camille, of 
 the bourgeois class and consequently quite unused 
 to the '' gentlemanly " method of settling disputes, a 
 fact which, no doubt, encouraged their opponents to 
 expect an easy task. 
 
 But the Court gentlemen did not reckon on the fact 
 that these adversaries of theirs were totally devoid 
 of what they considered honourable feelings. These 
 lawyers and journalists of the Third Estate thought it 
 no disgrace to refuse to fight, in spite of insults, and 
 consequently the tactics of the " assassinateurs " were 
 as a ride, unsuccessful. 
 
 As to Camille's own attitude with regard to the 
 matter, we are able to give it expression in words 
 which he is reported, on good authority, to have used. 
 In No. 42 of the " Revolutions de France," the 
 journalist very grossly insulted a Royalist actor, one 
 Dessessarts, a good-natured, harmless fellow enough. 
 He was exceedingly stout, and, apropos of this, Camille 
 utilised a cruel story, which might well stick to its 
 victim, making him ridiculous for the rest of his life. 
 
 The actor was very naturally enraged, and, happen- 
 ing to encounter CamiUe a few days later, at the Swiss 
 Restaurant in the Luxembourg, promptly challenged 
 him to a duel. It must be confessed that it is only in 
 his answer to Dessessarts that Camille appears to any 
 advantage in this affair. He absolutely refused to 
 fight, saying : — 
 
 " It will be by continuing to harass the Black party and the 
 ministerialists that I shall revenge myself. I might pass my 
 whole life at the Bois de Boulogne, if I were obliged to give 
 satisfaction to everybody who takes offence at my plain- 
 speaking. Let them accuse me of cowardice if they like. 
 Have patience — I fear the time is not far off when we shall have- i 
 opportunities of dying more usefuUy and gloriously." 
 
 In the autumn of 1790 Camille's greatest friend and 
 rival amongst contemporary journalists, Loustalot, 
 
120 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 editor of thfe " Revolutions de Paris," died suddenly, 
 it is said of grief at the news of the massacre of the 
 Swiss Guards at Nancy. 
 
 There is an earnestness and a sense of conviction 
 in this man's writings for which we seek in vain in the 
 most part of CamiUe's earlier work. Loustalot, as a 
 journalist, took himself and his readers very seriously. 
 As Eugene Despois says, comparing the two men: " To 
 appreciate Loustalot, it is sufficient to be a patriot, to 
 know how to read and to have good sense ; these condi- 
 tions alone do not enable one to enjoy Desmoulins." 
 
 Loustalot's good faith and honesty were undoubted ; 
 his popularity was immense, and it is said that before 
 his early death he could count on two hundred 
 thousand readers. Camille, with that frank generosity 
 which he always displayed towards the writers of his 
 party, said that he " was the journalist who has best 
 served the Republic." 
 
 It is certain that Loustalot was one of the best and 
 purest type of Revolutionary, free from the stigma of 
 inciting to bloodshed, although his bitterness could 
 lead Saint-Jean-d'Angely to say, on hearing of his 
 death : " Ah, then, he has sucked his own pen." 
 
 It was Camille who delivered the funeral oration of 
 the dead journalist at the Jacobin Club, where his obse- 
 quies were celebrated for three days. On this occasion 
 he seems to have spoken, for once, effectively and well. 
 
 " Loustalot," lie said, " always despised the enemies who 
 tried to defame him. He could not understand the baseness 
 of those journalists who, instead of calling men to liberty and 
 equality, 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 liberation and talent to 
 the level of domestic servitude." 
 
 In justice to Camille, it must be said that, like 
 Loustalot, he was not one of " such men as these." 
 
Ill 
 
 IN spite of lawsuits and Royalist challenges this 
 winter of 1790 and the year which followed 
 was by far the happiest period of Camille's life. 
 He had certainly made plenty of enemies, 
 but, nevertheless, he was successful, praised and 
 flattered. Moreover, though not by any means rich, 
 he was in more comfortable circumstances than he 
 had ever been before. Above all, it was in December 
 of this year that Camille at last gained the desire of his 
 heart. 
 
 The wind was to blow softly from the west for a 
 short time at least, and the weather-cock turned at 
 the gentle touch. It did not last very long, this 
 happiness of Camille's, but for those few months he 
 felt, and constantly repeated, that there was nothing 
 left on earth for him to desire. 
 
 We have seen the gradual growth of the love 
 between Camille Desmoulins and Lucile Duplessis. 
 It was no sudden, transitory passion, but something 
 which had taken long to arrive at perfection, which had 
 been at once a torment and an ecstasy, at least as far 
 as the man was concerned. 
 
 Camille had watched Lucile grow from a beautiful 
 child into a still more beautiful girl — watched her, 
 scarcely daring to hope that some day he might win her 
 for his own. 
 
 Now she was twenty years oldj a woman with a 
 woman's mind and will, in spite of her fragile and 
 childish appearance. As to her loveliness there is no un- 
 certainty. All the writers of that day who mention 
 
122 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Lucile Desmoulins speak of her beauty with enthusi- 
 asm. Jules Claretie, who had himself heard her 
 appearance described hy eye-witnesses, says that " she 
 was of small stature, and very graceful, with beautiful 
 fair hair, like a portrait by Greuze." 
 
 A contemporary writer, one Moreau de Jonnes, tells 
 us also that " she was an adorable little blonde," 
 but it appears that although her hair and complexion 
 were strikingly fair, Lucile had dark eyes. Her own 
 mother said of her that " her eyes were not blue, but 
 black, like her father's." 
 
 Yet, on the whole, perhaps one likes Camille's own 
 half-shy compliment to his wife the best of all. He 
 was asked by Mademoiselle Ste. Amaranthe, herself 
 acknowledged to be one of the most lovely women of 
 her day, whether Lucile were not very pretty. " Made- 
 moiselle," he is said to have answered, " she would be 
 beautiful even by the side of you." 
 
 Probably Lucile Desmoulins' best-known portrait 
 is that by Boilly in the Musee Carnavelet. This, and 
 other existing pictures, certainly represent her as 
 charmingly pretty, but, judging only by these, one 
 might imagine that Camille's wife was of the wax- 
 doll type in body and mind. Nothing could be 
 further from the truth. Lucile proved again and again 
 that she possessed character, and character of a very 
 distinct and definite quality. We have already seen 
 something of what she was as a wilful, charming girl, 
 indulged by her parents and full of immature dreams 
 and fancies. Under the strain and stress of her bitter-r, 
 sweet married life, Lucile was to develop quickly. 
 There was a strong soul and a brave spirit in that 
 dainty Dresden-china girl, who, at first sight, would 
 seem to need a landscape by Watteau as her fittest 
 frame. 
 
 Camille had waited full seven years for his Rachel : 
 at last his patience was to be rewarded. 
 
 Very gradually M. Duplessis' opinions had changed, 
 
THE WEST WIND 123 
 
 or rather they had been modified. Perhaps the 
 fideHty of the young man touched him ; more probably 
 Camille's ever-growing popularity was not without its 
 effect. 
 
 At the outset of the Revolution, in spite of his 
 sudden leap into fame, the journalist had been in a 
 minority and, as such, was no desirable son-in-law for 
 an honest, respectable burgess, however broad-minded 
 and liberal of view. But during this year of 1790 
 things had altered. Camille had been the editor of a 
 thriving journal for twelve months. Moreover, the 
 Revolution had become, in a measure, fashionable ; it 
 was the correct thing nowadays to be rather advanced, 
 to wear brooches and breast-pins made from the stones 
 of the Bastille, and to talk of Liberty, Equality and 
 Fraternity with large capitals. Why, 1 the King 
 himself had taken the oath upon the altar of the 
 Fatherland in the Champ-de-Mars, and at present 
 men had no reason to doubt that he intended to 
 keep it faithfully. 
 
 M. Duplessis began to think that perhaps Camille 
 Desmoulins, this firebrand of a politician, might not be 
 so objectionable a connection after all. It would be 
 rather pleasant to be related to a man who was spoken 
 of as the most rising journalist of the day, now that 
 Loustalot was dead. 
 
 As to Madame Duplessis, we may be quite sure that 
 she did all in her power to further the match. Her 
 sympathy had always been with the lovers. 
 
 And Lucile ? Her feelings are plainly revealed in a 
 letter written by her to Camille, but never sent to its 
 destination. It is published by M. Claretie, and one 
 cannot resist quoting from it, although it seems almost 
 sacrilege to do so. Yet nothing else can show us so 
 plainly the limitless love which filled the girl's heart. ' 
 
 " Oh, thou who art in the depth of my being, 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 
 
124 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 me after thine own heart ? And could that heart attach 
 itself to a being without feehng f Ah, well, yes— it is better 
 that I suffer, it is better that you should forget me. Oh, 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 sufferest, 
 sayest thou ? Oh, I suffer more ; thine iniage 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." 
 
 So it came to pass that on December nth, 1790, M. 
 Duplessis at last gave his consent to the betrothal. 
 Camille could not believe in his good fortune ; he had 
 scarcely dared to hope that this joy would ever be his. 
 His own tender words will best describe that first 
 interview with Lucile as her affianced husband. It is 
 a letter written to his father on the same day which 
 contains the passage : — 
 
 " To-day, the eleventh of December, you see me at last 
 at the summit of my desires. My happiness has lingered for 
 long, but at last it has come and I am as happy as one can 
 possibly be on earth. Thaf charming Lucile, of whom I have 
 so often spoken to you and whom I have loved for eight years, 
 has at last been given to me by her parents, and she herself 
 does not refuse me. 
 
 " Just now her mother came to teU me the news, weeping 
 with joy : the inequahty of fortune, for M. Duplessis has an 
 income of 20,000 livres a year, has so far delayed our happiness ; 
 her father was tempted by the offers that were made to him. 
 He dismissed a suitor who came with 100,000 francs ; Lucile, 
 who had already refused 25,000 livres, had no difficulty in 
 rejecting him. You will understand her character by this 
 single trait. 
 
 " Directly after her mother had given her to me, she led 
 me to her chamber ; I threw myself at Lucile's feet. Surprised 
 to hear her laugh I lifted my eyes ; hers were in no better a 
 state than mine. She was all in tears ; she wept abundantly, 
 although she laughed at the same time. Never have I seen 
 
THE WEST WIND 125 
 
 such a charming sight, and I could not have imagined that 
 nature and sensibility could join these two contrasting feelings 
 in such a way." 
 
 Camille goes on to tell his father with distinct pride 
 that Lucile will bring him a dowry of 100,000 francs, 
 and that M. Duplessis also intends to bestow half of 
 his plate upon the young couple, to the value of 
 10,000 francs. 
 
 In this same letter Camille announces that he 
 wishes to be married in eight days' time, and implores 
 his father to send his consent at once, by return of 
 post. As M. Desmoulins did not reply immediately 
 the young man writes again in feverish impatience 
 on the 1 8th and 20th of the month, reminding his 
 father that he is counting the minutes until his 
 marriage can take place. 
 
 And, after all, the delay was entirely Camille's own 
 fault. In his hurry and excitement he had forgotten 
 to send his father Lucile's full name and that of her 
 father and mother, all of which was necessary in order 
 that M. Duplessis' consent might be made out in 
 the proper legal form. 
 
 However, it was all put right, at the cost of a little 
 delay. M. and Madame Desmoulins were overjoyed 
 at the happiness of their son, and sent affectionate 
 messages to Lucile and her parents, together with their 
 formal consent. 
 
 Nevertheless, all the obstacles in Camille's path were 
 not yet overcome. The date of the wedding had been 
 fixed for December 29th, but it is a proof of how 
 strong religious feeling yet was in France that, since 
 the season was Advent, it was necessary to procure a 
 dispensation before the ceremony could take place. 
 Camille was not in high favour with the Church, as 
 may be imagined, and it was only through the 
 intervention of the Abbe Berardier, his old school- 
 master, that this dispensation was at last forthcoming. 
 
 It was the wish of Berardier, moreover, to marry 
 
126 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 this favourite pupil of his, and M. de Pancemont, 
 cure of St. Sulpice, was persuaded to allow this, and 
 himself only to assist on the occasion. But this same 
 M. de Pancemont was determined to have his own 
 way in other respects. Free-thinking, free-speaking 
 Camille was, in a measure, at his mercy, and the priest 
 positively refused to allow the wedding to take place 
 unless the journalist made a public profession of faith 
 in the Catholic religion. 
 
 This M. de Pancemont could not obtain in so many 
 words ; he was obliged to be content with Camille's 
 rather hesitating answer to his assertion that, if he 
 were not a Catholic, he could not confer upon him a 
 sacrament of that religion. 
 
 " Well, then, yes," said Camille, " if that be the 
 case, I am a Catholic." 
 
 Two further concessions the priest did obtain, 
 after subjecting the journalist to a catechism which 
 that young gentleman managed to wriggle through, 
 although scarcely with flying colours. He made 
 Camille promise to retract his heretical opinions in 
 the next number of his paper — a promise which, by 
 the way, the journalist never performed. M. de 
 Pancement also exacted that the young man should 
 make his confession . before the wedding ceremony, 
 and we know from the testimony of Madame Duplessis 
 herself that in this respect Camille kept his word. 
 
 Writing some years afterwards, Lucile's mother 
 said : — 
 
 " It was I who drove Camille and Lucile in my carriage, a 
 few days before their marriage, to the Cordeliers, where a 
 Father confessed them, one after the other — first of all 
 Camille, and then Lucile, who awaited her turn at the other 
 side of the Confessional. They confessed with such confidence 
 and ingenuousness that I could hear everything." 
 
 And so, the way being plain and all obstacles 
 removed, Camille and Lucile were married on Decem- 
 ber 29th at the Church of St. Sulpice. 
 
THE WEST WIND 127 
 
 It must have pleased the bridegroom's boyish 
 vanity to see how the citizens of Paris crowded round 
 the doors of the church to watch the wedding pro- 
 cession of their favourite writer. It was what we 
 should call now a fashionable ceremony. One can 
 imagine how the people nudged each other and then 
 broke into cheers when they saw such famous guests as 
 Sillery, Mercier, Jerome Petion, Brissot de Warville 
 and, above all, Maximilian Robespierre enter the 
 church. 
 
 It is easy to picture Camille, hastening to meet his 
 bride, his queer, ugly face radiant and transfigured 
 with happiness, wearing " a white waistcoat, worked 
 with flowers." 
 
 As to Lucile, one can almost feel the stir of admira- 
 tion which moved the crowd, as she passed up the 
 aisle on her father's arm, dressed in her wedding veil, 
 and a pink satin dress, with narrow sleeves and little 
 basques. That wedding dress and Camille's gorgeous 
 waistcoat are still preserved, as M. Lenotre tells us, at 
 Laon, together with a silk garter worn by Lucile on 
 this, the greatest day of her life, and embroidered 
 with forget-me-nots and joined hands, surrounding 
 the motto : " Unisson-nous-pour-la-vie." 
 
 Emotional Camille was very deeply moved by the 
 marriage service. He writes to his father : — 
 
 " Berardier pronounced before the celebration a touching 
 discourse, which made us both weep, Lucile and I. We were 
 not the only ones to be affected ; everybody around us had tears 
 in their eyes." 
 
 " Cry, if you want to cry," Robespierre is said to 
 have whispered at sight of these tears of Camille's, 
 as he and Mercier stood holding the canopy over the 
 bridal pair. 
 
 After the ceremony was over the whole party made 
 their way along the Rue de Conde to Camille's 
 apartments, on the third floor of No. i Rue de 
 
128 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Theatre Frangais, where the wedding breakfast was 
 prepared. 
 
 Eleven persons were gathered about that large 
 round mahogany table, which still exists, a silent 
 witness of what must have been a merry, innocent 
 festivity enough. Besides Camille and Lucile and 
 M. and Madame Duplessis, Lucile's sister Adele, 
 whom at this time Robespierre is said to have admired, 
 was present, together with Robespierre himself, 
 Berardier, Mercier, Petion, Sillery and Brissot. 
 
 Probably the occasion passed in much the same 
 fashion as other wedding breakfasts before and since. 
 Doubtless there were speeches from one and another ; 
 we can fancy Camille, more or less incoherent, his 
 stammer very marked in his nervous excitement. 
 We can also imagine that Robespierre, the principal 
 guest, proposed the health of the bride and bride- 
 groom in careful, well-chosen language. 
 
 On the face of it, all was very peaceful, very pleasant 
 — very ordinary, in short — but under the light comedy 
 of Camille's wedding there lies a deep vein of tragedy. 
 
 It is only necessary to read through the names of 
 the witnesses to the ceremony, one by one, names well 
 known then, and since underlined deeply on the pages 
 of history. It is said that the worthy vicar of St. 
 Sulpice, Gueudeville, was terror-struck at the sight 
 of these signatures, already so famous, or infamous. 
 
 After the names of Camille, Lucile, and M. and 
 Madame Duplessis, comes that of Jerome Petion — 
 handsome, honest, conceited, rather stupid Petion, 
 most popular of popular idols, soon to be Mayor of 
 Paris, soon to think himself admired by Elizabeth of 
 France herself. 
 
 Petion was now one of the most advanced of 
 Revolutionaries, but in a few short years he will be 
 considered a reactionary ; as a Girondin he will be 
 hunted through France, never so worthy of admiration 
 as in his brave, simple cheerfulness during that terrible 
 
THE WEST WIND 129 
 
 flight. He was destined to lie at last, starved and worn- 
 out, amongst the stubble of a corn-field, his body 
 torn and devoured by the dogs of the village — and he 
 was to owe that death in some measure to Camille 
 Desmoulins, once his friend. 
 
 The next important signature is written in a neat, 
 careful hand. It is that of Maximilian-Marie-Isidore 
 Robespierre. Camille considered, and with reason, 
 that he owed much to " my dear Robespierre." Had 
 not the great Maximilian saved him when the rash 
 journalist was almost undone by Malouet's eloquence, 
 only a few months before ? Many of the numbers of 
 Camille's paper at this time were directly inspired by 
 Robespierre ; as far as was compatible with their 
 respective natures, they were intimate friends. 
 
 Camille was to be indebted to Robespierre in a far 
 different sense some three years later. He was to owe 
 to that same dear friend his arrest, and his death. 
 
 Following Robespierre's name comes that of 
 Mercier, one of the few amongst the signatories who 
 was to outlive the Revolution, and to write later his 
 recollections of those days. 
 
 And here is the signature of Brissot, Jean Brissot de 
 Warville, deputy to the National Assembly. Brissot 
 was one of the foremost journalists of the day. His 
 paper, the " Patriote Frangais," was at the same time 
 the bitterest and the most unswerving in its steady, 
 cold patriotism. He was a Republican almost as soon 
 as Camille himself, and only less daring than the 
 younger man in the expression of his views. 
 
 Yet, not much more than two years later, Brissot 
 and his party were to be the victims of the worst act of 
 Camille's life. He was to send the man who had been 
 his intimate friend to death, by means of a scurrilous 
 pamphlet, and to realise, too late, that it was he, 
 Camille, who had killed Brissot, and with him the men 
 who might have saved France from the anarchy which 
 followed. 
 
130 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Read by the light of later events, it is a tragic 
 document, this marriage contract between Lucie- 
 Simplice-Camille-Benoist Desmoulins, journalist and 
 man of letters, aged thirty, and Anne-Lucile-Philippe- 
 Laridon Duplessis, aged twenty. 
 
 But at present CamiUe's happiness was unclouded. 
 He writes to his father on January 3rd a letter full of 
 joyous pride. 
 
 " All agree," he says, " in admiring my wife, as 
 perfectly beautiful, and I assure you that this beauty 
 is her least merit." 
 
 Finally he signs himself : " Votre fils, Camille 
 Desmoulins, le plus heureux des hommes, et qui ne 
 desire plus rien au monde." 
 
 Camille and Lucile spent their honeymoon at 
 Bourg-la-Reine. Madame Duplessis had a small 
 property there, a little farm-house called Clos-Payen, 
 situated on the right-hand side of the road from Paris, 
 just at the entrance to the village. 
 
 M. Lenotre sought out the house in recent years, 
 and describes it to us as it is now, and as it was in those 
 days when Camille brought thither his young bride. 
 
 It is a picturesque old farm, such as are common 
 throughout France. The courtyard, round which the 
 buildings cluster, is entered through a gateway, whose 
 door-posts are surmounted by large stone balls. In 
 this courtyard is an old well, shaded by a walnut tree. 
 
 The house possessed a large garden, shaded by trees, 
 and bordered by a double row of lindens, and in the 
 northernmost corner of the estate, connected with 
 the main building by a foot-path, was a little stone 
 cottage, which had been built especially for Camille 
 and Lucile. This tiny house was given to them by 
 Madame Duplessis, and here they spent not only their 
 honeymoon, but also days and even weeks together 
 during the next eighteen months. 
 
 Here Lucile held a kind of little salon, of a sort 
 peculiar to herself ; here the two lived the simple life, 
 
THE WEST WIND 131 
 
 as we should call it now, in the style of, Rousseau and 
 Bernardin de St. Pierre. A small circle of friends 
 visited Bourg-la-Reine from time to time, most of 
 them young and probably all the more joyous and 
 irresponsible because they had escaped from Paris for 
 a time, from Paris, which was now so grim, so deadly 
 in earnest. 
 
 Madame Duplessis spent much time with heir 
 daughter and son-in-law, and Camille always speaks of 
 her with the greatest affection— ^their dear " Daronne " 
 or " Melpomene," as the coterie at Bourg-la-Reine 
 called her. 
 
 They all had nicknames ; it was part of the game 
 which they loved to play when they were together. 
 Lucile was turn by turn " The indefinable being," 
 "Lolotte," "Loup," "Rouleau," or "the Cachan 
 Hen," names meaningless enough to us, who can only 
 guess at their associations, and the little intimate 
 stories connected with them. 
 
 Camille himself was " Bouli-Boula," " loup-loup," 
 or, more usually, " M. Hon " in allusion to his 
 stammer. Amongst their other friends, Brune, after- 
 wards Marshal of France under the Empire, was 
 " Patagon," Duplain " Saturn," and Stanislas Freron, 
 Camille's sub-editor, was " Lapin." 
 
 It was Freron who, of all the little circle, was most 
 intimate with his young host and hostess. In common 
 with most of the men who knew her, he almost 
 idolised pretty Lucile ; perhaps he loved her better 
 than he or she knew. 
 
 It is from a letter written by him at Toulon later, 
 when Camille was demanding the " Committee 
 of Clemency," that we gain the best idea of 
 that charming, idyllic life at Bourg-la-Reine. Freron 
 has been warning Camille against letting his imagina- 
 tion run away with him, his philanthropy blind him — 
 this Committee of his would be a triumph for the 
 anti-revolutionaries. Then the writer pauses and lets 
 
132 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 his memory stray back to Bourg-la-Reine, and to the 
 old happy days which he had spent there. 
 
 He recalls : " the thyme and wild herbs with which 
 Madame Desmoulins' pretty dimpled hands had fed 
 him." He lingers tenderly over a charming picture o£ 
 Lucile : " 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 coflFee with 
 a filtering bag, behaving like a sprite, and showing her 
 teeth like a cat." 
 
 This letter, in a few words, brings Lucile before us, 
 as no amount of elaborate description could do, with 
 all her inconsequent charm. 
 
 Amidst the misery and turmoil of Toulon under the 
 rule of the Terror, a rule for which he himself was 
 responsible, it is strange and incongruous to read how 
 Freron's thoughts turned to his low-ceiled bedroom 
 at Bourg-la-Reine, where the tired journalist rested 
 after his week of drudgery in Paris. We see, in the 
 glass of Freron's memory, Camille's happy face as he 
 leans in over the window-sill, mocking at his friend's 
 slothfulness, we catch the echo of Lucile's favourite 
 phrase : " What does that matter to me ? It's as 
 clear as day." 
 
 So the happy innocent days sped by ; days which 
 developed all that was best in Camille's nature. As 
 Chateaubriand said : " A young and charming woman 
 in awakening Desmoulins' heart to love, made him 
 capable of virtue and sacrifice." 
 
 Little Camille cared that his admirers in Paris were 
 openly disappointed in their favourite journalist. 
 They missed his gay raillery, his bitter jests : a 
 versifier wrote to him, parodying the warning sent to 
 Brutus : " Tu dors, Camille, et Paris est esclave." 
 
 Camille was troubled by none of these things. He 
 was happy, and, that being so, he had forgotten for 
 the moment to be cruel even in jest. It was at this 
 
THE WEST WIND 133 
 
 time, early in 1791, that he declared his belief that the 
 end o£ the Revolution was at hand. He publicly 
 announced his intention of giving up journalism 
 and resuming his work at the Bar, so that he might 
 live quietly with Lucile — " to make a good husband," 
 as he quaintly expressed it. This was one of those 
 resolutions which are only made to be broken. 
 
 Once a writer, always a writer, at least as far as 
 Camille was concerned. He could not so lightly 
 abandon that which was his very life. 
 
 After a honeymoon which, we may be sure, seemed 
 only too brief to both of them, Lucile and Camille 
 returned to Paris, to play at housekeeping in their 
 own little home in the Rue de Theatre Frangais. 
 Here they had for neighbours, on the second floor of 
 No. 22 Rue de Conde, the Duplessis family, and for 
 housemates on the second floor of their own building?^ 
 M. and Madame Danton. 
 
 Hitherto Danton has not appeared in any very 
 intimate connection with Camille, and it is rather 
 difficult to say precisely when their real friendship 
 began. Considerably later, in a letter of April 3rd, 
 1792, Camille mentions Danton to his father as " an 
 old college comrade, who, while hating his (Camille's) 
 opinions, does not extend his hatred to the man 
 himself." 
 
 It is true that Carlyle draws on his imagination 
 to the extent of making Danton and Camille appear 
 as intimate friends at such an early date as the opening , 
 of the States-General in 1789. But although his 
 description of the two men, who, it will be remem- 
 bered, he represents as watching the procession 
 together, is dramatic and striking, it is very certain 
 that he had little or no authority for so connecting 
 them. 
 
 It seems probable that Camille and Danton were 
 acquaintances very likely from their college days, but 
 that they did not become in any sense friends until 
 
134 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 they were living in the same house and, therefore, 
 naturally thrown together to a much greater extent. 
 
 Be that as it may, from the beginning of 1791 
 onwards there can be no doubt that Danton exercised 
 a very great influence over Camille. Michelet 
 has even gone so far as to describe the younger 
 man as " a flower which grew upon Danton." It was 
 the natural influence of a strong nature over one 
 which was essentially weak in fibre. Camille, in spite 
 of the boldness and originality of his pen, was, through- 
 out his career, always more or less under the ascendancy 
 of others. At first it was Mirabeau whose personaUty 
 dominated the young man, later Danton's influence 
 succeeded to that of his great prototype. Always, up 
 to nearly the end, Camille accepted the guidance of 
 Robespierre, that man of unswerving principles and 
 oit-and-dried rules of conduct, who used the brilliant 
 journalist as his catspaw, and finally, like the moral 
 coward that he was, left CamiUe to his fate, rather 
 than betray, possibly to his own undoing, his sympathy 
 with the policy which inspired the " Vieux Cordelier." 
 
 CamiUe had one trouble in these early days of his 
 married life which resulted directly from his great 
 happiness. We have seen how from the time of his 
 first entry into journalism, the young man found 
 himself engaged in an incessant warfare with his rivals 
 of the opposite camp of thought, a warfare in which 
 the advantage of skill decidedly rested with Camille. 
 t This very fact only served to make his adversaries 
 the more bitter and vindictive, and the marriage of 
 the Republican journalist was made by them the 
 occasion for a fresh outburst of calumnies, directed 
 this time not so much against Camille himself as 
 against his wife. 
 
 It was a vile weapon, this which the RoyaUst 
 writers used, but one unfortunately very typical of the 
 newspaper warfare of that time. It is impossible to 
 tell who invented the abominable scandal, but certain 
 
THE WEST WIND 135 
 
 it is that journal after journal repeated with variations 
 more or less discreditable that Lucile Desmoiilins was 
 the illegitimate daughter of the Abbe Terray. Even 
 worse things were hinted at, but these one need not 
 mention here. 
 
 Of course, the lie was absolutely unfounded. 
 Camille, in the letter to his father on January 3rd, 
 stigmatises it as " utter nonsense," and careful research 
 only serves to verify the truth of this assertion. But, 
 nevertheless, it is plain that the young husband was 
 deeply wounded when the libel was reprinted again 
 and again, by the " Journal de la Cour et de la Ville," 
 by Peltier in the " Actes des Apotres," by Retif de la 
 Bretonne and others. Indeed, Camille wished to 
 institute proceedings against the " Journal de la Cour 
 et de la ViUe," but, as he tells his father, the Duplessis 
 persuaded him to treat such shameless falsehoods with 
 contempt. " This respectable family," he says, " only 
 laugh at the calumnies of these infamous aristocrats, 
 and have counselled me to despise them." 
 
 Camille could indeed afford to do so. The love 
 between himself and his wife was too deep-rooted and 
 sacred a thing to be affected by such spiteful breezes 
 as these. 
 
IV 
 
 THE first six months of 1791 were not only 
 peaceful and undisturbed as far as Camille's 
 private life was concerned, it was also a 
 more or less uneventful period for Paris 
 and for the whole of France. 
 
 The Assembly and the people in general had not yet 
 lost trust in the King ; the rude awakening of the 
 flight to Varennes was still to come. They believed 
 more or less in Louis' personal good faith, if not in 
 that of the Queen and his other advisers. Those who 
 were optimistically inclined began to believe that a 
 system of government might indeed be established on 
 somewhat the same lines as the English constitution. 
 
 The RepubUcan party kept quiet, at least in public ; 
 they really had no opportunity to do otherwise. True, 
 there were some few journalists, amongst whom 
 Camille was prominent, who still voiced their opinions 
 loudly, but even he is distinctly milder during this 
 period. 
 
 Meanwhile the Royalists were working silently, but 
 deliberately. They made their plans and only waited 
 for an opportunity to carry them into practice. There 
 is not a particle of evidence to show that the King 
 ever intended to keep faith with the Assembly and the 
 people. Later investigations go rather to prove that, 
 all this time, whilst outwardly conforming to the 
 constitution, he was intriguing with the Austrian 
 Emperor and the " emigres." 
 
 The Court sought right and left for members of 
 the popular party whom they might corrupt and bring 
 
 136 
 
THE WEST WIND 137 
 
 over to their side. They found a mighty tool to their 
 hand in Mirabeau. 
 
 There is no doubt that for sontie months before his 
 death the great Tribune was the paid servant of the 
 King and Queen, using all his vast powers for their 
 interests. Yet it is scarcely fair to say that his principles 
 were corrupted. Mirabeau was never anything but a 
 monarchist in theory and in speech. He never wished 
 that the King might be dethroned ; he required only 
 that he should reign constitutionally. 
 
 This being so, it was not an act of treason in 
 Mirabeau to use his best endeavours to prop up the 
 falling monarchy. Of course, it would be useless to 
 pretend that his personal ambitions were not involved. 
 He longed to be all-powerful himself, but as a prime 
 minister, not as a Cromwell. 
 
 The leaders of the advanced party made no allow- 
 ances. Mirabeau had been their idol, their greatest 
 orator, their strongest support. Now he had failed 
 them ; he spoke and worked, almost openly, on the 
 side of the Court. They called him " Traitor " in no 
 uncertain terms. The newsboys cried in the streets, 
 outside the very hall of the Assembly, of the " Great 
 treason of Mirabeau," their sheets were thrust in his 
 face when he left the sessions, he was hissed as often 
 as he was applauded when he rose to speak. 
 
 It was on February 28th that Mirabeau made his 
 last great bid for popularity, and with partial success. 
 That afternoon in the Assembly, during a debate on 
 the question of the " emigres," he vehemently 
 opposed the proposal to make any laws against emigra- 
 tion. This was the opportunity for which the " Left " 
 or extremists had waited. Led by Barnave and 
 Lameth, they raised a tumult of hisses and interrup- 
 tions. 
 
 But once again and almost for the last time Mirabeau 
 dominated the Assembly by the sheer weight of his 
 personality. In a fury he swung round upon the men 
 
138 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 who would have shouted him down, and quelled 
 them with the famous phrase, thundered out in that 
 great roar of his : " Silence, those thirty voices ! " 
 
 They were silent — for the moment, but at the 
 Jacobins that night the malcontents proclaimed their 
 anger and their wrongs loudly and at length. 
 
 Yet Mirabeau was not the man who would let the 
 opportunity pass to follow up an advantage. He also 
 presented himself at the Jacobins, and confronted the 
 fury of the Lameths and Duport. Once again he was 
 victorious, at least according to almost all accounts, 
 and finally descended from the tribune amidst 
 thunders of applause. 
 
 We are bound to confess that Camille gives a rather 
 different version of the aifair. If we may trust him, 
 Mirabeau was visibly abashed before the attacks of 
 Lameth and his supporters. Camille, in fact, in a 
 metaphor which he can scarcely have realised was 
 really the highest of praise, compared Mirabeau to a 
 new Christ on a new Calvary. 
 
 However, on this occasion, as on many others, it is 
 impossible to accept implicitly Camille's authority. 
 In this connection we cannot do better than quote 
 Mr. J. H. McCarthy's very just estimate of the 
 journalist's veracity. 
 
 " It would be absurd," he says, " to take Camille Desmoulins 
 seriously or to rely seriously on his account of any event. He 
 was above all things emotional, sensitive to the impressions of 
 the hour ; he cannot be gravely credited with opinions of his 
 own ; he was the prey of impulses, the sport of passions, a 
 fascinating child." 
 
 Moreover, where Mirabeau is concerned Camille 
 was biassed. He was now one of the foremost accusers 
 of the great man, he who had once loved Mirabeau 
 " as a mistress." 
 
 Nevertheless, in this case it would not be just to 
 accuse the journalist of inconstancy. In his own 
 
THE WEST WIND 139 
 
 phrase, it was the wind that had changed, and not the 
 weathercock. From Camille's point of view Mirabeau 
 was indeed a traitor, but it is undeniable that a certain 
 amount o£ private bitterness affected his attitude 
 towards his one-time friend. Mirabeau had never 
 taken his young protege sufficiently seriously, and 
 Camille longed to show him that he was a force to be 
 reckoned with. 
 
 Not that Mirabeau had ever appeared to underrate 
 Camille's powers as a journalist ; he knew too well the 
 growing importance of the Press. There may be a 
 certain amount of exaggeration in the assertions made 
 by Camille a little later in a letter to Brissot, but it is 
 equally probable that they contain a great deal of 
 truth. 
 
 " His friends know how much he [Mirabeau] dreaded my 
 censure," he says, " 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 distance 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." 
 
 This was written when a reaction had set in where 
 Camille's feelings towards Mirabeau were concerned. 
 He had had time to realise the worth of the great man 
 who was dead, to see his services to his country in their 
 true perspective, to know how much the poorer France 
 was for his loss. 
 
 It is fruitless to theorise here for the hundredth 
 time as to what would have been the effect upon 
 history if Mirabeau had lived. It is possible that he 
 
I40 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 might have been able, hy the power o£ his single arm, 
 to save the monarchy. Again, it is possible that he 
 might have failed and paid for his failure with his 
 life, Hke so many of those successors of his who seemed 
 in their day to be almost as great as he. 
 
 But apart from theories the bare fact remains that 
 Mirabeau died on the second day of April, 1 791, at 
 the very time when he seemed most needful, most in- 
 dispensable to the King, the Monarchy, France itself. 
 
 He had been failing in health all through the early 
 spring. He was worn out in body and soul, though his 
 brain and his mind were as keen and active as ever, 
 almost to the end. Past hardships and present excesses 
 overwhelmed him ; he was, as Carlyle expresses it, 
 burnt out. 
 
 There came a day when he made his last speech in 
 the Assembly, a speech which was an act of service to 
 a friend, the banker, de la Marck. He returned to his 
 own house to die. 
 
 Much has been written of that death, dramatic and 
 theatrical as his life, yet not, for that reason, necessarily 
 insincere. It was Mirabeau's nature to play a part ; 
 simplicity in him would have been in itself an affecta- 
 tion. Wrung with agony as he was, he prayed to be 
 surrounded with flowers, to be bathed in perfumes. 
 He spoke to his friends in high-sounding phrases, 
 until pain overmastered him, and he could ask for 
 nothing more save sleep. 
 
 He was conscious of his own greatness. Like Dan- 
 ton, who, knowingly or unknowingly, echoed his very 
 words, he spoke of his head as being " worth supporting 
 carefully." And so Mirabeau died, surrounded by his 
 friends, who mourned for him in all sincerity. 
 
 Paris was dumb beneath the shock. There had been 
 no popular expectation of the great Tribune's death. 
 All their indignation against this idol of theirs was 
 forgotten by the people. They could only remember 
 that Mirabeau was dead. 
 
THE WEST WIND 141 
 
 While he lay dying, crowds stood silently around the 
 house, waiting to hear the latest news. When he had 
 passed away, men, meeting each other in the streets, 
 accounted for their undisguised tears by the mere 
 words that : " Mirabeau was dead." On the day of 
 his funeral, every shop was closed, all Paris put on 
 mourning attire to follow him by thousands to the 
 grave. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins was not numbered amongst the 
 friends who stood by the bedside of the dying Mira- 
 beau. Amidst the paeans of praise which rose to the 
 memory of the dead man, Camille's voice was dumb. 
 
 It may be attributed to the journalist's horror of 
 being accused of inconsistency that he would not 
 write, even now, in praise of him who, rightly or 
 wrongly, he believed to have betrayed hisicountry. He 
 even reproved the people, in terms which seem unduly 
 bitter, for their adulation of the dead Tribune. He 
 will scarcely even allow him eminence as an orator. 
 
 " Mirabeau was eloquent, but he reigned in the tribune 
 rather by his talent as an actor than by the power of his 
 mind." 
 
 Words which must be allowed to contain a certain 
 amount of truth, when we consider how dull and 
 lifeless Mirabeau's speeches appear read now in cold 
 print, unanimated by the personality of the orator. 
 
 In another passage Camille is far more bitter and 
 violent. 
 
 " Go then, O corrupt nation," he cries, " 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 ! " 
 
 These must needs seem to us cruel words, spoken 
 as they were of a man who was not yet cold in his grave. 
 One cannot but wish that at least Camille had kept 
 silence, had forborne to blame where he could not 
 conscientiously praise. But that was not in the nature 
 
142 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 of the man, and his own best defence of the attitude 
 which he took up at this time is to be found in 
 another part of his writings. 
 
 There is something infinitely pathetic in the simple, 
 unaffected words. It is as though Camille -here 
 allowed himself to express his real, honest grief for 
 the friend, not his opinion of the public man. 
 
 t " 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." 
 
yA LTHOUGH the plans of the Court had 
 /% been laid secretly for months past, it is 
 / ' % probable that the King and Queen had 
 ■^ -^- not intended to make any attempt to 
 carry them into execution until it was proved that 
 Mirabeau could not, or would not, help them to 
 attain their ends by other means. It is difficult to be 
 certain whether the stories of Mirabeau's private 
 interviews with Marie-Antoinette are true or false. 
 At least it was a method which she, conscious of her 
 personal charm, often made use of when she wished 
 to transform an enemy into a friend. A few months 
 afterwards Barnave, staunch Revolutionary as he was, 
 became her slave for life through a few kind words 
 and an appeal for his sympathy in a degrading situa- 
 tion. It was also by means of a private interview 
 that the Queen tried later to win over the Girondist 
 party, through Guadet, one of their leaders, an 
 attempt in which she was, to a certain extent, suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 In any case, and by whatever means, Mirabeau's 
 power and influence had been gained by the Court 
 party. There is little or no doubt but that he was 
 prepared to throw all his weight into the scales against 
 the further advance of the Revolution. 
 
 But a greater power than his intervened ; Mirabeau 
 died, and the King and Queen were left to carry out 
 their plans as best they might. 
 
 What those plans were is well known now. We may 
 read the voluminous correspondence carried on with 
 
 143 
 
144 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 the leaders of the emigration, whilst, to all seeming, 
 Louis was resigned to the prospect of becoming a 
 mere constitutional monarch. It was the old story of 
 too many conspirators. Part of their plans leaked out 
 here, a rash word was spoken there. There were 
 orders and counter-orders, commands and counter- 
 mands, the one contradicting the other. If only all 
 the arrangements had been left to be organised by 
 one man the flight to Varennes might not now be 
 known as one of the great fiascos of history. If 
 Bouille had been left to himself . . . but there are 
 so many possibilities hanging on that word " if." 
 
 If the King had been another man, or the Queen a 
 diflFerent woman, if his Majesty's legitimate meals had 
 not been more important than any considerations of 
 safety, and if her Majesty had been content to travel 
 without her huge, gold-mounted dressing-case, things 
 might have fallen out quite otherwise than they did. 
 
 There had been rumours afloat in Paris that the 
 Royal family meditated flight. Again and again these 
 rumours were contradicted by the King, and by 
 Lafayette, who was still to some extent a popular 
 idol. Some of the more wide-awake journalists — and 
 amongst these Camille Desmoulins was prominent — 
 put no faith in these protestations. At Easter time 
 the populace, stirred up by Danton, prevented the 
 King from going to St. Cloud, believing, and probably 
 with good reason, that this was only the first step 
 in a journey which would carry him beyond the 
 frontier. 
 
 There was no active ill-feeling against the King. 
 The people of the lower classes were, in fact, fond of 
 him. They wished to keep him amongst them, they 
 regarded his person as a kind of talisman. As for the 
 more enlightened men of the Revolutionary party, the 
 members of the Assembly and others, they quite 
 plainly saw the value of the King and his family as 
 hostages. Once they had succeeded in joining the 
 
THE WEST WIND 145 
 
 emigrants, Paris and France would be at the mercy o£ 
 a Coalition formed to bring back the old monarchy, 
 unreformed and unconstitutional. 
 
 Camille, as usual, was bolder than his compeers. 
 Some time before the King's flight, he stated in his 
 journal that only the name of monarchy was left to 
 France, and that, setting aside five or six decrees, 
 which contradicted one another, France had been 
 formed into a Republic. Camille, indeed, had grown 
 very bitter against the King as a man, and not only 
 as a monarch. Again and again he jeers at his greedy 
 appetite, his fatness, his slow-wittedness, aU thosev 
 little vulgar faults which made poor Louis such an/ 
 unregal figure. 
 
 The King fell ill in March, and for a short time was 
 rather seriously unwell. Camille takes the opportunity 
 in the " Revolutions " to laugh at the Assembly for 
 being interrupted daily " to hear the ridiculous 
 technology of the doctors on the occasion of the cold 
 of the eldest of the Capets." It is easy to see that 
 loyalty and reverence for the King were almost a thing 
 of the past, in Paris at least, when such language as 
 this could pass unreproved and unpunished. 
 
 During the spring and early summer of 1791 
 preparations were made for the elections to the new 
 Assembly, which was to succeed its predecessor in the 
 autumn. 
 
 The members were to be elected according to the 
 property suffrage laws which had been passed in the 
 preceding January, and the qualifications for eligibility 
 to the Assembly laid down by these laws were stringent 
 enough to make them most obnoxious to the advanced 
 Liberals. 
 
 The extreme party foresaw plainly that the result of 
 this limited suffrage would be to form an assembly 
 composed of prosperous, middle-class men, elected by 
 similar persons^ an assembly which would be far too 
 law-abiding and property-respecting to suit the views 
 
146 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 o£ the leaders of the Jacobins and Cordeliers. They 
 regarded these property qualifications as marking a 
 distinctly retrograde movement, since the States- 
 General, or Constituent Assembly, had been elected 
 practically on a basis of universal suffrage. 
 
 Accordingly at the beginning of June protests were 
 made by the Clubs and the Fraternal Societies of Paris 
 demanding universal suffrage, and the repeal of what 
 was known as the " silver mark " qualification. It 
 was so called because in order to be eligible for election 
 to the Assembly it was necessary for the candidate to 
 be possessed of real estate, and also to pay a direct tax 
 equal to a mark of silver. 
 
 We find Camille taking a prominent part in this 
 movement of opposition to the property suffrage laws 
 on June i6th. The section of the Theatre Fran^ais, to 
 which both he and Danton belonged, united in 
 primary assembly on this day and refused to join in a 
 collective petition which it considered illegal. How- 
 ever, Garran de Coulon, Danton, Bonneville, and 
 Camille Desmoulins were entrusted with the task of 
 drafting a petition which the members of the section 
 would sign individually. 
 
 The influence of Camille is very plainly traceable 
 in the literary style of this document. It is really 
 an effective piece of work and quite worthy of repro- 
 duction. 
 
 " Fathers of the Country," it begins, " recognise your own 
 decrees ! The law is the expression of the general will, and we 
 see with sorrow that those who saved the country on the 
 14th of July, who then sacrificed their lives to snatch you from 
 the dangers which threatened you, count for nothing in the 
 primary assemblies. 
 
 " To order citizens to obey laws which they have neither 
 made nor sanctioned is to condemn to slavery the very men 
 who have overthrown a despotism. No ; the French will not 
 suffer such a thing. We, active citizens, will have none of it. 
 
 " You have put civic degradation amongst the greatest 
 penalties. The penal Code enacts that the Clerk of the 
 
THE WEST WIND 147 
 
 Court shall say to the criminal : Your country has foUnd you 
 convicted of an infamous action ; the law degrades you from 
 the quality of a French citizen. 
 
 " What is the infamous action of which you have found two 
 hundred thousand citizens of the capital guilty ? To declare 
 that taxation shaU be imposed by the Nation alone, and, in 
 another decree, to exclude from the rights of a citizen the 
 majority of tax-paying citizens, is to destroy the nation. 
 The social art is to govern aU by all. Therefore annul these 
 decrees, which violate your sublime Declaration of the rights 
 of men and citizens ; give back to us our brothers, to rejoice 
 with us in the benefits of a Constitution which they im- 
 patiently await, which they have courageously sustained ! 
 Unless the whole Nation sanction your decrees, there is 
 neither Constitution nor liberty." "* 
 
 This petition was afterwards combined with one 
 from the Gobelins section and presented at the 
 National Assembly on June 19th or 20th. It was sent 
 in to the Committee of Constitution, but nothing 
 particularly definite resulted from it. The October 
 elections took place on the property qualifications, and 
 the new Assembly, thoroughly bourgeois as it was, 
 fully justified the fears of its opponents. 
 
 Towards the beginning and middle of June more 
 definite rumours of the plans of the Court leaked out. 
 Frequent paragraphs appeared in Camille's paper and 
 others, warning the people that the King was about 
 to make an attempt to escape. But the lower classes 
 of the populace trusted Lafayette and Lafayette 
 trusted the King ; in consequence nothing was done. 
 
 The story of that 21st of June, 1791, has been told 
 again and again, the incidents of those few summer 
 days have formed the subject of more than one entire 
 volume. One may read of it in fullest detail above all 
 in M. Lenotre's vivid and powerful monograph, the 
 " Flight of Marie-Antoinette." 
 
 It is with good reason that historians have dwelt 
 upon the events of the flight to Varennes. It may be 
 called with justice one of the great turning-points of 
 
148 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 the French Revolution, and it is a question whether 
 its success would have more entirely altered the aspect 
 of affairs than did its failure. 
 
 For days past the rumours of the King's projected 
 flight had grown more and more persistent, in fact, so 
 persistent were they that they defeated their own 
 object. The journalists had cried " Wolf ! " so often 
 that now they were not credited. Here is Camille's 
 own account of the events of the evening before, as he 
 saw them. 
 
 " I was coming away from the Jacobins with Danton and 
 some other patriots," he says, " at eleven o'clock, and all the 
 way home we encountered only one patrol. Paris seemed to 
 be so completely deserted that I remarked upon it. One of 
 us who had a letter in his pocket in which he wp informed 
 that the King was to go away that night, went tol have a look 
 at the Chateau and saw M. de Lafayette entering the gates at 
 eleven o'clock." 
 
 The extraordinary thing would seem to be that the 
 flight was even partially successful, since suspicion 
 seems to have been so widespread. 
 
 The escape was discovered in the early morning, 
 when the fugitives were already well advanced on their 
 road. The news spread through the capital like a spark 
 in tinder. Paris was soon in a turmoil. Excited groups 
 of people ran hither and thither, not knowing to whom, 
 or against whom, to turn. In No. 82 of his paper 
 Camille expresses what were the feelings of the 
 majority of the people at that moment. 
 
 "On Tuesday, the 21st of June," he writes, "it became 
 known that the King and aU his family had fled. It was at 
 eleven o'clock at night that the general decam-pativos 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." 
 
 Lafayette was naturally the scapegoat. He was 
 responsible ; it was he who had allowed his charges to 
 
THE WEST WIND 149 
 
 escape. As Commandant of the National Guard of 
 Paris, he should have made sure that such a thing 
 was impossible. In this emergency, Lafayette acted as 
 usual like a brave man ; what was not quite so usual 
 with him, he behaved like a wise one. He showed him- 
 self in the streets, both alone, and together with 
 Beauharnais, President of the Assembly. He went 
 fearlessly to and fro, conspicuous, as we are told, in 
 his cocked hat, although in the face of the people's 
 indignation he must have done so at the imminent 
 risk of his life. The position was a. terribly difficult 
 one, for, after all, had any person or persons the right 
 to stop the King from going where he chose ? 
 
 Lafayette and Beauharnais took the law into their 
 own hands and despatched two couriers with the 
 authority of the Assembly to arrest the flight, if it was 
 in their power to do so. 
 
 The Assembly held a permanent sitting all through 
 that sultry summer day and the succeeding hot airless 
 night. The members from time to time went out 
 into the Tuileries Gardens for a breath of air, but, 
 nevertheless, before the session was at an end, many had 
 fallen asleep on their benches from utter weariness. 
 
 Indeed, there was much food for the consideration 
 of the Assembly. Some form of Government must 
 be established for the duration of the King's absence, 
 were it for an hour, a day, or a year. The form which 
 that Government really took was, to all intents and 
 purposes, that of a Republic. The Assembly assumed 
 the supreme authority, decrees were issued in its 
 name, documents sealed with its seal. It was a 
 curious result of Louis' flight that he thereby drove 
 the hitherto monarchical Assembly into republicanism. 
 
 It was in this fashion that the deputies of the people 
 passed the time, whilst they waited for news, good or 
 bad. Meanwhile^^^the populace of ^the ^capital^repaired 
 to the deserted palace of the Tuileries. No need for 
 ceremony now. The King and Queen had fled, and in 
 
ISO CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 doing so had taught their people disrespect for royalty. 
 Half-laughing, half-angry, they swarmed through the 
 King's house, staining the rich carpets with their 
 muddy boots, soiling the hangings and ornaments 
 with the inquisitive touch of their grimy fingers. 
 
 A market woman seated herself on the very bed of 
 Marie-Antoinette and from thence sold cherries to the 
 jeering crowd. There were ribald jests and coarse 
 laughter. One may be sure that the Queen was not 
 spared in her absence, since they had mocked her 
 already to her face. 
 
 That evening of June 21st there was a stormy 
 meeting at the Jacobins. Robespierre made a violent 
 speech, denouncing those in authority, accusing the 
 ministry of complicity in the escape, and declaring 
 that he did not fear the death which he braved by his 
 boldness. 
 
 Camille was present at the sitting, and, carried away 
 by excitement, he rose in his place and shouted that 
 all who were there were ready to die with Robespierre 
 if need be. The whole club responded with cheers and 
 enthusiasm to the journalist's lead. 
 
 Tidings came at last, and after no long delay. The 
 fugitives had been arrested and detained, although 
 not by Lafayette's somewhat half-hearted envoys. It 
 was the quickness and resource of Drouet, the famous 
 postmaster of Sainte-Menehould, which had been 
 mainly instrumental in saving France — to use the 
 phraseology of the day. A series of misapprehensions 
 and mistakes in the arrangement of the flight certainly 
 aided him, and, above all, the weakness of the King, 
 who, as usual, yielded with a better grace than was 
 either seemly or necessary. 
 
 When Lafayette's aide-de-camp, Romeuf, arrived 
 at Varennes, the Royal family were already virtually 
 prisoners, although determined action on the part of 
 the King might have led to their escape at any moment 
 even then. 
 
THE WEST WIND 151 
 
 Then followed that terrible dragged-out journey back 
 to Paris, in the crowded berlin, accompanied by the 
 deputies from the Assembly, Petion, Barnave and 
 Latour-Maubeuge, who met the party on the road. 
 Yet even in the dust and discomfort of the stifling 
 summer weather the Queen did not lose her powers 
 of fascination. Before they reached the capital 
 Barnave was her avowed champion, Barnave, the 
 staunchest of Revolutionaries heretofore. 
 
 That little procession found Paris in a strange state. 
 The people had recaptured their King and Queen, 
 but, like children when some ardently desired thing is 
 possessed, it really seemed now as though they did not 
 want them so very much after all. 
 
 Camille says in the " Revolutions " for this date : 
 " What can the Capets have hoped on reading this 
 placard carried on the point of a pike : ' Whosoever 
 applauds the King will be clubbed ; whosoever insults 
 him will be hanged.' " 
 
 It was this line of conduct which the populace 
 followed in the main, but the general feeling was 
 distinctly hostile towards the prisoners. It showed 
 itself from the first, and when the carriage reached 
 the Tuileries, it was evinced in a determined attack 
 upon the faithful bodyguard, who were only saved by 
 the active intervention of the deputies from the 
 Assembly. 
 
 In No. 83 of his journal Camille, whilst he intends 
 to insult, really pays a genuine tribute to the brave 
 bearing of Marie-Antoinette upon this occasion. 
 
 " She descended from the carriage," he says, " in the 
 attitude of a supphant, and with a humiliated countenance ; J 
 but she walked up the staircase with her nose in the air, and 
 quite unabashed." 
 
 In the same number the journalist describes Louis' 
 demeanour on re-entering the Tuileries with un- 
 doubted truth, since it agrees with the tespmony of 
 
152 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 other witnesses in most particulars. Camille says 
 that the King''s only comment as he entered his 
 apartment was : — 
 
 " It's devilish hot ! " and then : " That was a journey. 
 
 However^ I had it in my mind for a long time. I have done a 
 foolish thing, I confess. But may I not have my follies like 
 other people ? Come on, bring me a fov(?l." 
 
 After which not essentially kingly speech, Louis XVI 
 proceeded to eat his supper with an appetite which, 
 as Camille says, would have done honour to the King 
 of Cockayne. 
 
 During the first few weeks which succeeded the 
 King's flight and recapture public feeling ran very 
 high. It is true that there was not much open demand 
 for a Republic, but the Assembly continued to 
 conduct a form of Government which was, to all 
 intents and purposes, republican. Louis was, as it 
 were, suspended. There was a distinct understanding 
 that he was not to be allowed to resume the throne^ 
 until it was definitely decided what were to be the 
 exact limitations of his power. 
 
 CamiUe again was amongst the most outspoken of 
 the journalists. The tone of his paper became very 
 threatening towards the King, as the following extract 
 will show : — 
 
 " As the king-animal is an aliquot portion of the human 
 species, and as men have the simpHcity 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." 
 
 As usual, Camille was before his time. Few, if any, 
 of the politicians of Juncj 1791, went so far as he. 
 
THE WEST WIND 153 
 
 But these words, almost incredibly daring as they were 
 then, were mere commonplaces in the mouths of men 
 eighteen months later. 
 
 It was not only Royalty which Camilla attacked ; 
 he inveighed with violence against almost all the 
 existing powers of the State. In his journal at this 
 time we find him saying that the unfaithful representa- 
 tives of the people were fair game, and not content 
 with vilifying Lafayette himself, he writes with scorn 
 and contempt of the National Guard which he 
 commanded. 
 
 " The National Guard in its present organisation," he says, 
 " is a dead weight on the breast of the people — we may gather 
 their sentiments from the bleu-de-Roi colour of their uniforms 
 — and there wiU be no improvement until their shakos have 
 been superseded by the woollen caps of the people." 
 
 (J^amille was overhasty ; the turn of the nation was 
 not yet fully come. Many events were to take place, 
 much blood was to be shed before that January day, 
 when the sovereign people did indeed take its revenge 
 for the wrongs which it had suffered at the hands of 
 Louis and his predecessors. 
 
PART THREE 
 THE EAST WIND 
 
" He feedeth on wind, and followeth after the East Wind ; 
 he daily increaseth lies and desolation." 
 
 Hosea xii. I. 
 
I 
 
 IN spite of the immense upheaval of public 
 feeling which was the result of the Varennes 
 flight, the advanced party in the State did not, 
 as might have been expected, at once gain the 
 ascendancy. On the contrary, during the remainder 
 of this year the Counter Revolution made its last 
 great stand, and for a time it almost seemed as though 
 it would be victorious. 
 
 In this apparent, though only momentary downfall 
 of the Republican cause Camille's fortunes were very 
 intimately involved. Hitherto he had been from the 
 first consistently and steadily successful ; now he was 
 to receive a distinct and unwelcome check. The wind 
 had changed once more, and it was no favouring 
 breeze for Camille which blew now. 
 
 Immunity from attack had made the journalist very 
 bold. He had grown to think that he could say exactly 
 what he liked without fear of the consequences. It 
 came as a shock to Camille to find that the Press was 
 not yet free to the extent that he had believed to be 
 the case. •' 
 
 The Assembly was by no means prepared to go to 
 extremes as far as the King was concerned. The 
 majority amongst them did not, as yet, desire a Re- 
 public. They wished for a monarchy still, albeit a 
 limited and strictly constitutional monarchy. But 
 the mass of the people was rapidly becoming more and 
 more anti-monarchical, and it soon appeared that they 
 did not intend to submit tamely to the legislation of 
 their representatives in this matter. 
 
 IS7 
 
iS8 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 As early as June 24th thirty thousand citizens 
 assembled in the Place Vendome under Theophile 
 Mandar, and demanded that the Assembly should 
 decide nothing as to the fate of Louis XVI before 
 consulting the departments. 
 
 On July 9th the Cordehers Club took the matter in 
 hand and sent a similar petition to the Assembly, 
 dr^awn up by Boucher Saint-Sauveur. This petition 
 the President, Charles de Lameth, refused to read. 
 Their demand being thus disregarded, the Cordeliers 
 determined upon a very bold and aggressive step. On 
 July 1 2th they appealed to the people to suspend the 
 decree announcing the elections for the forthcoming 
 assembly, by means of an insurrection ; the Club in 
 this manner definitely incited the populace to take up 
 arms. 
 
 Meanwhile the day of the festival in commemoration 
 of the taking of the Bastille was at hand, and the people 
 became more and more restless and excited. On 
 July 14th one hundred citizens of Paris drew up an- 
 other petition, and the reading of it caused democratic 
 demonstrations to take place at the Champ-de-Mars, 
 where the " referendum " to the departments was 
 openly demanded. 
 
 On this same day a large number of citizens adopted 
 a petition drawn up by Massulard, which required 
 that : " The Assembly postpones any determination 
 as to the fate of Louis XVI until the clearly expressed 
 wish of the whole Empire has been heard." These 
 petitioners sent two delegates to the Assembly, but 
 they only succeeded in obtaining an interview with 
 Robespierre, Petion and Bailly, who told them that 
 their protests were useless as the decree exculpating 
 Louis had already been brought forward. 
 
 Nevertheless, on the evening of July iSth, at the 
 Jacobins Club, Choderlos de Laclos, who, be it noted, 
 was an accredited agent of the Duke of Orleans, asked 
 that another petition might be drawn up demanding 
 
THE EAST WIND 159 
 
 the referendum, which should be signed by " all 
 citizens " without distinction, active, passive, women 
 and children. This document was to be sent through- 
 out all the departments of France for signature. 
 
 As the members were voting on the question a 
 deputation from the Palais Royal broke into the hall. 
 The President Anthoine suggested to them the 
 adoption of Laclos' petition. This mixed assembly 
 then nominated Lanthenas, Danton, Brissot, Sergent 
 and Ducancel to draw it up, but it was Brissot alone 
 who really performed the task. 
 
 Late that night a secret meeting was held in 
 Danton's rooms, at which Camille, Brune and La 
 Poype were present, to consult as to the best means of 
 spreading the movement through the provinces and of 
 obtaining the largest possible number of signatures. 
 
 Next morning the petition was read in the Church 
 of the Jacobins. It concluded thus : — 
 
 " The undersigned Frenchmen formally and particularly 
 request that the National Assembly shall accept, in the name 
 of the Nation, the abdication effected by Louis XVI on June 
 2ist of the crown which had been entrusted to him and 
 provide for his replacement, by all constitutional means, the 
 undersigned declaring that they will never recognise Louis 
 XVI as their King, unless, indeed, the majority of the Nation 
 should express a desire contrary to the petition." 
 
 The promoters of this petition obviously intended 
 that all their proceedings should be marked by a regard 
 for law and order. The municipality was formally 
 notified, according to the legal requirements, that they 
 intended to assemble in the Champ-de-Mars. Camille 
 and eight others signed this notification. Permission 
 was given, and accordingly Danton and three more 
 read the petition aloud from the four corners of the 
 Altar of the Country. 
 
 There was a heated discussion at the Jacobins that 
 evening. Some of the extreme republicans wished to 
 insert " nor any other King " after the statement 
 
i6o CAMILLE DESMOULlNS 
 
 that they would not accept Louis XVI to reign over 
 them. In the midst of the arguments and deliberations 
 they received the notification that the Assembly had 
 made its proclamation exculpating the King. 
 
 The petition was accordingly withdrawn, and an 
 announcement to that effect was publicly made in the 
 Champ-de-Mars next day. 
 
 As far as the Jacobin party was concerned this was 
 the end of the matter. Danton, Camille and the rest 
 were prepared to yield to circumstances, for the 
 moment at any rate, and to give up the idea of a 
 petition ; in fact this was the course that they actually 
 adopted. Not so the extremists. A fresh petition 
 was drawn up on the 17th of the month by the more 
 violent republicans, the most active spirit amongst 
 them being Robert, the journalist, who, as we shaU 
 see later, was a friend of Camille and his wife. 
 
 This time the deman"d was forcibly made that the 
 Assembly should repeal its decree of exculpation. 
 Neither Danton, Camille, nor any other noted Jacobin 
 or Cordelier signed this petition, and "there is not a 
 shred of evidence to prove that they were in any way 
 accessory to it. 
 
 It was read in the Champ-de-Mars, where an 
 immense crowd assembled to hear it. The mob 
 attacked and killed two meii who were discovered 
 hiding under the altar of the country, and who were 
 suspected of being spies. In reality they were there 
 for quite a different purpose, and one which was 
 harmless from a political point of view. 
 
 A riot ensued, and Bailly, Mayor of Paris, and 
 Lafayette, as commandant of the National Guard, 
 hoisted the red flag of martial law and despatched 
 troops to fire upon and disperse the mob. For the 
 moment the action of the Municipality was entirely 
 successful. Many of the rioters were killed or wounded 
 and the remainder dispersed to their homes, terrorised 
 and dismayed. 
 
THE EAST WIND i6i 
 
 Nevertheless, Bailly and Lafayette had acted with 
 great unwisdom — unless they were prepared to carry 
 out the system which they had adopted to its legitimate 
 end and to put down the extremists by means of the 
 most stringent measures. The Municipality had 
 definitely taken up arms against the people. Only a 
 few years later Bailly, on his way to the guillotine, was 
 to learn whether the Parisian mob had forgotten the 
 " massacre of the Champ-de-Mars." 
 
 It has been necessary to give this rather precise 
 account of the various petitions in order to show 
 plainly that Camille was not actually involved in this 
 last and most famous demonstration, which led to the 
 riots and military intervention. 
 
 Nevertheless, when a decree was drawn up by 
 Bernard on the 1 8th, Camille, Santerre and Legendre 
 were amongst the fourteen included in the accusation. 
 The charges against them were somewhat vague, but 
 they were accused practically of trying to intimidate 
 the National Assembly, and of wishing to institute a 
 Republic. 
 
 Now in theory Camille was undoubtedly guilty on 
 both these counts, but in practice he was, in this 
 instance, more or less unjustly accused. 
 
 In spite of the warrant which had been issued 
 against him Camille spoke that night of July 1 8th at 
 the Jacobins. In fact, he seems to have made a most 
 violent speech against Lafayette and Bailly, whom he 
 stigmatised as the " two arch-Tartuffes of civism." 
 After the meeting was over, however, he did not 
 return to his own home, but took refuge with some 
 friends in another part of the city. He remained in 
 hiding for some weeks and thus managed to evade 
 arrest. 
 
 Danton meanwhile took refuge at Fontenay-sous- 
 Bois and afterwards in England until the storm should 
 have blown over. It is recorded by an old writer, 
 J. Adolphus, in his curious " Biographical Memoirs " 
 
i6z CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 of the French Revolution, published in 1799, that 
 Camille fled to Marseilles during this period of out- 
 lawry. He gives as his authority for this statement 
 the " Mercure Frangais, No. 30," and Moore's 
 " View." It is quite possible that the writer is correct 
 on this point, but the unreliability of most of his 
 information with regard to Camille makes one hesitate 
 to accept his authority. 
 
 The affair of the Champ-de-Mars caused Camille's 
 journal to die a violent death. The municipality was 
 determined to put an end to the unbounded licence 
 of the Press, to which, rightly enough, was attributed 
 most of the trouble which had taken place. It would 
 have gone hard with Camille if he had faUen into the 
 hands of his enemies at this juncture. Prudhomme, 
 the editor of the " Revolutions de Paris," was mis- 
 taken for him and very roughly handled by the 
 National Guard on the Pont Neuf . In the same place 
 Stanislas Freron, Camille's friend and sub-editor, had 
 a narrow escape from death. 
 
 Only one more number of the " Revolutions de 
 France et de Brabant " was issued after July i8th, a 
 number which the journalist dedicated ironically to 
 Lafayette, the " phoenix of alguazil-mayors." In 
 conclusion Camille asks his fellow-editor Prudhomme 
 to send five numbers of the " Revolutions de Paris " 
 to the subscribers of the defunct journal, thus com- 
 pleting the three months due to them. The number 
 ends with the words : " It costs me much to lay down 
 my pen," words which show so plainly the spirit of the 
 true journalist. , 
 
 Camille's printing office was sacked and the plant 
 destroyed by some soldiers who were sent to arrest 
 the editor himself, and were disappointed in their 
 hope of finding him there. The National Guardsmen 
 revenged themselves by handling his secretary, Roch 
 Marcandier, very roughly. This man, a Guisard also, 
 was a curious and interesting character. He certainly 
 
THE EAST WIND 163 
 
 seems later to have treated Caihille badly, and his 
 word-portrait of him in a pamphlet entitled " Hommes 
 des Proies " is both violent and exaggerated. 
 
 M. Claretie treats Marcandier with the utmost 
 contempt, but his career was picturesque and by no 
 means wholly discreditable. He certainly displayed 
 great bravery some time later, when he inveighed 
 against the leaders of the " ultras " at the height of 
 the Terror. This bravery cost him his life, and in 
 that respect he was the precursor of Camille himself, 
 since he died as the result of an appeal for clemency. 
 
 The enquiry into the affair of the Champ-de-Mars 
 dragged on from July 23rd to August 8th, and the 
 proceedings were continued until August 21st. On 
 this latter date the writs of arrest against Camille 
 and five others were cancelled in favour of a 
 summons. 
 
 At the beginning of September Camille, perhaps 
 emboldened by this fact, was rash enough to take up 
 an aggressive attitude towards the Municipality. He 
 posted a large rose-coloured placard addressed to 
 " Passers-by " in prominent positions throughout 
 several districts of Paris. It began in a fashion which 
 certainly cannot be called conciliatory. 
 
 " 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 arrondissetnent. You have learned from the placard of 
 Santerre that, false witnesses having failed, Bernard, the 
 pubhc prosecutor, supplied 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." 
 
 After this fairly outspoken indictment of the legal 
 proceedings of the Commune of Paris, Camille goes 
 on to say that the only evidence which that body can 
 even pretend to find, connecting him with the affair 
 of the Champ-de-Mars, is that on July 3rd he had been 
 
i64 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 heard to read aloud a petition in the Cafe Procope, 
 maintaining that assignats were the patrimony o£ the 
 poor. 
 
 " No," cries Camille. " My crime is that I am uncorraptible, 
 that I have not chosen to make my pen the slave of any parties 
 who have courted it and bargained for it : my crime is that I 
 am the irreconcilable enemy of all enemies of the public 
 welfare. . . . One of the judges has said publicly that there 
 were no more charges, no more depositions, no more accusa- 
 tions, and yet the tribunal, sitting with closed doors, dis- 
 missed my demand to be remanded, at least, for a further 
 hearing. Thus I remain under an accusation, without any 
 accusation ! " 
 
 This placard naturally did not pass unremarked. 
 A report was made to the Procureur of the Commune 
 upon the " incendiary document signed Camille 
 Desmoulins." It was stigmatised as " insulting, 
 indecent and disgusting," and as calculated to excite 
 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 " 
 
 Nevertheless, beyond tearing down the posters 
 wherever they were found and giving notice of their 
 existence to the police, no further steps appear to have 
 been taken. 
 
 The Assembly proclaimed a general amnesty on 
 September nth, and from that time the prosecutions 
 seem to have been abandoned. However, Camille 
 was evidently not very sure of his own standing in the 
 matter, since he appealed to the Assembly about the 
 middle of the month to ascertain whether he preserved 
 his title and functions of elector. This question was 
 disregarded, but we find, nevertheless, that Camille 
 did serve in this capacity for the section of the TheStre 
 Fran^ais when the elections took place during October 
 for the new Legislative Assembly. 
 
THE EAST WIND 165 
 
 Camille appeared in public on October 21st and 
 read a paper at the Jacobins on the political situation 
 at the opening of the new Assembly. He had just been 
 elected Secretary to the Society of Friends of the 
 Constitution, and, as he said himself, he regarded this 
 nomination as an invitation to break silence once more. 
 
 Certainly this paper does not show Camille to be 
 one whit less bold and aggressive than before. Neither 
 his opinions nor his language are in any way subdued 
 by his enforced silence, and he attacks all those whom 
 he considers moderates as vehemently as ever. 
 
 " We did not only ask that royalty should be extinguished," 
 he says, " but that a tyranny worse than royalty should not be 
 estabHshed in its place ; for when was any monarch so in- 
 violable that he would have dared to treat his subjects as the 
 citizens were treated at Nancy and in the Champ-de-Mars, 
 without exposing himself to the tragic fate of a Nero or a 
 CaHgula ? " 
 
 On the whole, however, Camille and the other 
 extreme Republicans found it wisest to keep their 
 opinions more or less to themselves for a time. The, 
 day of the Champ-de-Mars had left the Moderatists 
 victorious. There was a great and pronounced 
 reaction in favour of royalty — a reaction which lasted 
 for almost a year. 
 
 Not that the King and Queen were genuinely 
 resigned to their fate. The Queen at least was more 
 determined than ever to reassume power, to bring 
 back the old order of things in its entirety. As 
 appeared afterwards, a constant correspondence was 
 kept up between the French court and that of Austria, 
 a correspondence which ultimately resulted in the 
 coalition of the powers of Europe against France, and 
 in the great war. 
 
 Yet to all outward seeming the King and even 
 Marie-Antoinette were submissive. On September 
 13th Louis XVI signified his acceptance of the Con- 
 
i66 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 stitution, and an extraordinary outburst of loyalty 
 followed. The Parisians seemed to think that the 
 millennium was come, that all would now go well with 
 France. 
 
 The whole Royal family, with Lafayette beside 
 them, walked by torchlight in the Champs Elysees 
 amid the applause of the populace. They appeared 
 at the theatres, and the actors on the stage were 
 neglected, whilst the audience cheered the King and 
 Queen again and again. A verse of a popular song of 
 these days has come down to us. The doggerel 
 couplets express plainly the spirit of the time. 
 
 " Notre bon roi 
 A tout fait ; 
 Et notre bonne reine 
 Qu'elle eut de peine ! 
 Enfin les v'la 
 Hors d'embarra ! " 
 
 On September 25th the King and his family were 
 present when a " Te Deum " was sung at Notre Dame, 
 and on the day when the Assembly finally separated 
 Louis again renewed his protestations of loyalty to the 
 Constitution. He further propitiated the populace 
 by distributing 50,000 livres in alms to the poor. 
 
 It was no wonder that, while the current of public 
 feeling ran so high in favour of royalty, Camille and 
 his like were perforce silent. It must be remembered, 
 of course, that the journalist had now no paper and 
 therefore no means of expressing his views, for it 
 was never by the eloquence of his tongue that Camille 
 could make himself felt. The time was not propitious 
 for the re-publication of a paper on the lines of the 
 " Revolutions de France," and it is doubtful whether 
 Camille could have found anyone to produce it for 
 him, even if he had possessed the necessary money. 
 At the moment his principles were not popular. 
 
 It does not for a moment follow that because the 
 
THE EAST WIND 167 
 
 jcmrnalist was silent, he had in a^ny way modified his 
 views, or was himself affected in the smallest degree 
 by the passing outburst o£ loyalty. It is quite certain 
 that this was not the case ; but Camille, in common 
 with others, was a little cowed. He waited further 
 developments, we may be sure, with no faith in the 
 protestations of the King and the seeming submissive- 
 ness of the Queen. 
 
 Possibly, as things were, he was contented enough 
 to wait thus. He was completely happy in his home 
 life, and probably, for a short time at least, a respite 
 from the tension of journalistic work was not un- 
 welcome. Not for long ; soon we find him writing to 
 his father : " My paper was a power. I should not 
 have discontinued it. That was a great folly of which 
 I was guilty." 
 
 So we picture Camille during the autumn and early 
 winter of 179 1, happy certainly, contented in a mea- 
 sure, but a man, nevertheless, whose occupation was 
 gone, and who must needs chafe at idleness until he 
 is back in harness once more. 
 
11 
 
 THE Legislative Assembly met in October, 
 1 791, and the spirit which animated this 
 new governing body was exactly what might , 
 have been expected considering the circum- 
 stances under which it had been convoked. 
 
 The Assembly was elected on the property suffrage 
 laws of January, 1791, the same laws which, as we have 
 seen, had called forth such violent protests from the 
 sections and clubs of Paris in the preceding June. 
 In consequence this body of men had an entirely 
 different character from the former Constituent 
 Assembly, elected practically by universal suffrage, 
 and from the later National Convention, convoked 
 according to the laws of August loth, which decreed 
 virtually unlimited suffrage. 
 
 The Legislative Assembly was essentially bourgeois. 
 By far the larger proportion of the members were 
 provincial lawyers and their like. These men were 
 nearly all young, and exceedingly enthusiastic. The 
 methods of the Constituent Assembly had seemed to 
 them very slow ; they intended to reform everything 
 at a far higher rate of speed. 
 
 With the opening of the Legislative Assembly a 
 number of new actors appear upon the Revolutionary 
 stage. The self-denying ordinance passed by the late 
 governing body decreed that none of their members 
 might be re-elected to the new Assembly. Barnave, 
 Sieyes, the Lameths, Duport, Robespierre — all these 
 who played prominent parts at the beginning of 
 the Revolution are for the moment shelved, or, 
 
 168 
 
THE EAST WIND 169 
 
 at best, can only pull t.he wires from behind the 
 scenes. 
 
 The new men, as has been said, were for the most 
 part lawyers, and amongst these provincial advocates 
 a little group stands out prominently. This coterie 
 later formed the nucleus of that rather incoherent 
 party which was to be known to posterity as that of 
 the " Girondins." 
 
 It was only a few of these men who, in reality, came 
 from the department of the Gironde, yet the epithet 
 has survived their other titles, which were in more 
 common use at the time, such as " Brissotins " and 
 " Rolandists." Perhaps it is this last name which 
 describes the party most exactly, since Madame Roland 
 was the tie which bound their disjointed members 
 together, and gave to them more or less unanimity. 
 
 Vergniaud, Guadet, Brissot, Louvet, Valaze, Bar- 
 baroux, Buzot — these names have more power to stir 
 the imagination than those of any other men of the 
 Revolution. Faulty they were, all of them, unwise 
 often in their private actions and their public policy 
 alike. They embarked on enterprises which they were 
 not prepared to carry through to their only legitimate 
 conclusion, they committed crimes for expediency's 
 sake which their hearts and consciences alike con- 
 demned. It is not by any means certain that the 
 Girondins were not the very precursors of the Terror 
 itself — certainly it is in the fiery speeches of Isnard 
 and Barbaroux that we first find terroristic methods 
 demanded. 
 
 But, in spite of everything, these men were dis- 
 interested and pure in their intentions. They honestly 
 wished to save their country ; had they only been far- 
 sighted and wise enough to accept Danton's offer of 
 collaboration, it is possible that they might have 
 succeeded. Girondin theories and Dantonist practice 
 vvould have gone far — had the combination been 
 possible. 
 
I70 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 From the first the majority of the members of the 
 Legislative Assembly, led by the Girondist party, were 
 Republican in theory. 
 
 Moreover, they had just had a very successful re- 
 hearsal, as it were, of the Republican form of govern- 
 ment during the temporary suspension of the King. 
 Nevertheless, it would seem that for the time they were 
 neither anxious nor willing to carry their theories into 
 practice. They had determined to give royalty 
 another chance, and they began by establishing what 
 M. Aulard calls the " Bourgeois Monarchy." The 
 King was resettled upon the throne as head of the 
 executive. His powers were limited, it is true, but 
 nevertheless wide enough. 
 
 Possibly if Louis had been left to himself he would 
 have accepted the position philosophically, but left 
 to himself he never was, by his Queen and by his 
 advisers. Rightly or wrongly they laboured unceasingly 
 to rouse him from that constitutional apathy of his, 
 they goaded him onwards, drove him forward along that 
 road which was finally to lead him from supervision to 
 imprisonment, from imprisonment to the guillotine. 
 
 In the meantime everybody was hopeful. It looked 
 as though the new Constitution was working smoothly 
 and effectively enough during the early months of the 
 winter of 1791-92. 
 
 It was in January, 1792, that the first quarrel arose 
 between CamiUe Desmoulins and Brissot — the quarrel 
 I which was to grow into that bitter enmity which 
 only ended in the downfall of Brissot and his party. 
 It all began, as one so often finds it to be the case where 
 CamiUe is concerned, in a personal affront to the 
 irritable and thin-skinned journalist. 
 
 Before the " Revolutions de France et de Brabant " 
 had ceased to appear a newspaper dispute had arisen 
 between the two writers. Brissot on more than one 
 occasion reproved his colleague, whom he considered 
 over-violent, in his characteristic, somewhat didactic 
 
THE EAST WIND 171 
 
 manner, and he committed the unpardonable sin, 
 where Camille was concerned, of calHng the latter a 
 " young man," using the expression, of course, in the 
 sense that inferred inexperience. 
 
 The offence rankled. It was Camille's greatest 
 fault that he did not easily forget these trifling wounds 
 to his vanity. He only waited for an opportunity to 
 retaliate. 
 
 This opportunity was given to him by Brissot 
 himself nearly eight months later. 
 
 Since the decease of his paper, Camille had returned 
 to the practice of his profession, and at the beginning 
 of 1792 he defended the case of a woman named 
 Beffroi and a man, one Dithurbide, both accused of 
 running a gambling-house in the Passage Radziville. 
 They were condemned to six months' imprisonment 
 by the Correctional Police Court, and Camille 
 immediately published a kind of platard, which was 
 posted everywhere, protesting against what he con- 
 sidered was much too severe a punishment. 
 
 This broadsheet of Camille's was only half serious 
 in tone, but, for that very reason, it gave particular 
 offence to Brissot, whose attitude in such matters Was 
 always severe and almost Puritanical. It was in 
 accordance with the character of the man, a character 
 in every way entirely antagonistic to Camille's, 
 although, if we are to believe Madame Roland, 
 Brissot, the man, was not in entire agreement with 
 Brissot the writer. 
 
 " His' writings," she says of him, "are more calculated to 
 achieve good results than his personahty, because they have all 
 the authority which reason, justice and illumination may give 
 to such words, whereas personally^jie had none of that, lacking 
 dignity." 
 
 A very bitter article, written either by the editor 
 himself, or possibly by Girey-Dupre, appeared in 
 Brissot's journal " Le Patriote Fran9ais." This article 
 protested strongly agaiiist the attitude which Camille 
 
172 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 had taken up with regard to gaming, and ended with 
 the words, certainly offensive enough : " This man only 
 calls himself a patriot that he may insult patriotism." 
 
 Camille was very deeply offended by this article. 
 As usual he retorted without the slightest considera- 
 tion, and his retort took the form of a most scurrilous 
 pamphlet, entitled " Jean-Pierre Brissot Unmasked." 
 
 It was a cruel and uncalled-for attack on Brisspt's 
 personal character and 'public policy, in the main 
 untrue, or grossly exaggerated, but cleverly enough 
 written to be exceedingly, injurious. A certain 
 amount of the mud stuck, and people remembered 
 Camille's cutting phrases and well-turn'6d epigrams, 
 and used them with deadly effect later, when Brissot 
 and his party had fallen from popular favour. 
 
 There was an old story against Brissot which may 
 or may not have been partially true, but which, in 
 any case, might well have been suffered to rest in 
 oblivion. It was said that, many years before, he had 
 obtained money under false pretences, by means of 
 subscriptions for the publication of a book which never 
 appeared. In consequence amongst the lower ranks 
 of journalists the verb " brissoter " had been invented 
 to express this particular kind of cheating. 
 
 Camille brought up this story afresh, he refers to it 
 again and again, and for an epigraph to the pamphlet 
 he used the quotation from the Psalms : " Factus sum 
 in proverbium " — " I am become a proverb." 
 
 It would scarcely be possible to conceive a crueller 
 allusion, made all the more so by its very aptness and 
 wit. 
 
 The pamphlet had the success which generally falls 
 to a scurrilous personal attack. Moreover, it seemed 
 to have the effect of awakening Camille's appetite for 
 writing. Only a month or two later, in April, 1792, 
 we find him collaborating with Freron in the publica- 
 tion of a new journal, " Le Tribune des Patriotes." 
 
 Only four numbers of this paper appeared ; it 
 
THE EAST WIND 173 
 
 ceased to exist at the end of May, but it is interesting 
 as showing an alteration in the; state of public opinion. 
 
 Men were beginning to pluck up courage, but a 
 curious phase now set in. The old Republican party, 
 led by such as Lafayette, Lameth and Bailly, had 
 fallen into disrepute, and there was no properly organ- 
 ised new Republican party to take its place as yet. 
 
 Camille expresses the state of affairs in very plain 
 and unvarnished terms in the first number of the 
 "Tribune desPatriotes," published on April 30th, 1792. 
 
 " If I go to the Jacobins," he says, " and if I take aside one 
 of those determined Republicans who always have the word 
 ' Republic ' in their mouths : Brissot or G. Boisguyon, for 
 example ; if I question him concerning Lafayette, he replies 
 in my ear : ' Lafayette, I assure you, is more Republican than 
 Sidney ; a greater Republican than Washington ; he has 
 absolutely assured me of it a hundred times.' And pressing 
 my hand : ' Brother, how is it that thou, Camille Desmoulins, 
 who in " France Libre " didst, the first of all, argue in favour 
 of the Republic ; how is it that to-day, while for Lafayette 
 nothing will do but the Republic, the whole Republic, and 
 nothing but the Republic, thou dost insist on marring his task 
 and decrying it ? ' " 
 
 Camille was, at this period, the spokesman in the 
 Press for Robespierre and his policy, and echoed his 
 fears of the " Fayettist, Cromwellian republicanism " 
 — " the aristocratic Republic of La Fayette and his 
 military government." 
 
 As to Camille himself, he is for the Nation, he tells 
 us ; for the party of the friends of the Constitution. 
 
 " The true Jacobins are of this party, because they want not 
 the name of the Republic, but the thing ; because they do not 
 forget that in the Revolution of 1649 England, under the name 
 of a Republic, was governed monarchically, or rather as a 
 military despotism by Cromwell; and that France in the 
 Revolution of 1789, though called a Republic, became a 
 republican government. . . . Heaven preserve us from the 
 republic of Lafayette ! This word Republic which Cromwell 
 had everlastingly in his mouth does not deceive me." 
 
174 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 M. Aulard sums up the situation as follows : — 
 
 " It is thus that in April and May, 1792, the old Republican 
 party, however dumb and resigned to the monarchy, was 
 disowned by its famous chronicler Camille Desmoulins, and 
 that the repubHc was denounced as anti-revolutionary by the 
 most popular and most important of the democrats, Robes- 
 pierre. After this defection and this anathema people scarcely 
 dared pronounce the word ' republic,' which is why there was 
 no republican demonstration on June 20th, 1792." 
 
 There is a curious fact to be mentioned in connec- 
 tion with the short-lived " Tribune des Patriotes." 
 The joint editors, Camille and Stanislas Freron, asked 
 Marat to be their collaborator in the publication of 
 the journal. Such a step as this either points to a real 
 change in Camille's policy, or to the fact that he was 
 conscious of the necessity of aflEecting such a change. 
 
 Hitherto there had been little or no pretence of 
 sympathy between Marat and his younger contempo- 
 rary. The serious violence of the " Ami du Peuple " 
 did not appeal to Camille. As a modern writer, 
 Mr. Philip Gibbs has said : " Desmoulins had none of 
 this relentlessness of nature. His audacity was in- 
 tellectual, not instinctive." 
 
 Indeed, in the " Revolutions de France et de 
 Brabant " Camille had frequently employed the power 
 of his ridicule against Marat, pleading that he must 
 not be taken seriously and calling him derisively 
 " 1' enfant perdu de la presse patriote," " Cassandre 
 Marat," " le prophete Marat." Again we find Camille 
 quoting from a fiery article in the " Ami du Peuple," 
 but appending to the extract the following imaginary 
 conversation : " Who has written this ? " — " Marat." 
 — " Marat ! at this name terror vanishes — one breathes 
 
 J5 
 
 agam. 
 
 A little later the young journalist repudiated Marat's 
 policy in a more serious and dignified manner. He is 
 commenting on the demand in the " Ami du Peuple " 
 
THE EAST WIND 175 
 
 for " five or six hundred heads " and he concludes his 
 article by saying : — 
 
 " For myself you know that long ago I resigned the post of 
 Procureur-General to the Lanterne. I think that this great 
 office, like the dictatorship, ought to last only for a day and 
 sometimes only for an hour." 
 
 A printer's error served to increase Marat's rather 
 natural rancour against his fellow- journalist. In No. 
 73 of the " Revolutions " Camille announced that 
 Marat had demanded a passport " pour aller exercer 
 I'apostolat de la liberte en Angleterre." By an un- 
 fortunate mistake the word " apostolat " was printed 
 " apostat," and as a result Marat inveighed against 
 Camille for the supposed intentional insult in eight 
 pages of the " Ami du Peuple." 
 
 The younger man answered with cutting scorn in 
 the next issue of his paper, explaining the liiistake, it 
 is true, but scarcely in a propitiatory manner. 
 
 " Listen, Marat," he says. " I permit you to say all the harsh 
 things to me that you please. You write in a cellar, where the 
 air is not likely to give you gay ideas. ... I declare to you that 
 as long as I perceive that you rave in defence of the Revolution 
 I shaU persist in praising you, because I think that we ought to 
 defend liberty, like the town of St.-Malo, not only with- men 
 but with dogs." 
 
 Since Marat made no further protests it would 
 appear that he tacitly accepted the fact that the error 
 on this occasion was the fault of the printer. Never- 
 theless, his anger rankled, and when Freron and 
 Camille asked for his collaboration, Marat declined 
 their offer in these words : — 
 
 " L'aigle va toujours seul, mais le dindon fait troupe." 
 
 In the meantime, the experiment of the Bourgeois 
 Monarchy had not been successful. The Assembly 
 could not legislate, because the King had exercised 
 his power of veto. It was the last relic of power 
 
176 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 which the new Constitution had left to Louis, and it 
 was only to be expected that he would make use o£ it. 
 Indeed, he would have been something less than a 
 man i£, placed as he was, he had not done so. 
 
 The first decree which the King vetoed was the 
 stringent law against the emigrants, a decree which 
 disinherited Louis' own brother and declared him and 
 many others guilty of high treason. And secondly, he 
 vetoed the decree against the non-juring priests, who 
 had not taken the oath to support the Constitution. 
 
 In all things which touched his religion, the King 
 felt with a strength aad fervour which would have been 
 marked in any age ; at the time in which he lived it 
 was almost unheard of. He observed the rites and 
 ceremonies of the Church with a simple piety which 
 nothing could lessen or alter. It was the same up to 
 the day of his death ; the religion which could govern 
 and control his actions during those last terrible weeks 
 was a real and living thing. 
 
 Consequently when the priests, the ministers of his 
 religion, were threatened, Louis opposed the measure 
 firmly and definitely. He further vetoed a third 
 decree by which the Assembly had intended to estab- 
 lish a large camp of federal volunteers outside Paris. 
 
 All this opposition exasperated the people more and 
 more. Of what use was it, they said, for the King to 
 accept the Constitution, since he now opposed all the 
 legislative measures of the Assembly ? The emigrants 
 and the priests were the enemies of the country. The 
 King made himself one with them when he supported 
 their cause. 
 
 To add to these internal troubles a new peril from 
 without threatened France. The Duke of Brunswick, 
 in command of the armies of the Allies, was mustering 
 his forces on the frontier. In this strait what would the 
 King do ? His own brothers were amongst the leaders 
 of the invading armies ; it was his own people whom 
 he had sworn to defend, who were about to be invaded. 
 
THE EAST WIND 177 
 
 He did that which the country desired of him, but 
 he did it with an ill grace. With tears in his eyes and 
 in a broken voice, he announced at the Assembly that 
 war was declared against the Coalition on April 20th. 
 He acted at the instigation of the Girondins, who 
 dominated the Assembly and at this time formed his 
 ministry. 
 
 Louis' nomination of these ministers at the end of 
 March had been a popular move. For the moment it 
 had caused a reaction in his favour. The people had 
 unbounded confidence in Roland as Minister of the 
 Interior, in Dumouriez at the head of the affairs of 
 War. According to some historians, Thiers amoiigst 
 the number, the Court supported these nominations 
 because they hoped that the Girondin Ministry would 
 soon discredit itself and prove to be weak in the face 
 of danger. If this was indeed the case, their expecta- 
 tions were doomed to disappointment. As to the 
 Queen, she probably hoped to find in Dumouriez a 
 second Mirabeau, another Monk. Indeed, if his 
 services had been paid for highly enough these hopes 
 of hers might have been realised. 
 
 All through the first six months of 1792 this dis- 
 content against the King and against the old con- 
 stitutional revolutionaries grew and increased. We 
 have seen how Camille voiced it in the four numbers 
 of the " Tribune des Patriotes." Since that time he 
 had written little, with the exception of the " Brissot 
 
 emasque. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was busy in other ways. Writing 
 to his father on April 3rd, Camille says that he has 
 again taken up his ancient profession of the law, to 
 which he consecrates all the time that is left to him 
 by his municipal and electoral functions and by the 
 Jacobins, that is to say, only a very few moments. He 
 adds vaingloriously : — 
 
 " It is painful to me to plead bourgeois causes after having 
 been concerned in such great interests and in public affairs 
 
 M 
 
178 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 in the face of all Europe. I have held the balance of powers ; 
 . I have raised or abased the chief personages of the Revolution. 
 Those whom I have abased will never pardon me." 
 
 There was much truth in these last words, truth 
 which was to be brought home forcibly to Camille a 
 little later. 
 
 It seems, then, that the journalist was a very 
 prominent member of both the Jacobin and Cordelier 
 Clubs, and it was at this time that these two great 
 associations became really powerful. They began to 
 dominate the Assembly instead of merely acting as 
 forcing-grounds for its orators. Through its affiliated 
 branches the Jacobin Club became one of the ruling 
 powers of France. 
 
 The Cordeliers were even more advanced than the 
 Jacobins, for the moment, and here Danton's was the 
 dominant personality. The Clubs were working in 
 conjunction with the sections of Paris and the Muni- 
 cipality, for the Municipality was now a violently 
 anti-royalist ajid democratic body. Bailly and his 
 supporters no longer held the civic offices. With the 
 November elections of 1791 a new era had begun, and 
 Jerome Petion was Mayor, a man immensely popular 
 with the lower classes of Paris. 
 
 Danton was also a corporation official ; as Pro- 
 curator-Substitute he had larger opportunities than 
 ever, a wider scope for his talents as an organiser and a 
 demagogue. 
 
 There seems to have been a universal consciousness 
 throughout Paris that some definite plot was on foot. 
 Secret committees were formed, but it is difficult to 
 gather what were their exact aims, or even who com- 
 posed them. We know that Camille was a member of 
 one such committee, probably the very same which 
 assisted to engineer the day of August loth. 
 
 The popular demonstration of June 20th was not 
 in any way organised by those in authority. They 
 allowed it, it is true, but once it was fairly under way 
 
THE EAST WIND 179 
 
 it is probable that the officials were frightened at the 
 dangerous possibilities o£ this horde of people who 
 invaded and overran the Tuileries. At the moment, 
 as we shall see, the party to which Camille belonged 
 considered that the time was not ripe for insurrection ; 
 they were awaiting their opportunity, and any prema- 
 ture action might ruin all their plans. 
 
 The dissatisfaction against the Court party had 
 grown more pronounced during the third week of 
 June. In consequence of that ever-recurring veto the 
 Rolands, husband and wife, had written their famous 
 and outspoken letter to the King, a letter which one 
 could scarcely expect the meekest monarch in the 
 world to receive tamely. 
 
 Louis' answer had been for once prompt and to the 
 point. On June 13th the bulk of the "Patriot 
 Ministry " were summarily dismissed, much to the 
 indignation of the people. 
 
 The ostensible object of the procession on June 20th 
 was to plant a tree of Liberty in commemoration of 
 the anniversary of the " Tennis Court Oath " upon 
 the terrace of the Feuillants. The object which 
 certainly seems to have been kept in view by a large 
 proportion of the mob was to endeavour to intimidate 
 the King into removing his veto and recalling the 
 Patriot ministers. 
 
 At one time it needed very little to make the crowd 
 dangerous. Any hesitation or shrinking on the part 
 of the King, any active reprisals from those who were 
 still his friends, and the scenes of August loth might 
 have been enacted before their time, and even more 
 tragically. 
 
 But on June 20th the huge mob were, on the whole, 
 good-tempered. Above all, the King, to do him 
 justice, behaved bravely and wisely. He took his stand 
 in a prominent position, he refused to be intimidated, 
 he even joked with some of the ringleaders. When the 
 crowd demanded of him the revocation of his veto, he 
 
i8o CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 answered with dignity that this was not the time to 
 ask it. 
 
 When Petion appeared upon the scene, rather late 
 in the day, Louis gave him to understand clearly 
 that he considered him, as Mayor, to be responsible 
 for what had occurred. As a matter of fact, Petion 
 was immediately afterwards suspended from his office. 
 
 Camille took no active part in the demonstration, 
 but he was present throughout amidst the crowd, and 
 at the beginning of July he published his views on the 
 occasion in a pamphlet entitled " Reflexions sur le 
 20 Juin 1792." 
 
 This pamphlet is of great interest, since it shows 
 that the comparatively conciliatory and temperate 
 tone of the populace upon June 20th was in accordance, 
 as we have said, with the policy which the extreme 
 revolutionaries wished at the moment to pursue. 
 
 " It is certain," says Camille, " that all parties desired 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 
 insurrection. We saw plainly that violence would only profit 
 those at Coblenz or Lafayette or other ambitious persons 
 and would not serve the cause of hberty in the least. ... 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 claim my 
 turn at the Jacobins, I spoke at three consecutive meetings on 
 the following text : ' Nothing is more likely to ruin the 
 affairs of the Jacobins than a partial insurrection.' ... I 
 especially recommended that the insurrection should be cahn 
 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 valuable to the Jacobins, 
 that if he died we ought to have him stuffed, as Mirabeau said ; 
 and that the very best thing which could happen would be 
 that he should dismiss the Jacobin ministers and send for others 
 from Coblenz." 
 
Ill 
 
 MEANTIME, in spite of all that was pass- 
 ing in the world o£ politics, many things 
 had occurred to absorb Camille in that 
 other life of his, that home life in which 
 so much the better side of him appears. 
 
 Although his pecuniary circumstances had so much 
 improved at the time of his marriage, we learn by the 
 letter to his father on April 3rd, from which we have 
 already quoted, that Camille was now in Want of ready 
 money. M. Desmoulins, reversing the old condition 
 of things, had written to his eldest son asking him to 
 help him in the purchase of the family house at Guise. 
 Camille excuses himself on the score that since the 
 discontinuance of his journal he has had no balance in 
 hand. In fact, as he says, if he only possessed the money 
 he should have started another paper long before this. 
 Furthermore, he tells his father that, at the moment, 
 he needs all the available cash at his disposal. 
 
 " At any time now I may have a child, and I feel already the 
 cares of paternity in the expense of the layette and the tender 
 solicitude of the mother, who concerns herself with the needs 
 of her son, and loves him so as almost to make me jealous." 
 
 It is easy to picture Camille's anxiety and excite- 
 ment as the time for the birth of his child drew near. 
 He was never a man to take things quietly, least of all 
 such an event as this. 
 
 On July 6th, 1792, at nine o'clock in the morning, 
 Horace-Camille Desmoulins was born, the baby who 
 was never really to know either his father or mother,- 
 
 iSi 
 
1 82 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 who it is scarcely probable could even remember them 
 in after years. It is possible that " the little Horace " 
 may have had dim memories of that beautiful young 
 mother, who must have seemed to his baby brain like 
 some pictured angel as she bent over his cradle. 
 Perhaps he vaguely remembered that boyish, excitable 
 father, with brilliant dark eyes, who would romp with 
 his " little lizard " in the evenings, rolling with him 
 on the floor in peals of laughter, while Danton sat by 
 quietly smiling and thinking of his own boys at the old 
 home in Arcis-sur-Aube. 
 
 There is something very piteous in those words of 
 Camille's which we shall read in his last letter to 
 Lucile : " I would have been a good father." It is 
 easy to believe that this is true : nay, more, it is easy 
 to believe that he was a good father, as far as was 
 possible to him during the short time that lay between 
 the birth of little Horace and his own death. 
 
 On July 8th a ceremony took place at the Hotel de 
 Ville when Camille, escorted by Laurent Lecointre 
 and Anthoine Merlin (de Thionville) presented his 
 little son to the Municipality of Paris, as the first child 
 to be entered in the new civic register of births, 
 superseding those of parishes. On the birth certificate 
 Camille wrote with his own hand the following rather 
 grandiloquent pronouncement : — 
 
 " As religious freedom has been decreed by the Constitution 
 and as by a decree of the Legislative Assembly relative to the 
 manner of establishing the civil estate of citizens otherwise 
 than by religious ceremonies, an altar ought to be raised in 
 each municipality on which a father, accompanied by two 
 witnesses, can offer his children to the country; the person 
 present wishing to use the provisions of the law and desiring 
 to spare himself, one day, on the part of his son, the reproach 
 of having bound him by oath to religious opinions which he 
 could not yet hold and made him enter on Hfe with an in- 
 consequent choice between the nine hundred and odd reUgions 
 which divide mankind, at a time when he could not even 
 distinguish his mother." 
 
THE EAST WIND 183 
 
 This portentous sentence does more honour to 
 Camille's impartiality than to his sense o£ literary 
 style ; it is typical, however, of a kind p£ phraseology 
 which was very prevalent at the time. 
 
 Camille's pride in the little boy was unbounded. 
 He writes enthusiastically to his father on July 9th, 
 telling him of the event, and concluding : " And I too 
 have a child ! My only wish is that he may one day > 
 love me as much as I love my father." 
 
 Later the baby was sent away to the same nurse at 
 L'lle Adam (Seine-et-Oise) who had charge of the 
 little Danton. This was then the invariable practice 
 with mothers of Lucile's class, and it was perhaps well 
 that the baby should be far from Paris during the 
 stress and fury of the next few months. As soon as she 
 was well enough to be moved CamiUe took Lucile to 
 the little honeymoon country house of theirs at 
 Bourg-la-Reine, and it was here that she remained 
 with her mother until August 8th. 
 
 CamiUe himself spent most of this time in Paris. 
 There was much for him to do, for the blazing heat of 
 that July weather seemed only like a physical sign of 
 the greater fever within. 
 
 The Army of the Allies was gathering upon the 
 frontier. On July nth was heard for the first time 
 that ominous declaration decreed by the Assembly : 
 " Citizens, the Country is in danger ! " Everywhere 
 men read the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, 
 insufferably insolent in tone and wording alike. 
 Everywhere Royalist cartoons were disseminated, which 
 held up the Republican party to ridicule. One of 
 these caricatures must have been intensely irritating to 
 CamiUe. It was entitled the " Thaw," and showed the 
 revolutionaries flying in all directions terrified, while be- 
 neath their feet the ice of their new world cracked and 
 broke. Amongst the fugitives " Janot Desmoulins " 
 was to be seen, wearing the red woollen cap of the 
 " sansculottes" andimpededby the weight of his lantern. 
 
1 84 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 These and similar insults stirred the Jacobins to 
 fury: the sections of Paris already displayed a most 
 threatening spirit. 
 
 Baulked in their eflfort to establish a permanent 
 camp outside Paris, the Assembly had obtained their 
 purpose and foiled the King by an adroit counter- 
 move. From all parts of France little columns of 
 Federal troops were marching, to take part in the cele- 
 bration of the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille. 
 By July 14th a large number of these provincials had 
 arrived. 
 
 The King was present at the Festival, but he was 
 greeted with ominous murmurs, and it was noticed 
 that he looked pale and sullen. There was a rival King 
 to receive all the applause of the crowd. Jerome 
 Petion, the popular idol, was once more reinstated as 
 Mayor of Paris. He was cheered when he appeared 
 on the Champ-de-Mars, and men and women wore his 
 name or his portrait as a badge that day, pinned on 
 their breasts or in their hats, the word " Petion " 
 being sometimes coupled with the ominous phrase 
 ' Ou la mort ! " 
 
 The presence of the Federal troops in Paris still 
 further excited the populace. These enthusiastic, 
 hot-headed provincials from the South and the far 
 North- West brought a fresh, element into the city. 
 They were like a spark set to dry tinder. 
 
 It was not until some days after the Champ-de- 
 Mars fete, however, that the most important of these 
 detached bodies of federals arrived in the capital. 
 This was that little troop of Marseillais patriots, invited 
 by their fellow-countryman Barbaroux, whom his- 
 torians, novelists and poets have since made so famous. 
 
 These men are sometimes erroneously represented 
 as belonging to the lowest classes of the community. 
 In reality they would seem to have been mainly 
 artisans, retired non-commissioned officers, or men 
 of even higher rank. 
 
THE EAST WIND 185 
 
 All through the blazing July days they journeyed 
 northwards, dragging with them two pieces of cannon, 
 and singing — singing always as they went a new song, 
 but lately learnt, and which the countryside heard 
 now for the first time. That song is living yet, with a 
 mighty power still to stir the nerves and souls of men. 
 It is known to us now, as it was known then, by the 
 name of the " Hymn of the Marseillaise." 
 
 The Marseillais federals arrived in Paris on July 29th. 
 At Charenton they were met by Barbaroux, Santerre 
 and others, who entertained them to dinner at the 
 inn of the " Cabran d'Or." They received an enthusi- 
 astic welcome in the capital. The infectious rhythm 
 of their song was to be heard in every street, voicing 
 the surging discontent in men's hearts. 
 
 The men of Marseilles fraternised with their 
 comrades from Brest and Calvados, fraternised too 
 with their poorer brothers of the fauxbourgs St. 
 Antoine and St. Marceau. There were public feasts 
 on the site of the heretofore Bastille, much dancing, 
 and speeches no doubt from Barbaroux and Fauchet, 
 the ex-bishop of Calvados. 
 
 And under it all, beneath this effervescing surface, a 
 plan was working, a great organised plot was being 
 formed which would presently take shape and action. 
 The leaders of the Revolution were about to make use 
 of the power of the people, for the insurrection of 
 August loth was essentially a popular movement, a 
 movement not of any one section, or body of men, 
 but of Paris, nay, of France itself, led and organised 
 by the Municipality of the capital city. 
 
 We may be practically certain that Camille was very 
 deeply involved in the preparations for the day of 
 August. loth. We know that Danton was the great 
 mover in the insurrection, later he was to glory in that 
 fact. Camille's association with Danton was very 
 close at this time, all the more so, because Robespierre, 
 his other chief ally, kept almost entirely in the back- 
 
1 86 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 ground. This attitude o£ Robespierre's has been the 
 subject of much comment from his apologists and 
 enemies alike, and many suggestions have been brought 
 forward to account for his withdrawal from public 
 affairs at this juncture. 
 
 The most probable hypothesis would seem to be that 
 Robespierre was afraid. Not that he was exactly a 
 coward. He forced himself to act with both moral 
 and physical courage on many occasions, but there was 
 a timid strain in his nature against which he could not 
 always contend. 
 
 We can gather very little concerning the events of 
 August and the part which he played in them from 
 Camille's own writings. He scarcely mentions the 
 insurrection in his letters to his father, and he was, of 
 course, at the moment editing no journal in which to 
 record his personal impressions. 
 
 During the first week of August he wrote to Lucile, 
 who was still at Bourg-la-Reine, a letter which tells 
 us something of his own doings. 
 
 " My good Lucile," he says, " don't cry, I beg, because 
 you do not see your Monsieur Hon. I am up to the neck 
 in the Revolution. How you would have been pleased to 
 see me 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. My God, don't love me so much, sweetheart, 
 since it makes you suffer such a lot. I dined at Robespierre'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. 
 
 " I have consecrated my day by proclaiming on my horse 
 in the midst of three thousand National Guards and twenty 
 pieces of cannon, the danger of the Fatherland. I do not dare 
 to talk to you about the baby, lest I should bring the tears to 
 your eyes. It is eleven o'clock. I write so that you may have 
 
THE EAST WIND 187 
 
 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 and Horace 
 for me." 
 
 This letter, tender and playful as it is, would 
 certainly seem to show that Camille was taking a 
 fairly prominent part in public affairs. The speech 
 which he mentions to Lucile is extant, and proves 
 definitely that a decisive blow was meditated and even 
 spoken of openly without concealment. After pro- 
 claiming in eloquent language his dreams of universal 
 brotherhood, of fraternity between the " disdainful 
 bourgeois " and the proletariat, Camille concludes with 
 these bold words : — 
 
 " So soon as the tocsin is sounded let all the nation assemble ; 
 let each man, as in Rome, be invested with the right to punish , 
 known conspirators with death ; and one single day of anarchy X, 
 will do more for the security of liberty and the salvation of the 
 country than four years of a National Assembly." 
 
 " The right to punish known conspirators with 
 death." It is probable that Camille lived to regret 
 those words of his — words which were translated into 
 practice in the days of the September massacres. 
 
 After this letter, written some days before the 
 insurrection, we learn practically nothing from Camille 
 himself as to his doings, until after the downfall of the 
 monarchy. But the blank in the husband's writings 
 is filled in by the wife. Lucile Desmoulins had kept a 
 diary from her earliest girlhood, and at this time it is 
 of inestimable value, since it helps us to know how the 
 events of August 9th and loth affected her and Camille. 
 
 We cannot do better than give here the passages 
 in that manuscript pocket-book of Lucile's which 
 refer to these days. Her vivid, simple words, the little 
 homely details which no imagination could invent, 
 enable us to picture the scenes of that terrible time 
 
1 88 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 far better than could be done with the aid of volurnes 
 of descriptive writing. 
 
 As we have already said, Lucile had been staying at 
 Bourg-la-Reine for some weeks past. It was on August 
 8th that she returned to Paris. 
 
 " August 9th, 1792. 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 ! O God, if it be true that thou hast any 
 existence, save the men who are worthy of Thee. We want to 
 be free. O God, the cost of it ! As a climax to my misery, 
 courage abandons me. 
 
 " What a gap since the 9th of August ! What things have 
 happened ! What a volume I should have filled if I had con- 
 tinued ! How can I recall so many events ? Never mind, I 
 am going to remember something of what passed. 
 
 " I had come back from the country on August 8th. The 
 public mind was already in a ferment. An attempt had been 
 rnade 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 afiair would not take place. Although I was not at 
 all sure, I said to them, as if I knew all about it, that it would 
 come to pass. 
 
 " ' How can anyone laugh like that ? ' Madame Danton said. 
 
 " ' Alas,' I replied, ' it is a sign that I shall shed many tears 
 this evening.' 
 
 " We were to take Madame Charpentier home that night. 
 The weather was fine ; we strolled about the street ; it was 
 crowded with people. We returned and seated ourselves outside 
 the cafe.* Many sansculottes passed crying : ' Long live the 
 Nation ! ' then cavalry, afterwards immense crowds. Fear 
 seized me. I said to Madame Danton : ' Let us go.' She 
 laughed at my dread, but, by dint of speaking of it, she was 
 frightened in her turn, and we departed. I said to her mother : 
 ' Good-bye, it will not be long before you hear the tocsin.' 
 
 * Gabrielle Charpentier, Danton's first wife, was the daughter of 
 the keeper of the Cafe des Ecoles. 
 
THE EAST WIND 189 
 
 On arriving at the Dantons' rooms, I saw there Madame 
 Robert and many others. 
 
 " Very soon I saw that they were arming themselves. 
 Camille, my dear Camille, came in with a gun. O God ! 
 I hid myself in an alcove ; I covered my face with my two 
 hands and began to weep ; however, as I did not want to show 
 so much weakness, or to tell Camille aloud 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 aU my fears. He reassured me by saying that he would 
 not leave Danton. I have learnt since then that he exposed 
 himself to danger. 
 
 " Danton was agitated. I ran to Madame Robert saying : 
 ' Will they sound the tocsin ? ' ' Yes,' she said to me. ' It will 
 be to-night.' I heard all this and did not say a word. 
 
 " Freron had the air of one determined to perish. ' I am 
 tired of life,' said he. ' I only seek to die.' Each patrol which 
 came, I thought to see them for the last time. I went to conceal 
 myself in the salon, which was unhghted, that I might not see 
 all these preparations. Nobody in the street. All the world 
 had retired. Our patriots departed. I was seated near a bed, 
 overwhelmed, bewildered, dozing sometimes, and when I 
 washed to speak, I wandered. Danton went to lie down. He 
 did not appear to be much concerned ; he scarcely ever went 
 out. Midnight approached. They came to seek him many 
 times ; at last he departed for the Commune. 
 
 " The tocsin of the Cordehers rang ; it rang for a long time^ 
 Alone, bathed in tears, on my knees by the window, my face 
 covered with my handkerchief, I listened to the sound of that 
 fatal bell. In vain they tried to console me. The day which 
 had preceded this fatal night seemed to me to have been my 
 last. 
 
 " Danton returned. Madame Robert, who was very troubled 
 concerning her husband, who had gone to the Luxembourg, 
 where he had been sent by his section, ran to Danton, who 
 only replied to her very vaguely. He threw himself upon his 
 bed. 
 
 " They came many times to give us good and bad news. I 
 thought I saw their project was to go to the Tuileries. I said 
 so, sobbing. I felt as though as I should faint. In vain Madame 
 Robert demanded news of her husband ; no one could give 
 any. She believed that he would march with the faubourg. 
 
190 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 ' If he perishes,' she said to me, ' I will not survive him. But 
 this Danton — ^he is the rallying^oint ! If my husband 
 perishes, I am the woman to stab him ! ' Her eyes rolled ; 
 from that moment I never quitted her. How could I tell what 
 might happen ? How did I know of what she was capable ? 
 
 " We passed the night thus in cruel agitations. Camille 
 returned at one o'clock ; he slept leaning upon my shoulder. 
 Madame Danton sat beside me, and seemed prepared to hear 
 of the death of her husband. ' No,' she said to me, ' I cannot 
 remain here.' Daylight being come, I proposed that she should 
 rest near me. Camille lay down on the bed. I put a couch 
 in the salon, with a mattress and a quilt; she threw herself 
 upon it and took some repose. For myself, I lay down and 
 dozed, although the sound of the tocsin was heard on all sides. 
 
 " We rose ; Camille departed, leaving me in the hope that 
 he would not expose himself. We ate some breakfast. Ten 
 o'clock, eleven o'clock passed, without our knowing anything. 
 We took some of the journals of the evening before and tried 
 to read them, seated upon the sofa in the salon. As she read 
 me an article, it seemed to me that a cannon was fired. I heard 
 soon many more shots without saying anything ; they became 
 more frequent. I said to her : ' They are firing cannon ! ' 
 She listened, she heard, and growing as pale as death, she 
 fainted away. I loosened her clothes. Myself, I was ready to 
 fall unconscious, but the necessity of helping her gave me 
 strength. She came to herself. Jeannette cried like a mad 
 thing. She wished to thrash a passer-by who said that Camille 
 was the cause of all this. We heard crying and weeping in the 
 street, we believed that Paris was full of bloodshed. 
 
 " We encouraged each other and we departed to go and seek 
 out DantoH. They cried : ' To arms ! ' and ran hither and 
 thither. We found the door of the Cour de Commerce closed. 
 We knocked and shouted, but nobody came to open it. We 
 wished to get out through a baker's shop ; he shut the door in 
 our faces. I was furious ; at last they let us through. We 
 were a long time without knowing anything. However, they 
 came to tell us that we were victors. At one o'clock several 
 came to relate what had passed. Some of the Marseillais had 
 been kiUed. But the accounts were cruel. 
 
 " CamiUe arrived and told me that the first head which he 
 had seen fall was that of Suleau. Robert was at the Hotel de 
 Ville, and had before him the frightful spectacle of the 
 
THE EAST WIND 191 
 
 massacred Swiss. He came after dinner and told us a fearful 
 account of what he had seen, and all day long we heard of 
 nothing else, save what had happened. 
 
 " The following day, the eleventh, we saw the convoy of the 
 Marseillais. O God, what a sight ! Our hearts were torn. 
 CamiUe and I slept with the Roberts that night. I do not 
 know why I was so frightened ; it seemed to me that we 
 should not be safe at home. The next day, the twelfth, on our 
 return I learnt that Danton was made Minister." 
 
 Such an account as this of Lucile Desmoulins needs 
 no comment. It is as though the girl spoke to us 
 herself in those simple, unaffected sentences. We feel 
 as though we saw Lucile before us in the Dantons' 
 room that terrible evening, laughing like a madcap, 
 because if she did not laugh, she needs must weep. 
 There is something extraordinarily lovable in that 
 tender tactfulness which would not make CamiUe 
 appear foolish by imploring him, in the presence of 
 his friends, to be careful. It speaks worlds for the 
 confidence which they all felt in Danton that Lucile 
 appears to have been almost reassured on hearing 
 that her husband would not leave that strong, trusty 
 friend of his, although this certainly did not infer 
 that CamiUe would thereby be kept out of danger's 
 way. 
 
 After all, these pages from the young wife's diary, 
 showing a great episode of history from the point of 
 view of the women who waited to hear the upshot of 
 the fight, is of greater interest than any cut-and-dried 
 description. It is so plain throughout that, for the 
 moment, Lucile Desmoulins, Gabrielle Danton and 
 Madame Robert cared very little what was to be the 
 issue of the day. What mattered it if their cause was 
 won, if it meant the loss of their husbands ? For 
 women are made like that. 
 
 As to the actual details of the attack upon the 
 Tuileries on August loth, one may read of it in the 
 pages of a hundred historians of every possible shade 
 
192 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 of opinion. We know how in great surges the men of 
 the fattxbourgs beat against the Palace, led by the 
 Federals of Brest and Marseilles. We have heard how 
 the King vacillated, countermanded his own orders, 
 finally took refuge with the Assembly, accompanied 
 by his whole family. We know of that reiterated 
 command of his that the Swiss Guard were not to 
 fire on the people, a command well meant, no doubt, 
 but which spelt sheer murder as far as these faithful 
 servants of his were concerned. 
 
 Best knowledge of all, we have each one of us read 
 how the Swiss died, faithful to the last, falling where 
 they made their last stand on the great staircase of the 
 Tuileries. Their memorial is written on the pages of 
 history ; it is written even more imperishably in 
 stone by the shores of the Blue lake in the land of their 
 birth. 
 
 We can learn little or nothing of Camille's exact 
 share in the fight, although we know that he took an 
 active part. Since he was with Danton, he was 
 probably in the forefront of the attack ; beyond that 
 we can gather few details. 
 
 There is one story of his conduct which appears to 
 be well authenticated and which one would certainly 
 like to believe was true. It is quoted in F. Hamel's 
 life of Theroigne de Mericourt. 
 
 In spite of their violently opposed opinions, in spite 
 of their jeers and scoffs at each other in their respective 
 papers, it would seem that Camille and Suleau, once 
 school-fellows, now brother journalists, had always 
 remained friends. It is said that Suleau told an 
 acquaintance named La Sourd on the morning of 
 August 9th that Camille had just warned him of the 
 extreme danger which he (Suleau) ran. The Revolu- 
 tionary journalist, as one of the organisers of the 
 movement, of course realised only too well the 
 imminent peril of the hot-headed Royalist writer. 
 Acting on a generous and almost quixotic impulse, 
 
THE EAST WIND 193 
 
 Camille invited his old school friend to take refuge 
 with him until the danger should be past. Suleau 
 refi^sed the offer, and, as is well known, he was assassi- 
 nated by Theroigne de Mericourt on the morning 
 of August loth. Lucile tells us, as we have seen, that 
 Camille actually witnessed the murder. Furthermore, 
 she says that her husband observed to Suleau the day 
 before : " You are going to fight for the King to- 
 morrow ; then you will be hanged." 
 
 After the sack of the Tuileries Palace Lucile was 
 brought her share of the spoil. She tells us that she 
 received some of the articles from the unfortunate 
 Queen's toilet-table, such as brushes, mirrors and 
 sponges. In common with many men and women of 
 her time and class, Camille's young wife had hitherto 
 felt an almost impersonal hatred of Marie-Antoinette ; 
 now, for the first time, she seems to have been touched 
 with pity. 
 
 Indeed, what wife and mother as tender-hearted as 
 was Lucile could have failed to pity the misfortunes 
 of that sorrowful woman, a queen no longer. 
 
IV 
 
 THE French Monarchy had fallen once and 
 for all. Henceforth there was no more 
 question of reinstating Louis as King. He 
 and his whole family were literally im- 
 prisoned now in the Tower of the Temple, as they 
 had been for long prisoners in reality in the more 
 splendid dungeon of the Tuileries. 
 
 It remained now to decide what was to be done with 
 this heretofore King of France, from henceforth to 
 be named only " Citizen Capet." This decision, 
 together with many others, did not rest with the 
 present Assembly, nor with the Revolutionary 
 Commune, now masters of Paris. It would be the 
 task of the National Convention, so soon to be 
 elected, to resolve upon the fate of the King and 
 his family. 
 
 Meanwhile France must be governed, and to that 
 end a Provisional Executive Council was formed on 
 August 13th, beginning its functions on that day. It 
 consisted of six ministers, each of whom presided for a 
 week in turn as President. These Ministers were 
 chosen by the Legislative Assembly, and the first to be 
 elected was Danton, as Minister of Justice. The 
 other members of the Council were Monge, Minister 
 of Marine, Lebrun, who was responsible for Foreign 
 Affairs, Roland, for those of the Interior, Servan, 
 Minister of War, and Claviere, at the Ministry of the 
 Bureau of Public Taxes. 
 
 During the short time that he held office, Danton 
 was the real head of the Executive Council, and the 
 
 194 
 
THE EAST WIND 195 
 
 meetings were held at his quarters in the Ministry of 
 Justice. 
 
 Danton named Camilla as his Secretary-General, 
 and the journalist at once took up the duties of that 
 post. He speaks of his new position in an almost 
 despondent fashion, in spite of his obvious pride, 
 when he writes to his father on August 15 th. 
 
 " You have learnt from the journals the news of August loth. 
 It only remains for me to teU you of that which concerns 
 myself. My friend, Danton, has become Minister of Justice, 
 by the grace of the cannon ; this bloody day meant for both of 
 us that we should rise or fall together. He said in the National 
 Assembly : ' If I had been vanquished, I should have been a 
 criminal.' 
 
 " The cause of liberty has triumphed. Behold me living in 
 the Palace of Maupeou and of Lamoignon. In spite of all your 
 predictions that I should never do anything, I see myself raised 
 to the topmost rung of the ladder attainable by one of our 
 profession, and far from being more vain, I am much less so 
 than ten years ago, because I value much less than then, the 
 imagination, the warmth, the talent and the patriotism, 
 which I did not distinguish from the sensibility, the humanity 
 and the love of one's kind that the years lessen. They h^ve 
 not cooled in me my filial love, and your son, become secretary- 
 general of the department of justice and fhat which one calls 
 secretary to the seals, hopes not to be long before he gives you 
 the marks of this. I believe liberty to be ensured by the 
 revolution of the loth of August. It remains for us to render 
 France happy and flourishing as well as free. It is to this that 
 I am about to consecrate my night watches." 
 
 Later Camille cannot resist a little outburst of 
 triumph, when he thinks of the way in which he has 
 vindicated himself before his fellow-townsfolk. 
 
 " How the people of Guise, so full of envy, hatred and petty 
 passions, will burst with bitterness to-day ! " 
 
 But afterwards comes the strange note of despon- 
 dency : " It has but rendered me more than ever 
 melancholy and anxious and made me feel more keenly 
 
196 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 all the ills of my fellow-citizens and the miseries of 
 human life." 
 
 In connection with Camille's nomination as Secre- 
 tary to the Minister of Justice, a curious incident and 
 one characteristic of the time is related by M. Lenotre 
 in his volume " The Tribunal of the Terror." 
 
 He publishes a letter written to Camille immedi- 
 ately after August loth by Fouquier-Tinville. The 
 future Public Prosecutor of evil notoriety appeals to 
 the young man as his " dear relative " (it appears 
 that they were distantly related through the family of 
 de Viefville), and implores him to help the writer to 
 obtain a government post of some description. 
 
 It is very probable that Camille was instrumental 
 in securing for him the position of Public Prosecutor, 
 the duties of which Fouquier took up at about this 
 time. It is a curious example of the irony of fate, 
 when one thinks that it may have been Camille 
 himself who procured for his humble relation that 
 office, wherein Fouquier was mainly instrumental in 
 obtaining the condemnation of the Dantonists. 
 
 The question whether or no Camille was involved 
 in the prison massacres of September 2nd and 3rd is 
 subsidiary to the larger issue of Danton's implication. 
 As Minister of Justice and as Camille's superior alike, 
 the greater share of responsibility rests with him. 
 
 Contemporary writers and a large number of 
 modern historians consider Danton as responsible for 
 the massacres, and even as their prime mover. So 
 great an authority as Lord Acton himself takes this 
 view, although he writes of the affair as a concerted 
 plan on the part of the Government. 
 
 Several of Danton's biographers, however, and 
 notably Mr. H. Belloc, have almost conclusively proved 
 that the Minister of Justice took no active part what- 
 ever in the organisation of the massacres. Mr. Belloc 
 brings forward very strong evidence to show that the 
 circular letter, which, stamped as it was with the 
 
THE EAST WIND 197 
 
 impress of the Ministry o£ Justice, has always been 
 considered to prove Danton's complicity in the plot, 
 was written on paper stolen for the purpose from the 
 Minister's office. He believes that this letter, which 
 was sent throughout the provinces to incite to further 
 massacres, was compiled by a committee mainly inspired 
 by Marat. 
 
 The real truth would seem to be that Danton tacitly 
 permitted the massacres, although he did not himself 
 organise them. Possibly he felt himself to be powerless 
 in the matter, and feared to lose his influence with the 
 people if he interfered with their frightful vengeance. 
 The country was in the most terrible and imminent 
 danger ; he may have believed, with the mob, that 
 there was real peril from the plots of the imprisoned 
 aristocrats. All the thoughts and actions of the 
 Minister of Justice at this moment were directed 
 towards the defeat of the enemy who was advancing 
 towards Paris. In person he superintended the 
 business of enlistment and harangued the people, 
 stirring them up by the dominating power of his 
 personality and his fiery, inspiring phrases. It was at 
 this time that he thundered out those memorable 
 words which have echoed down through history : — 
 
 " Pour les vaincre, pour les atterer, que faut-il ? De 
 I'audace, encore de I'audace, et toujours I'Sudace ! " 
 
 In any case it is scarcely possible to believe, with 
 Lord Acton, that the work of murder was performed 
 by men paid directly by the governing body of Paris. 
 Paid they may have been, and no doubt were, but may 
 they not have received their wages from the Committee 
 which engineered the massacres and sent out the 
 circulars purporting to emanate from the Ministry of 
 Justice ? 
 
 What we have said of Danton applies to Camille in 
 a minor degree. He was the Minister's Secretary, and 
 probably shared his policy with regard to the prison 
 
198 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 massacres. We have no means of ascertaining what 
 his private opinion concerning them may have been, 
 but it must be confessed that his pamphlet on the 
 events of June 20th, from which we have already- 
 quoted, indirectly advocated such a method of popular 
 vengeance as that which was so terribly carried out 
 on September 2nd and 3rd. 
 
 It is almost certain that Danton and Camille alike 
 later felt themselves to have been morally responsible 
 for the massacres. The epithet of " Septembriseur " 
 had the power to make Danton falter to the day of his 
 death ; he could not hear it applied to him, with a 
 conscience clear of guilt. 
 
 Mr. Philip Gibbs has put the case well and im- 
 partially in one of his studies of the principal person- 
 ages of the French Revolution. 
 
 " Danton must be blamed," he says, " like Desmoulins and 
 Marat, for violence of speech which led to atrocious actions 
 . . . for working upon the imagination of a people already 
 hysterical with fear and hatred, and afterwards for condoning 
 and slurring over atrocities which dragged the revolutionary 
 ideals of liberty and justice through the shambles of barbarous 
 revenge. . . . Judging them with as much knowledge of the 
 facts as history affords us, we may acquit Danton and Des- 
 moulins of murderous design, though not of bloodguUtiness." 
 
 Camille, did not retain for very long his official 
 position at the Ministry of Justice. Together with 
 Danton himself, he was anxious to be elected as 
 Deputy to the National Convention which was to open 
 at the end of September. The nominations for the 
 new Assembly took place at the beginning of the 
 month, and on September 8th Camille was elected 
 as one of the deputies for Paris, although not without 
 some opposition. It was only after two ballots that he 
 obtained the majority of votes over Kersaint. 
 
 Camille seems to have taken his new position very 
 seriously — more seriously perhaps than his constituents 
 expected of him. In his " Fragment de I'Histoire 
 
THE EAST WIND 199 
 
 Secrete de la Revolution " he describes his feelings at 
 the opening of the new assembly. 
 
 Those are indeed to be envied, he says, who have 
 just been named deputies to the Convention. Was 
 there ever a more magnificent mission, a more splendid 
 opportunity of glory ? It is their task to punish the v 
 tyrant, to build a constitution, to defeat the nations 
 of Europe, finally to " make a people." Certainly 
 this is no light or superficial view of the situation. 
 
 It was about this time that, according to Roland's 
 " Appeal," Danton proposed to Roland, the Minister 
 of the Interior, to institute a journal for the purpose 
 of biassing the public mind in the direction which the 
 then government wished. This periodical was to . 
 have been edited by Camille, but the plan never 
 materialised. 
 
 The National Convention met for the first time on 
 September 20th. It had been elected by almost 
 absolute universal suffrage in accordance with a law 
 passed by the Legislative Assembly on August loth. 
 Although its numbers were by no means complete 
 on the opening date, the Convention immediately 
 proceeded to the most important measures possible. 
 
 It decreed on September 21st that Royalty was 
 abolished in France, and on the following day the 
 Republic was proclaimed. Both these measures were 
 afterwards submitted to the ratification of the people, 
 by means of a referendum, and were accepted by a 
 majority of votes. 
 
 It was thus that the first French Republic was 
 created, without any extraordinary enthusiasm, but 
 also without any active opposition. On September 
 25th Danton gave a great and lasting title to the new 
 government when he proposed the motion that " the 
 French Republic is one and undivisible." 
 
 In the middle of September we learn that Camille 
 was appointed by the Provisional Executive Council 
 to inspect the district of Laon, Guise and Soissons, 
 
200 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 but we cannot find that he really ever undertook 
 this mission, in fact, it is practically certain that he did 
 not leave Paris for any period, however short. 
 
 Camille's old journal, the " Revolutions de France 
 et de Brabant," reappeared for a short time in October 
 of this year under the editorship of Merlin (de Thion- 
 ville). Camille seems to have taken the position of a 
 kind of leader-writer on the staff of the paper, but very 
 little of the old spirit was revived with the name, and 
 it was plain from the first that it could not hope for a 
 long life. 
 
 The violent tone of the journal can be judged by one 
 example. It bore as its epigraph a quotation from 
 Seneca : " Victima haud uUa amplior potest magisque 
 opima mactari Jovi quam rex," which may be roughly 
 translated as follows: "There is no victim more 
 agreeable to Jupiter than a king as the sacrifice." 
 
 A few numbers only of the journal appeared, and 
 they have little value or interest. It is evident, 
 however, that Camille was considered to share with 
 Merlin the responsibility of the production, for one 
 of the few monarchical journals of that day, the short- 
 lived " Journal Fran^ais," contains the following 
 reference to the " Revolutions de France " in its first 
 number, dated November 15th, 1792, and addressed 
 to the Society of Jacobins : — 
 
 " Brothers and friends, you are sovereigns, because you say 
 so every day in your tribune ; you are wise, because brothers 
 Merlin and Desmoulins give a journal gratis, which calls forth 
 the admiration of> the eighty-three departments and of all 
 Europe." 
 
 And now the shadow of a great duty to be performed 
 hung over the National Convention. They must 
 decide upon the fate of Louis XVI. 
 
 It was in the debates on this question that the first 
 signs of a division in the Convention began to appear. 
 The party of the Mountain, which had been com- 
 
THE EAST WIND 201 
 
 paratively weak in the Legislative Assembly, had now 
 assumed formidable proportions and could contend on 
 equal terms with the powerful Girondin faction. It 
 is misleading, however, to imagine these two parties 
 as being opposed to one another in their ideas of 
 the Republic. This misconception, nevertheless, has 
 become very general. People are apt to think of the 
 Girondins as being essentially moderate and constitur 
 tional in their aims, almost monarchical in fact, whilst 
 the Montagnards stand for extreme democracy and 
 terrorism. This conception is very wide of the mark. 
 The two parties were equally republican in their 
 aims and ideals ; it was another question which 
 separated them. M. Aulard sums up the situation 
 very clearly when he says that the essential difference 
 between the Montagnards and the Girondins was that 
 the former wished to see Paris provisionally, during the 
 war, at the head of the united Republic ; the latter 
 did not wish the capital to exert any supremacy over 
 the departments, even in time of war. 
 
 The first sign of a split in the Convention appeared-, 
 as we have said, with respect to this question of the 
 King's trial. Without being more inclined than the 
 Montagnards to show clemency towards Louisj the 
 Girondins wished to appeal to the people in general 
 and thus ascertain their views on the subject, whilst 
 the Mountain contended that the Convention alone 
 had full power to try and to condemn the King. 
 
 The trial began on December nth, and was con- 
 ducted with a certain amount of dignity and order ; 
 it is evident that the Convention had in mind the pro- 
 cess and condemnation of Charles I. 
 
 As to Louis, he bore himself throughout with great 
 courage, although from the first it is plain he had small 
 hope that his life would be spared. During the long 
 trial most of the leading orators of the Convention 
 set forth their views with regard to the sentence which 
 was to be passed upon the King. Camille had rightly 
 
202 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 no confidence in his own powers as a speaker. He 
 accordingly put into writing his " Opinion upon the 
 Judgment of Louis XVI." 
 
 The power of his pen was never used to worse pur- 
 pose, except perhaps in his attacks upon Brissot and the 
 Girondin party. One would think that the writer was 
 impelled by malignity against the man, as well as wrath 
 against the King, and his vituperation is even womanish 
 in its inconsequence. 
 
 Still it is only fair to Camille to remember that he 
 was not alone in this almost personal feeling of hatred 
 towards Louis. The King had been culpably, crimin- 
 ally weak, and it is perhaps little to be wondered at 
 that this criminality was imputed more to maUce than 
 to lack of strength. 
 
 The Constitution had set it down that the person of 
 the King was inviolable, but Camille argues that the 
 primitive code of nations decrees that no law is law 
 until it is freely subscribed to by the people. He con- 
 tends that the populace had never agreed to this law 
 of inviolability. In fact, they protested against it after 
 the return from Varennes in the famous Petition of the 
 Champ-de-Mars, the signing of which, as he says, was 
 only partly prevented by the massacre of patriots. 
 
 Furthermore, Camille considers that if there had 
 been a contract between the King and the people this 
 would have become null, owing to the repeated 
 " treasons " of the King, one of the contracting 
 parties. Therefore the writer considers that, as 
 King, Louis is worthy of death. 
 
 So far, according to the spirit of the times, Camille 
 is not illogical. It is the second part of his argument 
 that posterity will scarcely accept. 
 
 He contends that Louis must also be punished as a 
 
 criminal. True, he concedes, that, from some points 
 
 yof view, one cannot altogether compare him with 
 
 ^ Nero, b^t he accuses him in no measured terms of 
 
 treason and of treason which puts him outside the law. 
 
THE EAST WIND 203 
 
 He ought, therefore, to be punished as an outlaw, and 
 as one more culpable than the lowest brigand or robber, 
 for, as Camille observes, one still finds honour amongst 
 thieves. 
 
 Camille scoffs at the idea of there being any difficulty 
 as to who should judge the King ; it is the sovereign 
 people who must do this thing, through their repre- 
 sentatives. They have arrogated to themselves the 
 duty of judging others, therefore they can judge 
 Louis Capet. 
 
 " It is evident that the people have sent us here to judge the 
 King, and to give them a Constitution." 
 
 Camille concludes, in correct classical fashion, by 
 comparing the Deputies of the Convention to the 
 Consul Brutus, who did not shrink from condemning 
 his own son to death. Shall they, the representatives 
 of the people, prove themselves less worthy than he by 
 hesitating to judge a far greater criminal ? 
 
 CamiUe did not pause here. His rancour against 
 Louis was not yet satisfied. This " Opinion " of his 
 is almost moderate in tone when we compare it with 
 a motion he presented at this time to the National 
 Convention. 
 
 The violence of his language on this occasion is quite 
 indefensible, at least if we are to judge the men of 
 that day by the ordinary rules which govern conduct 
 amongst a civilised people. 
 
 Camille's motion was as follows : — 
 
 " The National Convention decrees that Louis Capet de- 
 serves to die. It decrees that the scaffold shall be erected in 
 the Place de Carrousel, whither Louis shall be conducted, 
 wearing on his breast these words : ' Perjurer and Traitor to 
 the Nation,' and on his back another label bearing the word 
 ' King,' in order to show the world that the degradation of 
 nations cannot efface the crimes committed by royalty, even 
 after the lapse of fifteen centuries ; it also decrees that the 
 tomb of the Kings at St. Denis shall henceforth be the burial- 
 place of thieves, murderers and traitors." 
 
204 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Vindictiveness towards a fallen foe could scarcely 
 go farther than this. 
 
 The long trial of the King came to an end at last. It 
 now only remained for the members of the Convention 
 to record their votes on three successive questions. 
 
 Firstly, whether Louis Capet was guilty or not 
 guilty. On this count the verdict was unanimous, or 
 practically so ; with no dissentient voice the Con- 
 vention made answer : " He is guilty." 
 
 With regard to the second question, whether there 
 should be an appeal to the people or no, the Montag- 
 nard vote prevailed over that of the Girondins. There 
 was a majority of two to one against the referendum. 
 
 On the following day, Wednesday, January loth, the 
 voting began on the last and most important question 
 — what punishment ? 
 
 It was not until eight o'clock in the evening that 
 they actually began to vote, after a day spent in argu- 
 ment and debate as to what majority should be 
 required to decide the matter. All through the dark 
 hours of that winter night, all through the next day 
 and night the voting continued. The seven hundred 
 and forty-nine members of the Convention who were 
 present mounted one by one to the Tribune and re- 
 corded their votes, sometimes accompanying their 
 bare statement with a speech in explanation or 
 vindication of their opinion. 
 
 From one of the galleries in the hall a group of 
 painted, gaily dressed women, the friends of 
 " Equality " Orleans, listened to the voting, with 
 laughing comments on the grim ceremonial. They 
 held little cards inscribed with the names of the 
 deputies, and as these names were called and the vote 
 was given, they pricked it off in one column or the 
 other. Bets were interchanged between these women 
 and the deputies and their friends, who came and went 
 amongst them, bets as to whether Capet would 
 eventually escape, as to how such and such a one would 
 
THE EAST WIND 205 
 
 vote. They ate oranges and sweetmeats whilst they 
 waited — and the fate of a King hung in the balance. 
 
 All the world knows the final verdict — that verdict 
 which the Girondin, Vergniaud, pronounced as 
 President of the Convention, in a voice which, men 
 said, sounded as though conscience-stricken. 
 
 " I declare, in the name of the Convention, that the punish- 
 ment it pronounces on Louis Capet is that of death." 
 
 Camille gave his vote in the terms which one would 
 naturally expect after reading his " Opinion." Yet 
 he had but lately received a letter from his father in 
 which M. Desmoulins gravely and solemnly warned 
 his son against voting for the death of the King. 
 
 " If I were you, I should say," writes the elder man, " ' 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.' " 
 
 In spite of this warning, Camille recorded his vote 
 for death, and in no dubious phrases. These are the 
 exact words which he used. 
 
 " 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." 
 
 So on that bitter, frost-bound day at the end of 
 January, the sacrifice which Camille had helped with 
 all his powers to bring about was consummated. With 
 no great show of stoicism — for he was never a romantic 
 figure — but with a simple piety which was far better 
 than any heroics, Louis XVI, King of France and 
 Navarre, met his death. 
 
 To his son he left a noble testament — the command 
 to forgive his own enemies and those of his father. The 
 words which he would have spoken to his people were 
 drowned in the roll of drums. In the pages of history 
 Louis has inscribed his name, haltingly and unevenly, 
 as a good man, but a bad king. 
 
IT was a bitter wind which directed the course 
 o£ the self-named weathercock during those 
 first nine months o£ 1793. Camille had been 
 one of the instruments to slay the King. Now, 
 he was to assist, with that cruel pen of his, in the 
 downfall of a man, once his intimate friend, and of 
 a party who, well directed, might have been the 
 salvation of France. 
 
 We have already seen how the quarrel between 
 Camille and Brissot began. The former had neither 
 forgotten nor forgiven the injury which he considered 
 himself to have sustained. He had given one retaliating 
 thrust already, in the " Brissot Demasque " ; he only 
 bided his time to wound his adversary yet more 
 deeply. 
 
 Meantime, all Europe was stunned with horror at 
 the news of the execution of Louis. No one had 
 realised that the Convention would dare to go so far. 
 No one had believed that the spirit must be taken 
 literally which had inspired Danton with those terrible 
 words : — 
 
 " The coalised Kings threaten us ; we hurl at their feet, as 
 gage of battle, the head of a Kmg ! " 
 
 Monsieur, the Count of Provence, proclaimed 
 himself regent for the boy-king, Louis XVII, on Jan- 
 uary 28th, and in the wording of this proclamation 
 showed more than the usual Bourbon incapacity to 
 learn wisdom. He stated that his desire and intention 
 was to re-establish the old order of things, pure and 
 
 306 
 
THE EAST WIND 207 
 
 simple, and thereby did. enormous harm to the royal 
 cause. 
 
 There was a practically unanimous declaration of war 
 from the European powers, a declaration which the 
 new Republic accepted, nay, which, in more than one 
 instance, she forestalled. And while the Armies of 
 the Coalition threatened the northern and eastern 
 frontiers of France, in the early spring of 1793 civil 
 war broke out within her boundaries. 
 
 Royalist La Vendee had long been smouldering in 
 rebellion, and the revolt broke into flame when the 
 Convention endeavoured to enforce the great national 
 levy of troops in this province. 
 
 It was on March 8th that all the external and 
 internal troubles seemed to come to a climax. There 
 was bad news from the frontier, where Dumouriez 
 hesitated on the brink of treason ; there was bad news 
 from La Vendee, where the untrained Royalist troops 
 were assuming a rough kind of organisation, under their 
 own peasant leaders and a few impoverished seigneurs. 
 
 In Paris, the internal quarrels of the Convention 
 were growing more and more persistent. When on 
 this 8th of March Danton rose in the Assembly to plead 
 that the representatives should cease from discord, 
 should lay aside their quarrels and join in the defence 
 of the Fatherland, he put into words a national 
 necessity. 
 
 As usual Danton carried public opinion with him. 
 On the Hotel de Ville, the black flag proclaimed that 
 the " Fatherland was in Danger ! " and the sections 
 sat in permanence to enrol recruits. The Girondins 
 alone were uncertain and doubtful ; they found it 
 literally impossible to join whole-heartedly with the 
 " Mountain." They temporised and waited, whilst 
 the populace murmured against them. 
 
 Nevertheless, for the moment the indignation against 
 Brissot and his party subsided, without resulting in 
 open strife. 
 
2o8 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 On March loth the Convention took a very im- 
 portant step. It decreed, on Danton's motion, that : 
 " There should be established in Paris a Criminal 
 Tribunal extraordinary ; which would deal with all 
 counter-revolutionary undertakings, and all attempts 
 upon the liberty, equality, unity and indivisibility of 
 the Republic, the internal and external safety of the 
 state and all conspiracies tending to re-establish 
 Royalty, or to establish any other authority injurious 
 to liberty, equality and the sovereignty of the people." 
 
 Thus was instituted the famous Revolutionary 
 Tribunal, which exactly a year later was to arraign 
 before its bar the very man who had caused it to be 
 created. Revolutionary Tribunals had already existed, 
 notably that one which had been formed to try those 
 involved in the affair of August loth, but these were 
 merely temporary creations. This was the great 
 Tribunal which was to become such a terrible and 
 deadly weapon in the hands of the Committee of 
 Public Safety. 
 
 It was on March 25 th that this all-powerful Com- 
 mittee was formed. At first it was known as the 
 Committee of General Defence, continuing the title 
 of one which had been in existence since January 3rd, 
 1793. It consisted of twenty-five members, of whom 
 Camille was one. 
 
 In this form the Committee executed nothing of 
 particular interest. It only existed until April 5th, 
 when it was dissolved and replaced by a Commission 
 of Execution, which, on April 6th, took the name of 
 the Committee of Public Safety. Under this name, 
 although at various times reconstituted, the great 
 Commitee governed France to all intents and purposes 
 until the establishment of the Directory. 
 
 There was an indirect thrust against Brissot and his 
 party in a measure which was passed in the Convention 
 on March 29th and which decreed that : " Whosoever 
 should be convicted of having composed or printed 
 
THE EAST WIND 209 
 
 works or writings which might provoke the dissolution 
 of the National Representation, the re-establishment 
 of Royalty or of any other power injurious to the 
 sovereignty of the people," should be found guilty of 
 treason against the Nation. 
 
 Again on April 5 th another decisive move was taken 
 against the Girondins. The Jacobins, with Marat as 
 President, signed a circular proclaiming the necessity 
 of proscribing the Girondin Deputies as " traitors, 
 Royalists and inept." This address was read from the 
 Tribune of the Convention and signed by ninety-six 
 members of the Mountain, amongst whom was Camille. 
 Danton and Robespierre, however, declined to put 
 their names to it. 
 
 The Girondins retaliated by proposing a decree of 
 accusation against Marat, which they contrived to 
 pass in the Assembly by a narrow majority, but al- 
 though the " Friend of the People " was brought in 
 consequence before the Revolutionary Tribunal, he 
 was acquitted and carried back to the Convention in 
 triumph by the populace. Here he behaved with 
 considerable dignity and forbearance, and the Giron- 
 dins could not but feel that their attack on the Moun- 
 tain had most woefully miscarried. Instead of 
 strengthening their position by this aggression they 
 had enormously weakened it. 
 
 It was in May that Camille published his next and 
 most virulent attack upon Brissot and his party, 
 " L'Histoire des Brissotins " (Fragment de I'Histoire 
 secrete de la Revolution). 
 
 Contemporary writers, who were also eye-witnesses 
 of the events, such as Helen Maria Williams, seem to 
 have accepted it as indisputable that the act of 
 accusation against the Girondin deputies was mainly 
 founded on this pamphlet of Camille's. He himself 
 writes of it to his father, a little later, as " the mani- 
 festo, the precursor of the Revolution of May 31st," 
 and there is little doubt but that it was the chief 
 
210 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 instrument which brought about the fall o£ the 
 Gironde. For those days the circulation of the 
 pamphlet was immense, more than four thousand 
 copies being sold. 
 
 In this work Camille pursued the same system of 
 attack as in the " Brissot Demasque." His object 
 was to prove that the whole party of the Gironde was 
 Royalist and anti-revolutionary in its tendencies, 
 thereby discrediting them with the populace, and he 
 was not particularly scrupulous as to the means he 
 adopted to prove his unfounded assertions. For 
 instance, he states that in September, 1792, a large 
 proportion of the Convention was Royalist, meaning 
 thereby the faction of the Gironde. This statement 
 is obviously absurd, and he gives no further proof of 
 this royalism than the " Implications of the Girondins 
 against Paris." It is, of course, plain that Camille's 
 sole object was to depict his enemies as " reactionaries " 
 without giving any valid reasons for the accusation. 
 
 Speaking of Brissot, Petion, Guadet, Gensonne, 
 Raimond and others, he says : " Until these 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 with vices." 
 
 Camille inveighed against Brissot and his associates 
 with bitter sarcasm, using with deadly effect the 
 weapon of his terrible wit. He urged that the 
 Brissotins should be vomited forth from the Conven- 
 tion, and the Revolutionary Tribunal " amputated." 
 Whilst the brilliance of the pamphlet is undeniable, 
 this; fact only made it the more dangerous : never 
 had Camille written to worse effect in all his literary 
 career than now, when he used his pen to bring about 
 the destruction of those men, who, with all their faults, 
 were amongst the purest patriots in France. 
 
 It is undoubted that this pamphlet of Camille's was 
 written at the direct inspiration of Robespierre. 
 
THE EAST WIND 211 
 
 During the greater part of this year of 1793 all the 
 work of the journalist was practically dictated by his 
 friend and colleague, who made use of the medium of 
 Camille's brilliant style to express his own subtle 
 policy. 
 
 Robespierre's whole system of attack upon the 
 Gironde in the Convention and at the Jacobins was a 
 series of indeterminate accusations, of vague deduc- 
 tions, and of spiteful calumnies. This, as we have 
 seen, was also the plan pursued by Camille in the 
 " Histoire des Brissotins " with this difference, that 
 his clear, incisive style gave a deceptive kind of lucidity 
 to Robespierre's enigmatic and nqn-committal utter- 
 ances. 
 
 At the same time, the fact that Camille was inspired 
 in this and other instances by Robespierre does not 
 shift the blame from the journalist's shoulders. He 
 was a man, and as such responsible for his own actions, 
 whether bad or the reverse. The question is, whether 
 Camille himself acted in good faith by writing as he 
 did, and here it would certainly be unfair to accuse 
 him of intentional falsehood or even of insincerity. 
 It is certain that there was a considerable amount of 
 personal ill-feeling on his part, towards Brissot at any 
 rate, but on the whole he probably believed that he / 
 was doing right in striving to bring about the downfall V 
 of the Girondins. It was a party question, and at that 
 time party warfare was a cruel and remorseless 
 business, where little mercy was shown, a fight 
 veritably to the death. 
 
 Immediately on the publication of Camille's 
 pamphlet followed the day of May 31st, when the 
 Convention, overawed by the Commune, submitted 
 ignominiously to the demands of the people of Paris, 
 and, in cowardly fashion, delivered up the deputies of 
 the Gironde. 
 
 At first Brissot and his colleagues were not im- 
 prisoned, but merely kept under supervision, and 
 
212 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 debarred from taking their seats in the Convention. 
 In consequence of this comparative freedom a number 
 of the deputies, amongst whom were Buzot, Barbaroux, 
 Louvet and Petion, escaped from Paris and made their 
 way to Normandy, there to stir up civil war. 
 
 As military leaders, however, the Girondins failed 
 signally. They expected the people of the provinces 
 to flock to their standard as soon as it was raised, but 
 they were disappointed in this hope. Their general, 
 Wimpfen, tried to prevail on them to join forces with 
 the Royalist troops, but this proposal the staunch 
 Republicans rejected with scorn. At the one pitched 
 battle with the army of the Convention, at Vernon, 
 the Girondin army rather dissolved than was defeated. 
 The deputies began that sorrowful and hopeless flight 
 through the autumnal countryside, which ended only 
 in the death of most of them, killed by their own hands, 
 by the guillotine — by the very dogs of the village. 
 
 In Paris the fate of the Girondin deputies was even 
 more swift and certain. Camille carried his attack 
 yet further in the " Adresse des Jacobins aux depart e- 
 ments sur I'insurrection du 31 mai," which appeared 
 during the summer. Nevertheless, it is apparent in 
 this pamphlet that the journalist did not feel entirely 
 confident of himself. There is in it a distinct attempt 
 to justify his course of action, to prove himself in the 
 right, for his own satisfaction as much as for that of 
 others, by appealing to the examples of the men of 
 antiquity, and by a succession of quotations from 
 Seneca, Plato and Sallust. It is plain enough that 
 Camille already felt some twinges of remorse. 
 
 The misguided heroism of Charlotte Corday in her 
 murder of Marat was the death-blow of the Girondin 
 cause. As Vergniaud is reported to have said : " She 
 has slain us, but she teaches us how to die." 
 
 It was in this same month of July, which saw the 
 death of Marat, that Camille for the first time found 
 himself under suspicion of that deadly sin of " in- 
 
THE EAST WIND 213 
 
 civism " which formed the basis of so maiiy accusations 
 at that time. 
 
 It would appear that the young man had been 
 somewhat remiss in his attendances at the Convention, 
 where, indeed, Camille never felt himself in his ele- 
 ment, and in consequence the deputy Breard went so 
 far as to accuse him of a connection with the aristocrats 
 and of favouring their projects. 
 
 The real reason of the accusation, however, is to be 
 traced to the suspicions aroused by Camille's bold and 
 spirited defence of his friend Arthur Dillon at the 
 beginning of this month of July. That brave soldier 
 and fascinating man of the world had been imprisoned 
 in the Madelonettes on July nth and 12th upon the 
 accusation of Couthon. 
 
 Dillon was almost openly a Royalist, he was the 
 devoted adherent of Marie-Antoinette ; an ill man 
 to defend at that time. Nevertheless, Camille took 
 up the case vehemently, and, what is more, carried it 
 through successfully, although at the cost to himself 
 of a stain upon his reputation as a true Republican. 
 It was a luckless friendship, this of the brilliant Franco- 
 Irishman for the journalist and his wife. The fact 
 that Camille undertook his defence was, undoubtedly, 
 the young man's first step downward from popular 
 favour, and Dillon's well-meant but misguided actions 
 later were to be made the pretext for the arrest and 
 condemnation of Lucile. 
 
 Camille must have been very well aware of the danger 
 which he ran by showing such active sympathy with a 
 man accused of royalism. Probably he believed then 
 and later that his own republicanism was above 
 suspicion, that the people of Paris would always 
 support their favourite, whatever he might do. 
 However that may be, there is a letter extant from 
 Dillon to his counsel which proves that the young man 
 acted with real devotion and self-forgetfulness, and 
 which besides throws a curious sidelight upon his 
 
214 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 relationship to Fouquier-Tinville, the PubHc Prose- 
 cutor. Dillon writes from the prison o£ the Madelon- 
 ettes, a short time before his release. 
 
 " This tremendous business of mine," he says, " now become 
 so simple, thanks to your kindness, to your courage, and besides, 
 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. . . . only a word from your cousin is 
 wanted." 
 
 In an English journal of that date, the " Argus," we 
 find the following interesting commentary on Dillon's 
 relations with Camille and the ultimate result of the case. 
 The extract is reprinted from the " Register of Occur- 
 rences " in Sampson Perry's " Historical Sketch " : — 
 
 " A. Dillon possessed the friendship of several members of 
 the Convention, among the rest that of Camille Desmoulins, 
 who writ a Philippic against the Committee of Public Welfare 
 almost entirely to vindicate Dillon's conduct and to set forth 
 his knowledge of his profession and to detail the services he 
 had rendered France, proving that he would do it stiU by his 
 counsels, if not by his sword. The effect of this well-written 
 pamphlet, added to that of a large posting bill wherein he 
 peremptorily demanded the Committee either to take his head 
 or to give him his liberty, produced what he desired, and he 
 was in a few days liberated from the Madelonettes." 
 
 There was perhaps a deeper reason than at first 
 appears for Camille's generous conduct in this matter. 
 Evil tongues had been busy once again, hinting at 
 something more than common friendship between 
 Arthur Dillon and Lucile Desmoulins ; by his self- 
 sacrificing defence of the elder man Camille could and 
 did prove his faith in his wife in no uncertain fashion. 
 
 That he was aware of the rumours we know from his 
 own writings ; and the manner in which he answered 
 the infamQus report may well be set down here : — 
 
 " ' Do you know Dillon well ? ' CamiEe says that an 
 acquaintance asked him. 
 
THE EAST WIND 215 
 
 " ' Of course I know him. Have I not got myself into a 
 scrape for him, against his will ? ' . . . 
 
 " ' Does your wife often see Dillon ? ' 
 
 " ' I don't think she has seen him four times in her life.' . . . 
 
 " ' Since you take it so philosophically, 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, and 
 women are so fickle.' 
 
 " ' Some at least.' 
 
 " ' I am sorry for you.' . . . 
 
 " ' 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's taste may be questioned in publishing this 
 conversation, imaginary or otherwise. What is un- 
 questionable is his complete and unswerving faith in 
 Lucile, as unquestionable as the fact that his young 
 wife deserved that perfect trust. 
 
 After the accusation brought against him in the 
 Convention, Gamille was invited to submit his 
 character to the scrutiny of the Jacobins. He passed 
 through the ordeal successfully with the aid of 
 Robespierre, and managed to clear himself for the 
 time being. 
 
 But this was not the end of the matter. Camille 
 immediately published what we should now call an 
 " open " " Lettre au General Dillon," and this letter 
 was full of expressions which almost pass belief in their 
 unwisdom. It really would seem as though the / 
 journalist thought that he was privileged to say any-V 
 thing he pleased with impunity. 
 
 He spoke of Billaud-Varennes, a personality to be 
 reckoned with at that time, and a man incredibly bitter 
 and vindictive, as a coward, and as " the bilious 
 patriot." 
 
 Of Saint- Just, another member of the great Com- 
 mittee of Government, and the devoted friend of 
 
2i6 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Robespierre, he wrote in phrases which have become 
 famous. 
 
 " After Legendre," says Camille, " 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." 
 
 Neither Billaud nor Saint-Just ever forgot these 
 pleasant jests. As we shall soon see, they were from 
 henceforth among Camille's most bitter and unsparing 
 enemies. 
 
 It would seem as though the journalist himself 
 suspected that he had gone too far in his attacks on 
 these extreme members of the Committee. Writing 
 to his father on August loth, he says : — 
 
 " I Send you a' pamphlet that I have just published (" Lettre 
 au General Dillon "). Its prodigious success for two days past 
 makes me almost afraid, because I am not more resentful against 
 myself. I must needs descend to the depths of my heart, in 
 order to find there always the same patriotism as of old, that I 
 may excuse myself in my own eyes when I see the aristocrats 
 so delighted." 
 
 We possess two letters written by Camille to his 
 father at this time. The first, dated July 9th, in 
 which he boasts of the effect of his attack on Brissot, 
 is mainly cheerful in tone. He complains, in mock 
 seriousness, that he is compelled to write in his office, 
 at the Hall of the Assembly, because at home Lucile 
 always comes to look over his shoulder, to discover 
 whether he is writing to Guise. 
 
 He tells his father, half seriously, half playfully, that 
 his wife is plainly jealous of his family. She will not 
 hear of paying a visit to his birthplace, even after 
 peace shall have been declared. As Camille naively 
 remarks in a passage already quoted, she is troubled by 
 the remembrance of "some cousin of mine, who has 
 been mentioned to her." 
 
THE EAST WIND 217 
 
 The contrast between this letter, with its revelations 
 of Lucile's pretty jealousy, and that which he wrote to 
 his father on August loth is very marked. He speaks 
 of a family sorrow, the news of which has just been 
 sent to him, and his language is very tender and 
 affectionate. We should perhaps say here that 
 Camille's suggestion was perfectly correct. Semery 
 Desmoulins was in reality a prisoner, and was still 
 living many years after the death of his father and 
 elder brother. 
 
 " I am very grieved to hear of the death of my brother 
 Semery, slain in fighting for the fatherland," Camille writes. 
 " I had no other certainty of a loss so afflicting for you except 
 the indication of his long silence, and I seized with avidity 
 upon your doubts as to his death. Is it not possible that you 
 may still receive him from the hands of the enemy, who perhaps 
 hold him a prisoner ? I have realised every hour^^ in seeing 
 my own son, how this blow must cut you to the heart. My 
 wife and I have been much touched by the interest which you 
 feel for this dear little child, whom we love so much that I 
 have horrible fear of losing him. Life is made up of evil and 
 good in equal proportions, and for some years evil has floated 
 around me, so that it seems to me my turn to be submerged 
 must come. ... 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. Of 
 what importance is success to me ? But I cannot bear the sight 
 of all this accumulated injustice, ingratitude and wrong. 
 Where can I be as obscure as I am now well known ? Where 
 is the asylum, the cellar where I may hide from all observation, 
 with my wife, my child and my books ? I cannot prevent 
 myself from thinking unceasingly that these men who are 
 executed in thousands have children, have fathers also. At 
 least I have none of these murders with which to reproach 
 myself, nor any of these wars against which I have always 
 contended. . . . Farewell, I embrace you : take care of your 
 health so that I may press you to my heart if I am to be suffered 
 to outlive this revolution, although there are moments when 
 I am tempted to- seek death in La Vendee or on the frontiers to 
 escape from the spectacle of so many ills, ... It is true that 
 
21 8 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 the state of things, such as it is, is incomparably better than 
 four years ago, because there is a hope of amendment, a hope 
 which cannot exist under a despotism of which the slaves are 
 like the damned who have no more hope." 
 
 This letter, as a whole, speaks of discouragement, 
 of a kind of vicarious renaorse, as it were. Camille 
 boasts that he need not reproach himself for these 
 murders, and for these iUs which afflict his country. 
 He does not yet realise his personal responsibility, he 
 is still blind to his own share in the evils which he sees 
 so plainly. His eyes were soon to be rudely opened ; 
 in a moment of time he was to see himself revealed as 
 the murderer of the men who had been his own 
 familiar friends. It needed some such shock as this 
 to rouse Camille to a sense of his own responsibilities. 
 
 It must necessarily seem to us very strange that 
 loving, tender-hearted Lucile did not serve as a soften- 
 ing influence upon Camille at this worst and most 
 violent period of his life. 
 
 The truth would seem to be that Lucile herself 
 was an ardent little Republican and, in theory, quite 
 ready to advocate extreme measures. There is an 
 entry in her diary relative to Marie-Antoinette, where 
 she describes in high-flown phrases what she would do 
 in the place of the Queen " if fate had set me upon the 
 Throne, if, having wrought the misery of my subjects, 
 a certain death awaited me as the just punishment of 
 my crimes." 
 
 There is a stoical pitilessness in Lucile's imaginings. 
 " 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 day of my death all my 
 family should accompany me to the funeral pile in 
 mourning." 
 
THE EAST WIND 219 
 
 Moreover, Lucile loved Camille with an intensity 
 which blinded her to all his faults and shortcomings. 
 Everything which her husband did or wrote doubt- 
 less seemed in her eyes to be right, and perfectly 
 justifiable. 
 
 It was during the summer of 1793 that the 
 " Terror " became a systematised method of govern- 
 ment. There are two things to be remembered in 
 this connection : firstly, that it was a definite system, 
 and secondly, that it was not a system which was 
 intended to be permanent. It is possible that Marie- 
 Joseph Chenier, himself a Terrorist, gave at once the 
 best apology and the best explanation for the Terror- 
 istic Government in the Council of Five Hundred, 
 on the 27th Ventose, Year IV. 
 
 " A monarchy fourteen centuries old," he said, " suddenly 
 transformed into a Republic ; a war against half Europe ; a 
 vast civil war in the interior of the country ; it must be allowed 
 that these trifling circumstances might well justify certain 
 temporary measures, which would be abandoned in the 
 tranquillity of a happier time." 
 
 The atrocities which have made the Terror a 
 synonym for unspeakable cruelty are ever to be de- 
 plored. But who can say that there was no method 
 in that madness ? 
 
 The Terror, in Barere's sounding phrase, was 
 indeed " on the Orders of the Day " from this time 
 onward. The Queen had been executed on October 
 1 6th, the very day on which the armies of the Coalition 
 were signally defeated at Wattignies by the raw 
 Republican recruits, directed by the military genius of 
 Carnot. Danton had retreated to his birthplace 
 in the middle of the month, broken down in health 
 after his enormous exertions. He had striven to heal 
 the breach with the Girondins to his utmost. Now, 
 in despair, he could only leave them to their fate. 
 
 On October 31st the trial of Brissot and his col- 
 
220 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 leagues came to an end, and the death sentence was 
 passed. 
 
 It is from this day that we must date the great 
 change which came over Camille ; the reaction then 
 definitely set in which culminated in his appeal for 
 clemency. For the first time he seems to have realised 
 the power of the printed word, he saw in a tangible 
 form the result of his own writings. A terrible truth 
 was brought home to him ; the truth that, as Mr. 
 Philip Gibbs expresses it : " at that time in France 
 an accusation was almost as good as a condemnation, 
 and that a bitter jest led men to the guillotine." 
 
 Camille had shot his arrows of barbed wit recklessly, 
 thinking, if he thought at all, that they would glance 
 off without reaching a vital spot. He was to find now 
 that they had reached their mark, that they had been 
 only too well aimed ; to paraphrase the poet, he was 
 to find them " in the heart -of a friend." 
 
 Vilate, in his Memoirs, of which there is no reason 
 to doubt the authenticity, tells us how Camille bore 
 himself at the trial of the Girondins. This passage has 
 often been quoted, but it will bear repetition here : — 
 
 " I was seated with Camille Desmoulins on the bench placed 
 before the table of the jury. When they returned 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 declaration of the 
 jury, he threw himself into my arms in distress and agony of 
 mind : ' Oh, my God, my God ! It is I who kill them ! My 
 " Brissot Unmasked " ! Oh, my God, this has destroyed 
 them ! ' 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 concluded 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." 
 
 It would almost appear as though Camille had not 
 
THE EAST WIND 221 
 
 thought it possible that the Girondins would be con- 
 demned to death. Otherwise, he surely would not 
 have been present at the trial, unless it was a terrible 
 fascination which dragged him there to hear the end, 
 whatever that might be. 
 
 This day marks the close of the third phase of 
 Camille's life, that short, worse period, when it seems 
 as though he were indeed driven by the bitter fury 
 of the easterly blast. Now the wind has changed and 
 for the last time. From henceforth Camille, although 
 often feebly and with hesitation, will yield himself to 
 a gentler influence ; we shall hear his voice raised now 
 in a new appeal which sounded strange and foreign in 
 those days — the appeal for clemency. 
 
PART FOUR 
 THE SOUTH WIND 
 
" Thy garments are warm, when he quieteth the earth 
 by the South Wind." 
 
 Job xxxvii. 1 7. 
 
IT would be making an arbitrary statement and 
 one neither consistent with the facts nor with 
 human nature to say that the condemnation of 
 the Girondin deputies was a definite turning- 
 point in Camille's life. All that one can affirm is that, 
 roughly, it marks the end of a phase, and that it is 
 only a;fter this date that he gives the first tangible 
 proofs of a change of policy. 
 
 It would be incorrect, however, to pretend that this 
 change came about suddenly. In the passages quoted 
 from Camille's letters to his father during the summer 
 of 1793 we have already seen that he was uneasy and 
 depressed, doubtful as to what would be the upshot of 
 the conflict which was raging in France. It was not 
 that his views had changed with regard to the Revolu- 
 tion itself ; it was not that he had become any the 
 less a Republican, but there was stirring within him a 
 feeling of pity and remorse for the bloodshed which he 
 had helped to bring about. He had begun to ask him- 
 self that question which later in the year he was to 
 cry so loudly in the streets : " Could not the Republic 
 vanquish as surely by clemency as by the sword ? " 
 
 The trial of the Girondins, as we have said before, 
 brought home to him his own personal responsibility ; 
 that is really what it amounts to. 
 
 There is a story which has been repeated again and 
 again in many forms, and with so many poetical em- 
 bellishments that it seems to us now more like the 
 work of a writer of fiction than a relation of plain 
 facts. Yet M. Jules Claretie, in his book on the 
 p 225 
 
226 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Dantonists, vouches for its truth, and asserts that he 
 heard the story from an unimpeachable authority. 
 It is his version accordingly which shall be given here. 
 
 Some time during the summer of 1793, before 
 Danton's retirement to Arcis-sur-Aube, he and Camilla 
 were returning homewards one evening after the 
 session of the Convention. When they came to the 
 Quai des Lunettes it was near the hour of sunset, and 
 the crimson light of the sky was reflected in the river 
 beneath. Danton paused to gaze at the strange 
 unearthly glow, then turning to his companion with a 
 shudder, he said: 
 
 " Look, 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." 
 
 It is not difiicult to accept this story as true ; the 
 words which Danton is reported to have spoken are in 
 no way inconsistent with his character, framed as it 
 was on large lines, both for good and evil. He ex- 
 pressed the feeliiig which was growing in him and 
 Camille alike — a feeling of dissatisfaction, of revulsion 
 against the present order of things. A presentiment 
 of evil plainly shadowed the thoughts of the younger 
 man as the autumn and winter drew on. At first it 
 appeared in him as a kind of mental oppression. As 
 he said to his father : " It seems to me my turn to be 
 engulfed must come soon." 
 
 Later it was to take a more definite form. Camille's 
 forebodings during the winter and early spring of 
 1794 were no question of the imagination. To his 
 honour be it spoken that he was then definitely ad- 
 hering to a course which he could scarcely have doubted 
 might lead him to the guillotine. 
 
 It was after the downfall of the Gironde, late in the 
 autumn of 1793, that Camille, as he says himself in 
 the first number of the " Vieux Cordelier," left his 
 fireside to take up once more the pen of a journalist. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 227 
 
 He little knew at the outset to what goal this short 
 campaign was to lead him. 
 
 In Danton's absence it is plain that Robespierre had 
 reassumed even more than his old influence over 
 Camille. There is very little doubt that the first con- 
 ception of the new journal came from him, and there 
 is practically no question but that Camille thought 
 that his old comrade would support him in his later 
 appeal for clemency. He certainly assumed that this 
 was the case until Robespierre himself destroyed his 
 illusions. 
 
 It is well that this should be plainly understood 
 from the beginning. The demand for a Committee of 
 Clemency was not the solitary cry from Camille which 
 some historians have represented it. He understood 
 himself to be voicing a policy, and that the policy of 
 one of the most powerful and popular men in France. 
 Moreover, we have no reason to question the fact 
 that, in the depths of his heart, Robespierre himself 
 was in very truth inclined to merciful measures. Many 
 things would seem to prove it. If the Committee of 
 Public Safety, if the universal demand of the people 
 had supported Camille's proposal, Robespierre would 
 doubtless have come forward in person and upheld it 
 with all his strength. 
 
 But ... he was afraid. Afraid that he might lose 
 his popularity and prestige, afraid for his own personal 
 safety ; that was the difficulty. He was not sure that 
 the people would support him, not confident that he 
 could carry the thing through. Eventually, when the 
 Committee, where Robespierre was not all-powerful, 
 demanded the arrest of Danton and his adherents, he 
 was fearful of the consequences of opposition on his 
 part. As far as Danton was concerned, there is little 
 doubt that he wished him out of the way. As for 
 Camille — well, it was wiser even to give up his friend 
 than to risk the loss of his own popularity. 
 
 It amounts to this, then. Camille's real bravery 
 
228 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 consisted not so much in the initial publication of the 
 " Vieux Cordelier " as in his refusal to retract what 
 he had written when he discovered that Robespierre 
 was against him, at least outwardly, and that the 
 Jacobins thirsted for his blood. 
 
 In the meantime Robespierre made use of Camille 
 as his tool, so long as it served his purpose. When he 
 found that he was cutting his own hands, he cast the • 
 tool aside. 
 
 The incorruptible Maximilian had no journalistic 
 powers. He could on occasion move men by his 
 speeches, that is abundantly evident^ but in this case 
 oratory was not sufficient. Besides, Robespierre was 
 probably a little doubtful as to the wisdom of making 
 speeches at the Jacobins or the Cordeliers in support 
 of the movement which he wished now to set on foot, 
 the movement against the " ultras," the " enrages " — 
 Hebert, of the " Pere Duchesne " and his party. It 
 must be remembered that they were still strong in the 
 clubs — ^it might be dangerous to inveigh against them 
 too unwarily and rashly. 
 
 The pen of the most brilliant journalist in France 
 would be invaluable to aid in Robespierre's plans ; 
 that pen was at his service. If Camille was a little 
 unwise — a trifle outspoken — ^well, Robespierre could 
 not be held responsible for all that his young colleague 
 might do or say. 
 
 It must have seemed to Camille that he had never 
 started a journal under brighter auspices. His own 
 popularity as a writer was an assured thing, he was 
 backed by one of the most prominent, men in the 
 Republic, and the policy laid out for him to pursue 
 accorded thoroughly with his own inclinations. He 
 could follow the advice of Danton, that other friend 
 of his, he could preach a gospel of Clemency, could 
 put into words all those doubts and misgivings as to 
 the policy of " Terror " which had been haunting him 
 for months past. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 229 
 
 Danton, indeed, on returning to Paris after his 
 retirement at Arcis, had already expressed these doubts 
 at a sitting of the Jacobins on December 3rd. He 
 demanded that the members should " defy those who 
 would carry the people beyond the bounds of the 
 Revolution and who proposed ultra-revolutionary 
 measures." These words of Danton's were very badly 
 received, and it was only after Robespierre himself 
 had risen to defend his colleague against the charge 
 of " lukewarmness " which was brought against him 
 that the murmurs were stilled for the time being. 
 
 The very name of the new journal was directed 
 against the " ultras." This was to be the organ of the 
 " Old Cordeliers," the founders of the famous club, 
 whom Camille himself and Danton especially repre- 
 sented. They had little in common with the " new " 
 Cordeliers of the school of " Pere Duchesne " and 
 Chaumette. 
 
 The first number of the paper appeared on De- 
 cember 5th (Quintidifrimaire 2nd Decade, according 
 to the new calendar). It was described on the cover 
 as being edited by Camille Desmoulins, " depute de la 
 Convention, doyen des Jacobins," and it was headed 
 in large type : " Vivre Libre ou Mourir ! " 
 
 This number bore as a motto the words of Machia- 
 velli : " As soon as those who govern are hated, their 
 rivals will begin to be admired." 
 
 Camille^ at once strikes the note which he was to 
 follow up on an ascending scale all through the 
 succeeding issues. ~ It is the same note which he had 
 first struck, years before, in the " Discours de la 
 Lanterne," the accusation that the counter-revolu- 
 tionary party were endeavouring to disgust the popu- 
 lace with the Republic by encouraging licence and 
 extreme measures. What Camille said then, at the 
 very beginning of his literary career, he says again now. 
 He congratulates Pitt upon a new system of tactics. 
 He will then overthrow the Revolution now, not by 
 
J»- 
 
 230 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 means of the " moderates," but through the " ultras 
 This is the keynote of the whole number. The 
 danger is imminent, Camille says, the more so that it 
 is insidious and unperceived save by very keen ob- 
 servers, who have abundant leisure to note the signs 
 of the times. 
 
 " It is necessary to write," Camille cries. " It is necessary 
 for me to cast aside the slow-moving pencil of the History of 
 the Revolution which I was composing in the chimney-corner, 
 to take up again the rapid and breathless pen of the journalist 
 and to follow with loose bridle the revolutionary torrent. 
 Consulting deputy, whorti no one has consulted since June 3rd, 
 I emerge from my oiEce and from my arm-chair, where I 
 have had sufficient leisure to enable me to follow in detail the 
 new system of our enemies, which Robespierre has only 
 presented to you in the mass, and which his multifarious 
 occupations at the Committee of Public Safety have not 
 permitted him to embrace, like me, in its entirety. . . . 
 We have no longer any journal which speaks the truth — at 
 least the whole truth. I re-enter the arena with all the frank- 
 ness and the courage which I possess." 
 
 Underneath all this we see very plainly the working 
 of the mind -of Robespierre, and, if it was needed, we 
 have still further proof of Camille's source of inspira- 
 tion in the journalist's own words after the publication 
 of the first number, in which he refers to Robespierre's 
 defence of Danton at the Jacobins. 
 
 " Victory is- with us," he writes, " because amid the ruins of 
 so many colossal civic reputations, Robespierre's is unassailed, 
 because he lent a hand to our competitor in patriotism, our 
 perpetual president of the ' Ancien Cordeliers,' our Horatius 
 Codes, who alone held the bridge against Lafayette and his 
 four thousand Parisians." 
 
 It is evident from these words that Camille con- 
 sidered Robespierre to be openly allied in policy with 
 himself and Danton. Nevertheless the great man was 
 not wholly satisfied with the first number of the new 
 journal. Certainly it was a pronounced popular 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 231 
 
 success, but such men as Couthon, St. Just and 
 Billaud-Varennes, all of them Camille's bitter personal 
 enemies, looked upon it as distinctly and unmistakably 
 retrograde in character. Accordingly Robespierre 
 requested Camille to submit to his revision the proofs 
 of the further issues before they were printed. 
 
 The second number of the " Vieux Cordelier " 
 appeared upon December loth (20th frimaire). It 
 would appear that Robespierre had corrected the 
 proofs to good purpose, since the evidences of his 
 influence are even more plainly traceable than before. 
 
 The number practically consisted entirely of a most 
 violent diatribe against Chaumette, Qootz and their 
 party, and it probably contributed very materially 
 to their downfall and execution. Now these men 
 undoubtedly stood in the path of Robespierre. They 
 were the initiators of the cult of " Reason," a cult 
 which was entirely opposed to all Robespierre's views, 
 deist as he was both by policy and by conviction. The 
 Institution of the religion of th« Supreme Being was 
 doubtless already a fixed purpose in his clear, narrow 
 mind ; he had before this date made use in the tribune 
 of Voltaire's famous words : "Si Dieu n'existait pas, 
 il faudrait I'inventer." All these cults must be cleared 
 away to make a space on which to erect his new 
 Theology, a theology where he, Maximilian Robes- 
 pierre, had his place as high priest. 
 
 The opinions expressed in this second number of the 
 " Vieux Cordelier " with regard to the worship of 
 Reason are undoubtedly Robespierre's, and not to be 
 taken as Camille's own. The latter, with all his 
 faults, could never be accused of that of bigotry ; 
 probably if left to himself he would have allowed the 
 followers of the cult of Reason to pursue their own 
 devices unmolested. 
 
 But when he again attacks the " enrages " in this 
 number Camille is entirely in his element. This is his 
 own theory ; he is always prepared to work it out 
 
232 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 anew, with ever fresh and more ingenious develop- 
 ments and illustrations. 
 
 " There remained for our enemies no other resources than 
 those which the Senate of Rome adopted, when, seeing the 
 poor success of all their attacks against the Gracchi, they 
 resolved upon the following expedient to overthrow the 
 patriots. This was to engage a tribune to exaggerate every- 
 thing that Gracchus proposed, and whenever he brought 
 forward a popular measure to advance one more popular still, 
 to the end that principles and patriotism might be killed by 
 principles and patriotism pushed to extravagance. If the 
 Jacobin Gracchus proposed the repeopling and the partition 
 of the land of two or three conquered towns, the heretofore 
 Feuillant Drusus proposed to divide twelve. Gracchus fixed 
 the price of bread at sixteen sous, Drusus put the maximum 
 at eight sous. This succeeded so well that, in a little while, 
 the people of the Forum, finding that Gracchus was no longer 
 the most advanced, and that Drusus outstripped him, cooled 
 towards their true defender, who, once unpopular, was over- 
 whelmed by the aristocrat Scipio Nasica in the first moral 
 insurrection." 
 
 Camille, it must be confessed, made extraordinarily 
 adroit use of these illustrations and analogies from 
 Greek and Roman history. Doubtless he occasionally 
 distorted the facts to suit his own purpose, but on the 
 whole he made a legitimate application of them, and 
 displayed both ingenuity and a very wide knowledge 
 of his subject. 
 
 Nevertheless in spite of its wit and adroitness 
 Camille's attack upon Anarcharsis Clootz in this 
 number of the journal was both cruel and unwarrant- 
 able. The visionary Prussian, scarcely sane though he 
 might be and full of wild schemes and visions, was, 
 notwithstanding, a high-minded and high-principled 
 man. His self-assumed title of " orator of the Human 
 Race " was not adopted in any light spirit, and he 
 most certainly did not deserve the epithet of " Hypo- 
 crite of Patriotism " which Camille applied to him 
 and to his colleagues. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 233 
 
 This whole number is a relapse on the part of the 
 journalist into his worst faults. The methods adopted 
 in it, undoubtedly inspired by Robespierre as they 
 were, savour too much of the " Brissot Demasque." 
 There is the same system of trumped-up charges, of 
 veiled innuendoes intended to discredit their subject 
 and succeeding only too well. 
 
 " Clootz is a Prussian ; he is cousin-german of that Proly, 
 who has been denounced so many times. . . . 
 
 " He worked for the ' Gazette Universale,' at which time 
 he made war upon patriots, I believe, on the occasion of the 
 ' Champ-de-Mars.' 
 
 " Guadet and Vergniaud were his sponsors, and caused him 
 to be naturalised as a French citizen, by a decree of the Legisla- 
 tive Assembly." 
 
 It is with suggestions like these that Camille 
 nourished the suspicions of his readers. In the con- 
 cluding paragraph of this number he sets forth the 
 accusation in clear and unmistakable terms. 
 
 " Anarcharsis and Anaxagoras (Chaumette) seem to believe 
 themselves to be pushing the wheel of reason, whilst it is in 
 reality that of counter-revolution ; and soon, instead of allow- 
 ing Catholicism to die in France of old age and inanition, 
 ready as it is to give up the ghost without procuring any 
 advantage for our enemies, since the treasure of the sacristies 
 will not escape Cambon, by persecution and intolerance of 
 those who wish to continue their masses, I will answer for it 
 that you will ensure strong constitutional reinforcements for 
 Lescure and La Rochejacquelein." 
 
 While Camille was busy with the publication of the 
 first two numbers of his paper, his enemies had not 
 been idle. It appears that the journalist's emotion and 
 self-reproach at the trial of the Girondins had not 
 passed unnoticed ; it was on these grounds that he 
 was accused at the Jacobins on December 1st. How- 
 ever, for the moment the accusation went no further, 
 and Camille awaited his turn of " purification." 
 
 This ceremony was instituted by the Jacobins and 
 
234 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Cordeliers at this time, chiefly at the instigation of 
 Robespierre. Turn by turn those who were accused of 
 " slackness " or " lukewarmness " in the service of the 
 Republic, or who were supposed to be tainted with the 
 deadly sin of " incivism," were allowed to present 
 themselves before the assembled members of the club 
 and to set forth their defence, purging themselves, if 
 possible, of the crimes of which they were accused. 
 If the assembly judged them innocent, on their own 
 showing, they were received back into full membership, 
 and considered to be rehabilitated in the eyes of their 
 fellows. If, on the contrary, they could not disprove 
 the accusations brought against them, they were 
 expelled from the club, and such expulsion was nearly 
 always followed by a definite accusation made to the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal. Unless the culprit was for- 
 tunate enough to make good his escape, he was almost 
 invariably arrested and brought to trial — a trial which 
 rarely ended in any other sentence than that of death. 
 
 Two days after the appearance of Camille's second 
 number, Anarcharsis Clootz was called to the bar of the 
 Jacobins, and his name erased from the list of member- 
 ship of the Club, after a violent speech delivered by 
 Robespierre. The orator repeated almost word for 
 word the accusations which had been brought against 
 Clootz in the " Vieux Cordelier " by Camille, or 
 rather by Robespierre himself. 
 
 At the sitting of the Jacobins on the following after- 
 noon Camille was called upon to " purify " himself. As 
 before, his incriminating behaviour at the trial of 
 Brissot and his colleagues was the subject of the 
 accusation. Why, the journalist was asked, had he 
 expressed pity and regret at the condemnation of 
 these enemies of his country ? Besides this, an ex- 
 planation was demanded from him of his conduct with 
 regard to the defence of Arthur Dillon, and the atti- 
 tude which helhad taken up in the published " Lettre 
 au General Dillon " was severely blamed. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 235 
 
 As far as can be judged from the printed reports of 
 this session, Camille defended himself with consider- 
 able courage and dignity against the implication that 
 he was lacking in patriotism. 
 
 " I believed Dillon to be brave and useful," he said, " and 
 therefore I defended him. As to the Girondins, I was in an 
 extraordinary position with regard to them. I have always 
 loved and served the Republic : but I have often been deceived 
 respecting those who served it ; I adored Mirabeau, I esteemed 
 Barnave and the Lameths ; I confess it ; but I sacrificed my 
 friendship and my admiration as soon as I realised that they 
 had ceased to be Jacobins. A marked fatality has ordained 
 that of the sixty revolutionaries who signed my marriage 
 contract, only two friends remain to me now, Danton and 
 Robespierre. All the others have emigrated or are guillotined. 
 Of this number were seven of the twenty-two. A movement 
 of emotion was surely very pardonable in me on this occasion. 
 Notwithstanding, I swear that I did not say : ' They die as 
 repubhcans, like Brutus,' but I said : ' They die as republicans, 
 but as federalist republicans,' because I do not believe that there 
 were any Royalists amongst them." 
 
 Camille's speech appears to have had its effect. 
 Moreover, he was still popular with the majority of 
 the members of the Club. 
 
 " Camille has been unlucky in his choice of friends," 
 cried one of the Jacobins present. " Let us prove to 
 him that we know how to choose ours better, by wel- 
 coming him warmly." 
 
 Robespierre himself rose to defend his young col- 
 league, although one cannot help thinking that the 
 excuses which he brought forward must have been 
 almost as galling to touchy, hot-tempered Camille as 
 the previous accusations had been. Robespierre 
 apologised for his friend on the score of what he called 
 his " weaknesses." 
 
 " He is easily led and over-confident," he said ; " but he has 
 always been a Republican. He loved Mirabeau, Lameth, 
 Dillon ; but he has himself broken his- idols when he found 
 
236 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 that he had been deceived. I adjure him to pursue his career 
 with confidence, but to be more reserved in the future, and to 
 endeavour not to be deceived with regard to the men who 
 play a great part upon the political stage." 
 
 This was the attitude which Robespierre constantly 
 took up towards Camille and his conduct, and which the 
 letter was to resent in the end to his cost. He treated 
 the younger man as a spoilt boy, scarcely responsible 
 for his actions, whom one must not take too seriously. 
 
 At this time Robespierre's word was law at the 
 Jacobins, and the accusation against the journalist was 
 withdrawn amidst acclamations. 
 
 Nevertheless the slight suspicions which Camille 
 had brought upon himself in the summer by his 
 attitude with regard to Dillon were perceptibly 
 increased. The extreme party no longer looked upon 
 him as an untainted patriot. This feeling of uneasiness 
 respecting him had been still further accentuated by 
 his defence of Philippeaux. 
 
 This honest and upright Republican had lately 
 returned from the Vendean provinces, enraged, partly 
 from political, partly from personal motives, against 
 the general staff of the Conventional Army at Saumur, 
 which included Ronsin, Rossignol and others of the 
 most advanced party. On the 1 8th Nivose Philippeaux 
 made a vehement speech at the Convention, in which 
 he denounced the cruelties practised by the Republican 
 generals, and demanded mercy for the Vendeans. 
 
 Not content with the storm of opposition which he 
 raised against himself, both within and without the 
 Hall of the Assembly, Philippeaux then published a 
 pamphlet which attracted a great deal of attention. 
 In this he repeated his accusations against the com- 
 manders in La Vendee, with additions, and accused 
 Ronsin in particular of the most pronounced treason. 
 
 Camille up to this time appears to have known 
 little or nothing of Philippeaux, but he found himself 
 entirely in agreement with, the writer's views. The 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 237 
 
 " enrages " in La Vendee then were as bad as those in 
 Paris — that was just what might have been expected. 
 The journaHst admired Philippeaux's courage and 
 frankness without taking into consideration that, to a 
 certain extent, he was bUnded by personal animosity. 
 Camille praised the pamphlet openly on every occa- 
 sion, and the commendation of one of the most 
 brilliant writers in Paris naturally helped materially 
 to popularise Philippeaux's philippic, at least in the 
 capital. 
 
 On December 15 th, two days after Camille had 
 temporarily cleared his character at the Jacobins, the 
 third number of the " Vieux Cordelier " was 
 published, that famous third number which brought 
 down upon the head of its author the wrath of the 
 Jacobins, and which forced Robespierre to abjure his 
 former disciple from fear of possible consequences. 
 
 It is in these third and fourth ntimbers of the new 
 journal that Camille accomplished his greatest work, 
 both in a literary and in a moral sense. Had they 
 never been written, he would be remembered as a 
 brilliant journalist, whose pen served some good and 
 many bad purposes, and his personality must always 
 have been interesting to students of history and human 
 nature. But, nevertheless, his career would not have 
 merited any very serious attention ; he would indeed 
 have appeared only as the weathercock of the Revolu- 
 tion, an indicator of varying winds, but without 
 objective force of his own. 
 
 By the publication of these two issues of the 
 " Vieux Cordelier " Camille set himself upon an 
 altogether different plane. Hitherto he had worked 
 for his own reputation's sake, to express his own views, 
 or those of the men who influenced him at the time ; 
 now he was labouring to save the lives of others and 
 to touch the hearts of the people that they might join 
 in his appeal for mercy. 
 
 In this famous Number Three- Camille adopted a 
 
238 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 simple, but extraordinarily effective method. It is 
 the most masterly example of his adaptation of history 
 to suit his purposes. Whilst affecting to give only a trans- 
 lation from Tacitus, he makes a determined and power- 
 ful attack upon the Terrorist " Law of Suspects." 
 
 Camille may, as he says, have intended merely to 
 convey a warning, but the picture was too exact to 
 be otherwise than a deadly offence against the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety and the " ultras." Never 
 was there a more scathing satire, and its absolute and 
 undeniable truth made it the more unanswerable and 
 enraging. For the simile is only too exact : the law of 
 " suspect " of Tacitus is no more than a prototype of 
 that which had been decreed in Paris. 
 
 The writer claims in this very number that he is 
 shielded by the law of the liberty of the Press, and he 
 dares any man to assert that one may not write as 
 freely in France as in England. Camille was mis- 
 taken ; he had gone too far. 
 
 In order that Camille may be fairly judged, it will 
 be necessary to quote freely from this work of his, but 
 an apology for doing so is scarcely needed. He explains 
 the method which he adopted as follows : — 
 
 " Since the Republic and the Monarchy are even now engaged 
 in a war to the death, which must inevitably end in a bloody 
 victory for one or the other, who would deplore the triumph 
 of the Republic after having read the description which 
 history has left to us of the triumph of a Monarchy, after 
 having thrown a glance upon the rough and unpolished copy 
 of the picture of Tacitus which I am going to present to the 
 honourable circle of my subscribers ? " 
 
 So far, so good ; it was in that same " rough and 
 unpolished copy of Tacitus " that the sting of Camille's 
 satire lay. It is only necessary to read the extracts 
 which follow : — 
 
 " 'Augustus was the first to extend the law of l^se-majes^td, 
 in which he comprised writings which he called counter- 
 revolutionary. ... As soon as words had become state crimes, 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 239 
 
 it was only a step to transform into offences mere glances, 
 sorrow, compassion, sighs, silence even. 
 
 " ' Soon it was the crime of lese-majest6 or of counter- 
 revolution in the town of Nursia to have raised a monument 
 to its citizens, slain at the siege of Modena when fighting under 
 Augustus himself, because at that time Augustus fought upon 
 the side of Brutus. . . . 
 
 " ' Crime of counter-revolution in the mother of the consul 
 Fusius Geminus, to have wept over the mournful death of 
 her son. It was necessary to display joy at the death of a friend, 
 or of a relation if one did not wish to run the risk of perishing 
 oneself. . . . Everything gave offence to the tyrants. Was 
 a citizen popular ? He was then a rival to the prince, and 
 doubtless wished to stir up a civil war : Studia civium in se 
 verteret et si multi idem audeant, bellum esse. Suspect. 
 
 " ' If, on the contrary, a man fled from popularity and hid 
 himself in his own chimney-corner; this retired life made 
 him remarkable, gave rise to consideration : Quanta metu 
 occultior, tanto famce adeptus. Suspect. 
 
 " ' Were you rich ? There was imminent peril that the 
 people would be corrupted by your gifts : /iuri vim atque opes 
 Plauti principi injensas. Suspect. 
 
 " ' Were you poor f Hold ! Invincible Emperor, it is 
 necessary to watch this man very closely. Nobody is so enter- 
 prising as he who has nothing. Syllam inopem, unde precipuam 
 audaciam. Suspect. 
 
 " ' Were you of a sombre and melancholy character, neglect- 
 ing your appearance ; doubtless that which grieved you was 
 the prosperous state of public affairs. Hominem bonis publicis 
 moestum. Suspect. 
 
 " ' If, on the contrary, a citizen gave himself over to re- 
 velling and feasting, he diverted himself because the Emperor 
 had had that attack of gout which happily came to nothing ; 
 it was necessary to make him feel that his Majesty was still 
 in the full vigour of his age. Reddendum, pro intempestiva 
 licentia moestum etfunebrem noctum qua sentiat vivere Vitellium 
 et imperare. Suspect. 
 
 " ' Was he virtuous and austere in his manners ; good ! A 
 new Brutus who affects by his pallor and his cropped hair to 
 censure an amiable and well-curled court. Gliscere cemulos 
 Brutorum vultus rigidi et tristis quo tibi lasciviam exprobent. 
 Suspect. 
 
240 C^MILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 " ' Was he a philosopher, an orator, or a poet ? It might 
 happen that he would gain more renown than those who 
 governed ! Could one allow more attention to be paid to an 
 author on a fourth floor, than to the Emperor in his iron- 
 barred palace ? Virginum et Rufum claritudo mminis. Suspect. 
 
 " ' Finally, if a man had acquired a reputation in the wars, 
 he was only the more dangerous by reason of his talents. . . . 
 The best way is to get rid of him. At least, my lord, can you 
 not dispense with his services, and withdraw him promptly 
 from the army ? Multa militari j ama metum jecerat. Suspect. 
 
 " ' One might well believe that it was a very bad thing to be 
 the grandson or otherwise related to Augustus ; one might 
 some day be supposed to have pretensions to the throne. 
 Nobiem et quod tunc sfectaretur e Ccesarum fosteris J Suspect.' " 
 
 Afterwards at considerable length Camille develops 
 his argument that the counter-revolution (embodied 
 in the person of " Pitt ") is working by means of the 
 ultra-revolutionaries. Towards the end of the aumber 
 he boldly acknowledges his consciousness of the 
 parallel which he has drawn. 
 
 " It is undoubted that in this Number Three and in my 
 translation from Tacitus, malignity will find some resemblance 
 between these deplorable times and our own. I know it well, 
 and I have armed myself with my pen for the sole purpose of 
 striving to put an end to these resemblances, so that liberty 
 may no more appear like despotism. ... I make no pretence 
 of pointing out anybody in particular in this number. . . . 
 Let those men hasten to correct their conduct who, in reading 
 these living pictures of tyranny, find there some likeness to 
 themselves ; because it is impossible to persuade oneself that 
 the portrait of a tyrant, drawn by the hand of the greatest 
 painter of antiquity, and by the historian of philosophers, can 
 now have become the portrait, taken from nature, of Cato or of 
 Brutus, and that this which Tacitus called despotism and the 
 worst of governments sixteen centuries ago, can to-day be 
 called liberty and the best of all possible worlds." 
 
 In order that one may grasp the full aptness of 
 Camille's satire, it is as well to compare with his 
 translation from Tacitus the literal text of the 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 241 
 
 Terrorist law of " suspect " as stated by Chaumette in 
 one of the sittings of the Commune of Paris on 
 October 12th, 1793. 
 
 " Those should be regarded as suspected," he said on that 
 occasion, " (i) who, in the assemblies of the people, arrest 
 their energy by astute discourses, by turbulent cries and by 
 menaces. 
 
 " (2) Those who, more prudent, speak mysteriously of the 
 misfortunes of the Republic, deplore the fate of the people, and 
 are always ready to spread bad news with ailected sorrow. 
 
 " (3) Those who have changed their conduct and their 
 language according to events ; who, mute as to the crimes of 
 royalists and of federalists, declaim with emphasis against the 
 Ught faults of patriots, or affect, to appear republican, an 
 austerity, a studied severity. . . . 
 
 " Those who have not taken any active part in the Revolu- 
 tion, and who, to exculpate themselves, think to atone by the 
 value of their patriotic gifts, for their non-payment of con- 
 tributions. 
 
 " Those who have received with indifference the Republican 
 Constitution, and those who have expressed false fears upon 
 its establishment and its duration. 
 
 " Those who, having done nothing against liberty, have also 
 done nothing for her. 
 
 " Those who neglect to go to their sections, and who give 
 for excuse that they do not' know how to speak, or that their 
 affairs detain them." 
 
 Can one wonder at the indignation of the Jacobins ? 
 Camille, as usual, had chosen the most effective weapon 
 at his disposal. In this case, nothing could wound 
 more deeply or more dangerously than the plain and 
 practically unvarnished truth. 
 
II 
 
 THE appearance of the third number of the 
 " Vieux Cordelier " caused an immense 
 sensation in Paris, and, indeed, throughout 
 France. It is said that some fifty thousand 
 copies each were sold of the third and fourth issues 
 of the paper. 
 
 As Camille himself had foreseen, the Royalists made 
 great capital out of the attitude which he had taken up 
 in " No. 3." The journalist might protest as much 
 as he pleased against a misconception of his policy 
 on the part of the counter-revolutionaries, but the fact 
 remains — to his credit — that he had undoubtedly 
 helped their cause. M. Louis Blanc, from the point 
 of view of an extreme Republican, of course regrets 
 Camille's course of action, but he estimates the 
 situation, on the whole, very justly. 
 
 "The publication of this third number upon the 15th 
 December," he writes, "was the signal for an immense 
 scandal. All the counter-revolutionaries clapped their hands, 
 all hastened to spread the news abroad that Camille Desmoulins 
 had traced the history of his own epoch ; against his wUl, the 
 generous but rash writer had, in giving hope to the innocent, 
 served the calculations of hatred." 
 
 Camille had indeed " given hope to the innocent." 
 His journal was read even in the prisons, where those 
 incarcerated saw, for the first time, a glimmer of hope, 
 a possibility of justice, if not of mercy. One can only 
 appreciate their incredulous joy at this changed attitude 
 of Camille's by remembering that hitherto he had 
 been looked upon as one of the most extreme of the 
 Revolutionary journalists. Letters came to him from 
 
 242 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 243 
 
 prisoners and their friends or relations in all parts of 
 France ; one can fancy that he — not lacking in a 
 sense of humour — read these epistles with somewhat 
 mixed feelings. 
 
 Nor had there been wanting direct results from the 
 publication of the third number. M. Aulard tells us, 
 in his " Political History of the French Revolution," 
 that, upon December 20th, a deputation of women 
 came to the bar of the Convention, demanding with 
 tears the liberation of their imprisoned relatives. The 
 deputies were moved to pity, and it was decreed that 
 the two Government Committees should appoint a 
 Committee of Justice to " look into the means of 
 setting at liberty such patriots as might have been 
 imprisoned." 
 
 Here was a definite outcome of Camille's appeal : 
 here was the " Committee of Clemency " which he 
 demanded in actual process of formation. But it was 
 not to be. Robespierre was beginning to dread the 
 loss of his power. He feared that such a step as this 
 would unduly increase the influence of the Dantonists, 
 an4 he accordingly induced the Convention to revoke 
 the decree which established this Committee of Justice. 
 
 Michelet apparently believes that it was upon 
 December 13th that this deputation of women 
 appeared at the Convention, that is, before the third 
 number of the " Vieux Cordelier " was published. 
 However, in this instance, there can be little or no 
 doubt that the date given by M. Aulard is correct. 
 
 Camille did not hesitate to temporise now that he 
 had definitely adopted a policy. The next issue of his 
 paper appeared upon December 20th, only five days 
 after the appearance of the last number. As regards 
 the extraordinary reception which this Number Four 
 received, we cannot do better than quote Michelet's 
 eloquent words. 
 
 " Upon the 21st of December," he says, " early in the morn- 
 ing a long queue of purchasers gathered at the door of the book- 
 
244 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 seller, Desenne, who fought with each other for the possession 
 of the fourth number. They paid for it at second hand, at 
 third hand, the price rose always, until it reached as much as 
 a louis for one copy. People read it in the streets in their 
 impatience, choked with tears. From the very heart of France 
 had burst forth the voice of humanity, of blind, impatient, 
 all-powerful pity, that voice of compassion which pierces 
 through walls, which beats down strong fortresses . . . the 
 clarion cry which will touch all souls for ever, the demand for 
 a ' Committee of Clemency ! ' " 
 
 In a few vivid words the great historian gives us here 
 a pathetic picture of that impatient frenzied crowd, 
 waiting in the bleak cold of the dark winter's morning 
 for the flimsy news-sheets which bore the words of 
 hope to thousands. For Camille Desmoulins had not 
 disappointed that host of subscribers. If he had gone 
 far in number three of the " Vieux Cordelier," he went 
 still further in the fourth issue ; his appeal for mercy 
 rang out clearly this time, and with no hint of un- 
 certainty. 
 
 It is quite plain that Camille still believed- 
 that Robespierre would support him. He says so, 
 in fact, in a manner which allows of no njiscon- 
 ception. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Robespierre," he writes in this same fourth 
 number "... oh, my old college comrade, dost thou not 
 remember those lessons of history and philosophy in which we 
 learnt that love is more strong and more durable than fear ? 
 . . . You have already come close to this idea." 
 
 These words must have been very bitter to Robes- 
 pierre a little later, when his one thought was to 
 dissociate himself from Camille and his poHcy by 
 every means in his power. 
 
 This number four is headed by a quotation from J. J. 
 Rousseau's " Contrat Social " : " Le plus fort n'est 
 jamais assez fort pour etre toujours le maitre, s'il ne 
 transforme sa force en droit." 
 
 At the very beginning Camille defends himself 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 245 
 
 stoutly against the charges of unpatriotism which 
 have been brought against him. 
 
 " Many people have disapproved of my No. 3, in which I 
 have been pleased, they say, to make comparisons which tend 
 to throw the Republic and patriots into disfavour : they 
 ought, however, to say the excess of the Revolution and the 
 patriot-adventurers." 
 
 Camille goes on to protest against those who assert 
 that Liberty must needs pass through a stormy and 
 troublous childhood. According to him, she is born 
 full-grown and should at once bring in her train all 
 peace and happiness. Let us destroy our enemies by 
 all means, he cries, but do not let us go furisjher and 
 kill all those harmless lookers-on, the people who are 
 merely carried away by the impulse of the moment, 
 or by the power of an orator. 
 
 " No, this Liberty descended from Heaven is not a nymph 
 of the Opera, not a red cap, a dirty shirt, or rags and tatters. 
 Liberty is happiness, reason, equality ; she is justice, she is 
 embodied in the Declaration of Rights, in your sublime 
 Constitution ! Do you wish me to recognise her, to fall at 
 her feet, to shed my blood in her service ? Open the doors of 
 the prisons to those two hundred thousand citizens whom you 
 call ' suspects ' ; because in the Declaration of Rights there 
 is no house of suspicion, there are only houses of detention ; 
 there are no suspected persons, only those convicted of crimes 
 fixed by the law. And do not believe that this measure would 
 be harmful to the Republic. It would be the most Revolu- 
 tionary measure that you codld possibly take. You think to 
 exterminate aU your enemies by means of the guillotine ! 
 But could there possibly be greater folly f Can you kill one 
 person upon the scaffold without making for yourself ten more 
 enemies amongst his family or his frieiids ? " 
 
 Camille then goes on to develop his argumeiit 
 further. He lays stress on the fact that the unfortu- 
 nates who crowd the prisons of Paris are not worthy 
 of the mighty anger of the Republic ; they are only 
 women, children, old men, the sick and the cowardly — 
 
246 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 capable neither of much good nor of much evil. It 
 were far better to leave them to sit harmlessly in their 
 chimney corners. 
 
 Then the journalist strikes a graver note. These 
 constant executions, he says, are demoralising to the 
 people of Paris : they constitute a serious danger to 
 the State. " It is not love for the Republic which 
 draws all the world daily to the Place de la Revolution, 
 but curiosity and the anticipation of that unique 
 drama which can have but one single representation. 
 I am sure that the greater number of those who 
 habitually view this spectacle, in the depths of their 
 hearts mock at their neighbours who, at the opera or 
 at a tragedy see only a pasteboard sword, and come- 
 dians who do but simulate death. Such, says Tacitus, 
 was the insensibility of the city of Rome, its unnatural 
 security, and its perfect indifference towards the fate 
 of all parties alike." 
 
 And now followed that famous passage which was to 
 prove Gamille's death warrant in very truth, a passage 
 which is best to be appreciated in its original language. 
 
 " Je -peax bien differemment de ceux qui vous disent qu'il 
 faut laisser la terreur a I'ordre du jour. Je suis certain, au 
 contraire, que la liberie serait consolidee et I'Europe vaincue, 
 si vous aviez un comity de cl^mence ; c'est ce comite qui 
 finirait la Revolution ; car la clemence est aussi une mesure 
 revolutionnaire et la plus efficace de toutes, quand elle est 
 distribuee avec sagessei. Que les imbeciles et les fripons 
 m'appellent mod/re, s'lls le veulent ; je ne rougis point de 
 n'etre pas plus enrage que Marcus Brutus. ... ^ 
 
 " L'^tablissement d'un comite de clemence me parait une 
 idee grande et digne du peuple fran^ais, effa^ant de sa memoire 
 bien des fautes, puisqu'il en a eflfac^ le temps meme ou elles 
 furent commises, et qu'il a cr^^ une nouvelle ere de laquelle 
 seule il date sa naissance et ^es souvenirs. A ce mot de^lemence 
 quel patriote ne sent pas ses entrailles emues ? Car le patriot- 
 isme est la pl^iitude de toutes les vertus, et ne peut pas con- 
 sequ^ment exister 1^ ou il n'y a ni humanite, ni philanthropicj 
 mais une ame aride and dessdche.par I'egoisme." 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 247 
 
 These were bold words indeed when one considers 
 that practically all the members of the great Com- 
 mittee of Government were more or less to be included 
 amongst the " enrages." It is no less boldly that 
 Camille justifies himself at the conclusion of the 
 number. 
 
 " I have adopted, in my role of journalist, the liberty of 
 opinion which belongs to the representative of the people in 
 the Convention. I have expressed my opinions as to the best 
 method of effecting a revolution in writing, since the feeble- 
 ness of my voice and my sHght oratorical powers will not permit 
 me to develop them in another fashion. ... If, I say, my 
 Committee of Clemency appears iU-sounding to some of my 
 colleagues and savouring of moderation, to those who reproach 
 me with being a moderate in this No. 4, I can respond, as did 
 Marat, when, in very different times, we reproached him with 
 over-violence in his journal : ' Vous n'y entendez rien ; eh, 
 mon Dieu ! laissez-moi dise : on n'en rabattra que trop.' " 
 
 It may assuredly be said of Camille's views with 
 regard to the reign of peace and liberty that they were 
 Utopian and impossible of realisation. He confidently 
 expected a millennium to come to pass before its time. 
 But at least it is an optimism which does his heart 
 credit, and which, even now, lends to his words an 
 irresistible appeal. / 
 
 Meanwhile the Hebertists were gathering them- 
 selves together. It must be remembered that this 
 was no mere newspaper war ; it was a life and death 
 fight, with the guillotine as the punishment for defeat. 
 
 Danton was in Paris once more, as we have seen, and 
 combating the policy of the " enrages," but he ,,had 
 lost his once mighty influence both in the Convention 
 and at the Clubs by his absence. Robespierre was still 
 compassing the fall of the "ultras," but, none the 
 less, he both disliked and feared Danton and dreaded 
 that the great Tribune might regain his former power. 
 
 On the 1st of Nivose (December 21st) Camille was 
 denounced at the Jacobins by one Nicolas, a juror 
 
248 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 to the Revolutionary Tribunal. This man was also a 
 printer and worked in this capacity for the Ministry 
 of War and the Revolutionary Tribunal, by means of 
 which he had become a wealthy man. He was, more- 
 over, the devoted friend and adherent of Robespierre. 
 As Camille himself said of him, in the fifth number of 
 the " Vieux Cordelier " : " Nicolas est un gaillard 
 grand et fort qui, arme d'une gros baton, suivant 
 Robespierre partout et valait a lui seul, une compagnie 
 de muscadins." 
 
 This Nicolas then ascended the tribune especially 
 to denounce the third number of the " Vieux Cor- 
 delier." 
 
 " I rise," said he, " to denounce Camille Desmoulins. I 
 accuse him of having written a libel with criminal and counter- 
 revolutionary intentions. I appeal to those who have read it. 
 Camille Desmoulins has been within a close shave of the 
 guillotine for a long time ; as a proof it is only necessary to 
 remind you of the steps which he took at the Revolutionary 
 Committee of my section to save a bad citizen whom we had 
 arrested by order of the Committee of General Security, as 
 accused of intimate correspondence with conspirators and of 
 having sheltered the traitor NantouiUet in his house. I 
 demand the expulsion of CamiUe Desmoulins from the bosom 
 of this Society." 
 
 This measure was supported by Camille's bitter 
 enemy Hebert, and the journalist was invited to ex- 
 plain the denunciations pronounced against him. 
 Camille reserved his defence, as we shall see, for 
 publication in his fifth number, but meanwhile his 
 enemies were gathering around him. 
 
 A new champion had appeared upon the side of the 
 Jacobins. Collot d'Herbois arrived in Paris on 
 December 21st somewhat unexpectedly, fresh frdm 
 consummating the Terror in Lyons. He openly 
 supported Hebert and his partisans against Camille 
 in the Convention and at the Clubs. Yet another of 
 Camille's greatest enemies returned from the frontier 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 249 
 
 at this moment. Austere, implacable Saint-Just took 
 his place beside his master, Robespierre, hating the 
 Hebertists, it is true, yet hating Gamille even more, 
 and with a bitterer personal animosity. 
 
 Truly the over-bold journalist was hemmed in on 
 every side. It only remained for Robespierre to desert 
 him, and that was soon to come. As von Sybel says, 
 the attitude of the incorruptible Maximilian at this 
 juncture was extraordinary throughout ; it is only 
 explicable when one remembers the strange streak of 
 cowardice in this man. 
 
 After the appearance of Camille's No. 4, the Club 
 of the Cordeliers cast him out. At the beginning of 
 his fifth number, which, although dated Nivose 5th 
 (December 25 th), did not appear until Nivose i6th 
 (January 5th, 1794), the journalist laughs at the idea 
 of this expulsion. 
 
 " Voyant que le pere Duchesne, et presque toutes les 
 sentinelles patriotes, se tenaient sur le tillac avec leurs lunettes 
 occupes uniquement a crier : ' Gare ! Vous touchez au 
 moderantisme ! ' il a bien fallu que moi, vieux Cordelier et 
 doyen des Jacobins, je me chargeasse de la faction difficile, e; 
 dont aucun des jeunes gens ne voulait, par crainte de se 
 depopulariser ; celle de crier : ' Gare ! Vous allez toucher a 
 I'exageration ! ' . . . Pardon, freres et amis, si j'ose prendre 
 encore le titre de ' Vieux Cordelier ' apres I'arrete du Club, 
 qui me defend de me parer de ce nom. Mais, en verite, c'est 
 une insolence si inouie que celle de petit-fils se revoltant centre 
 leur grand-pere, et lui defendant de porter son nom que je 
 veux plaider cette cause contre ces fils ingrats." 
 
 In this nuinber Camille attacked his enemies per- 
 sonally. He made unsparing use of that dangerous 
 weapon of ridicule which had already created against 
 him those bitter foes who were hunting him down. 
 He proceeds at first to rebut the accusations of royalism 
 and conspiracy, brought against him by Nicolas, raising 
 counter-accusations of bribery and corruption. The 
 concluding phrase is totally untranslatable, referring 
 
2SO CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 as it does to Nicolas' slang expression that : " CamiUe 
 had shaved (frise) the guillotine pretty closely." 
 
 " C'est ainsi que moi, je suis un aristocrate qui frise la 
 guillotine et que Nicolas est un sans-culotte qui frise la for- 
 tune." 
 
 " However," Camille continues, " the ' hit-hards ' have 
 believed Nicolas rather than Robespierre ; and already in 
 groups they call me a conspirator. It is true, citizens, that for 
 five years I have conspired to render France Republican, happy 
 and flourishing." 
 
 Then follows the account, already given, of that 
 great day, July 12th, 1789. In vivid and moving 
 language the journalist recalls the occasion, for he is 
 using the recollection of his own part in that event 
 as a plea for his honour and for his life. 
 
 Then, having justified himself before the people, he 
 turns again upon the " ultras," jeering at them with 
 more than his old bitter raillery. Barere, speaking 
 in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, had 
 solemnly denounced Camille's attitude. 
 
 " Very well," says the journalist, " one day posterity will 
 judge between the ' suspects ' of Barere, and the ' suspects ' of 
 Tacitus. In the meantime, the patriots shall be satisfied in 
 my respect ; because, after this solemn censure, I have acted 
 like Fenelon, who mounted into the pulpit to read aloud the 
 brief of the Pope, condemning his ' Maxims of the Saints,' and 
 tore them up himself ; I am ready to burn my Number 3 ; 
 and already I have forbidden Desenne to reprint it, at least 
 unbound." 
 
 This seeming acquiescence of Camille in their 
 decrees cannot have been a source of any particular 
 satisfaction to Barere or to his colleagues upon the 
 Committee of Public Safety ; more especially when we 
 read what follows. Is it Barere, the journalist asks, 
 who blames him thus from the tribune ? 
 
 " If it had been an old Cordelier hke myself, a right-angled 
 patriot like Billaud-Varennes, for example, who had attacked 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 251 
 
 me so severely . . . but thou, my dear Barere, thou, the 
 President of the Feuillants, thou who hast proposed the 
 Committee of Twelve . . . thou against whom I could bring 
 up many other faults if I wished to foul the ' Vieux-Sac ' . . . 
 thou, who hast all at once out-Robespierred Robespierre ! " 
 
 But it is Hebert whom Camille attacks most fiercely, 
 doubtless still feeling quite confident here of the 
 support of Robespierre. He assails the unspeakable 
 " Pere Duchesne " with all the virulence of which he 
 is capable. He accuses Hebert of being an " ecrivain 
 engage " bought and bribed by Bouchotte and others 
 to calumniate Danton, Philippeaux and Camille 
 himself. He ends his tirade with this terrible 
 passage : — 
 
 " Dost thou not know, Hebert, that when the tyrants of 
 Europe wish to vilify the Republic, when they wish to cause it 
 to be believed that France is covered with the darkness of 
 barbarism, that Paris, so praised for its Attic glory and taste, 
 is peopled by Vandals ; dost thou not know, wretched man, 
 that to gain their ends it is extracts from thy writings that they 
 insert in their gazettes ? As if the people were as ignorant and 
 stupid as thou wouldst hayieJVIr. Pitt believe them to be ; as 
 if no one could speak to mim (save in language like thine, as if 
 such was the speech of the Convention and of the Committee 
 of Public Safety ; as if thy filthiness was that of the nation ; 
 as if a sewer of Paris were the Seine ! " 
 
 Amongst Hebert's furious and often impotent 
 accusations against Camille had been this, that the 
 journalist had married a rich wife, coupled with some 
 of those foul innuendoes which were the natural 
 language of " Pere Duchesne." There is much simple 
 dignity in the words wherein Camille answers this 
 accusation and vindicates the unsullied happiness of 
 his married life. We have quoted from this passage 
 in an earlier chapter, but we will give it here in its 
 entirety. It touches a deeper and a graver note than 
 can be found in all the bitter raillery of the remainder 
 of this number ; there is in it something intimate and 
 
252 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 personal ; a revelation of the tenderer, happier side of 
 Camille's life. It is one of those passages in his writings 
 for which we love the man ; where he speaks from his 
 heart, as it were, driven by an irresistible impulse. 
 
 " I will only say one word about my wife. I have always 
 believed in the immortality of the soul. After the many 
 sacrifices of personal interests which I have made to liberty 
 and for the happiness of the people, I have said, at the height 
 of the persecution : ' There must be some recompense for 
 virtue elsewhere.' But my marriage is so happy, my domestic 
 bliss so great, that I feared to have received my recompense 
 already upon earth, and I almost lost my confidence in immor- 
 tality. But thy persecutions, thy rage against me, thy cowardly 
 calumnies have rendered back to me all my hope. 
 
 " As to the fortune of my wife, she brought me an income of 
 four thousand livres, which is all that I possess. In this 
 revolution where, if I may be permitted to say it, I have played 
 a sufiiciently large part, where I have been a polemical writer, 
 importuned turn by turn by aU parties, who have found me 
 incorruptible, where, some time before the loth of August, 
 they bargained even for my silence, and that at a high price. 
 Ah, well, in this revolution where I have filled successively the 
 posts of Secretary-General to the Department of Justice and 
 that of representative of the people to the Convention, my 
 fortune has not been increased hy so much as one sou. Hebert, 
 can you say as much for yourself ? " 
 
 Towards the end of this fifth number Camille rises 
 to a height of eloquence which almost seems inspired, 
 nay, which was inspired, in the highest sense of the 
 word. 
 
 " Oh, my colleagues, I say to you as Brutus did to Cicero : 
 ' We are too rn,uch afraid of death, exile and poverty — 
 Nimium timemu^ mortem et exilium et paupertatem.' Is this 
 hfe worth being prolonged at the expense of honour ? . . . 
 Ah, why ! when every day twelve hundred thousand French 
 soldiers face redoubts bristling with cannon, and fly from 
 victory to victory ; we, deputies to the Convention, we who 
 cannot fall like the soldiers in the obscurity of night, shot down 
 in the shadows, without witnesses of their valour, we, in whom 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 253 
 
 death endured for liberty can only be glorious, solemn and in 
 the presence of the entire nation, of Europe and of posterity — 
 shall we be more cowardly than our soldiers ? Shall we fear to 
 expose ourselves, and to meet Bouchotte face to face ? Shall 
 we not dare to brave ' the great anger of " Pere Duchesne " ' ? 
 — to gain thus the great victory awaited by the French people ; 
 the victory over the ultra-revolutionaries as well as the counter- 
 revolutionaries ; the victory over all those who intrigue, all 
 the rascals, all the ambitious, all the enemies of the public 
 well-being f . . . Let us occupy ourselves, oh, my colleagues, ^ 
 not in defending our own lives like sick men, but in defending ^ 
 our liberty and our principles like RepubHcans ! And even if, 
 which seems impossible, calumny and crime should, for a 
 moment, triumph over virtue, can one believe that, even upon 
 the scaffold, sustained by the consciousness that I have loved 
 my country and the Republic passionately, sustained by the 
 thought of the eternal testimony of the centuries, surrounded 
 by the esteem and regret of aU true repubhcans ; can one 
 believe, I say, that I would wish to change my fate for the 
 fortune of that miserable Hebert, who, in his journal, drives to 
 despair twenty classes of citizens and more than three millions 
 of Frenchmen, of whom he says anathema, and whom he con- 
 signs to death sweepingly, in one common conscription ; who, 
 to stifle his remorse and his calumnies, has been obliged to 
 resort to a drunkenness more complete than that of wine, and 
 to lick, unceasingly, the blood at the foot of the guillotine ! 
 
 " What then is the scaffold for a patriot save the pedestal of 
 Sidney and of Jean de Witt ? What in this time of warfare, 
 where I have seen my two brothers mutilated and hacked for 
 liberty, what is the guillotine more than a sabre-cut, and the 
 most glorious of all deaths for a deputy who dies, the victim of 
 his courage and of his repubhcanism ? " 
 
 In the course of this number Camille, speaking of 
 his eafly republicanism, boasted that : " Certainly, 
 the ' Procureur General de la Lanterne,' in 1789, 
 was as good a revolutionary as Hebert, who, at that 
 time, opened the doors to him, bowing to the ground." 
 
 This reference was an iU-timed one on Camille's 
 part. He laid himself open thereby to the attack of 
 Hebert, who assailed him with a weapon which was. 
 
254 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 of all those that could be used, the one most calculated 
 to wound him deeply. Camille cared nothing for 
 accusations of moderatism, or even royalism, but it 
 was left to the " Pere Duchesne " to assail him in his 
 most vulnerable spot, to recall the remembrance of his 
 former errors. 
 
 This is " The answer of J. R. Hebert, author of the 
 ' Pere Duchesne,' to Camille Desmoulins and Com- 
 pany." 
 
 " Here, my brave sans-culottes, here is a great man whom 
 you have forgotten ; it is truly ungrateful of you, for he 
 declares that, without him, there would never have been a 
 revolution. Formerly he called himself ' Procureur General de 
 la Lanterne.' You think I am speaking of that famous cut- 
 throat 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 ' guillo- 
 tine ' without 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 judgment 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 moderates, Royalists, and aristocrats." 
 
 There was a terrible undercurrent of truth beneath 
 these words of Hebert's which caused them to be 
 almost unanswerable. 
 
Ill 
 
 . yA T last Camille had gone too far. Even while 
 /% he still believed that he was expressing the 
 r — % sentiments of Robespierre, that same 
 -^ -^. " old comrade " was preparing to desert 
 him. Whatever his private views may have been, the 
 elder man dared not risk the loss of his popularity. 
 He had that complete control over his feelings 
 which Camille, fortunately for humanity, did not 
 possess. 
 
 On December 21st, as we have seen, CoUot d'Herbois 
 returned from Lyons, and at once showed himself as 
 Camille's enemy. The journalist says, in the fifth 
 number of the " Vieux Cordelier," that CoUot 
 attacked him at the Jacobins early in Nivose, but " not 
 by name." It would seem, nevertheless, that Camille 
 was indicated quite unmistakably in one of those 
 melodramatic speeches, by means of which the ex- 
 actor was in the habit of appealing to the gallery. 
 " He made a veritable tragedy," writes Camille, " to 
 excite the passions of the tribunes against me." 
 
 There was a special session of the Jacobins on 
 Nivose i6th (January 5th), the very day on which 
 the fifth number of the " Vieux Cordelier " was 
 for sale. The hall was densely crowded, and very 
 high prices were paid to obtain seats to hear the 
 debate. 
 
 Collot had gauged the feeling of the Club ; he knew 
 that the sympathy of the majority of the members was 
 with him. Accordingly he rose at the opening of the 
 session to demand that the conduct of Camille and 
 Philippeaux be examined into further. On the whole, 
 
 255 
 
256 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 his speech was more moderate than might have been 
 expected. His attack was directed especially against 
 Philippeaux, whom he accused, in effect, of conspiring 
 against the Revolution with Fabre d'Eglantine and 
 others. 
 
 Collot treated Camille much more gently. He said 
 that he was convinced of the journalist's genuine 
 patriotism, but believed that he had been misled by 
 bad company. In words that were patronisingly 
 contemptuous, he advised Camille to be more careful 
 in the future, and asked only that the rash writer 
 should be censured. 
 
 Now Collot, knowingly or unknowingly, had chosen 
 the very worst, line to take where Camille was con- 
 cerned. Burning to prove that he was not to be 
 treated thus lightly, the journalist demanded that his 
 last number should be read aloud immediately, since 
 it contained his own defence. 
 
 When this motion was proposed by the President, 
 Hebert violently opposed the reading of Camille's 
 paper. Doubtless he had already seen it, and he 
 dreaded the effect upon the Club of that astounding 
 and crushing indictment of himself which the number 
 contained. 
 
 " Camille wishes to turn people's attention from 
 himself, to compUcate the discussion ! " cried Hebert. 
 " He accuses me of having robbed the treasury — it is 
 an infamous falsehood ! " 
 
 " I have the proofs of it in my hand ! " shouted 
 back Camille. 
 
 As may be imagined, such words as these caused an 
 immense sensation. Robespierre the younger rose in 
 an attempt to calm the tumult which ensued. 
 
 " These personalities should not be allowed," he 
 said. " The Society does not meet to protect private 
 reputations ; if Hebert is a thief, what does it matter 
 to us ? Those who have reproaches to make ought not 
 to interrupt the general discussion." 
 
• THE SOUTH WIND 257 
 
 " I have nothing with which to reproach myself ! " 
 cried Hebert, furious at this contemptuous dismissal 
 of his case. 
 
 " The dissensions in the departments are your work," 
 retorted Augustin Robespierre. " You have helped to 
 stir them up by attacking the liberty of the sects." 
 
 This downright accusation silenced Hebert, and 
 Maximilian Robespierre now rose to speak. He was 
 more moderate and conciliatory than his younger 
 brother had been, but scarcely less bitter against 
 Hebert. He endeavoured to pacify all parties, 
 insisting that these personal quarrels ought to be laid 
 aside when the interests of the Republic were at stake. 
 Robespierre, however, showed plainly enough what 
 were his feelings with regard to Hebert. He inferred, 
 in fact, that it was unnecessary to discuss Camille's 
 attacks upon the editor pf " Pere Duchesne," since all 
 the world knew how well-founded they were. 
 
 Finally Robespierre insisted that the debate should 
 be confined to Collot's original motion, the discussion 
 of Philippeaux's conduct in attacking the leaders of the 
 army in La Vendee. Camille and his affairs were 
 shelved for the time being. The remainder of this 
 sitting was occupied in the cross-questioning of a large 
 number of witnesses against Philippeaux. 
 
 On Nivose 1 8th (January 7th) this business should 
 have been resumed, but the principal person concerned 
 was not present. Philippeaux absented himself, 
 thoroughly weary of the seemingly endless discussion 
 of his conduct and motives. The Club accordingly 
 turned its attention to the affairs of Bourdon (de 
 I'Oise), Fabre d'Eglantine and Camille. Their names 
 were called three times without any reply being 
 received, but just as Robespierre made the suggestion 
 that public opinion should judge them in their 
 absence, Camille appeared in the hall. 
 
 He was at once summoned to explain his relations 
 with Philippeaux, and the unguarded way in which he; 
 
258 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 had praised both him and his pamphlet. Camille 
 answered these accusations somewhat evasively. He 
 said, in effect, what was in fact true, that he scarcely 
 knew Philippeaux personally. He had been carried 
 away by his writings, without enquiring into their 
 truth : he retracted his ill-considered praise, and, in 
 short, had no opinion in the matter, one way or the 
 other. 
 
 It must be confessed that this self-defence of 
 Camille's did not carry conviction ; by tacitly con- 
 fessing that he had been over-hasty and lacking in 
 judgment, he laid himself open to accusations of 
 weakness, if no worse. 
 
 It is plain that the subterfuge by which, on the i6th 
 Nivose, Robespierre had prevented No. 5 of the 
 " Vieux Cordelier " from being read aloud, was kindly 
 meant. He had no wish to sacrifice Camille ; it would 
 seem that he was as fond of him as his cold nature 
 permitted, and the journalist did not stand in his path 
 to dictatorship as did Danton. 
 
 Yet it is impossible not to suspect self-interest 
 beneath this seeming tolerance. It must be re- 
 membered that the " Vieux Cordelier " had been 
 published hitherto under the auspices of Robespierre ; 
 he had corrected the proofs of most of the issues, it is 
 probable that he had even seen this very No. 5 before 
 it was printed. But a fortnight had elapsed between 
 the completion and the publication of this fifth issue, 
 and Robespierre had had time to, repent of his temerity 
 in lending his support to Camille's enterprise, to see 
 plainly whither all this was tending, and to resolve 
 that he would not be implicated in the downfall of the 
 headstrong journalist. 
 
 If Camille had yielded gracefully and obediently to 
 Robespierre's will ; if he had abjured his over-bold 
 writings, pleaded that he had indeed been inisled in 
 publishing them, it is |)ossible that he might have 
 been saved. But Camille, to his everlasting honour. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 259 
 
 did not retract that which he had written, and if, in 
 consequence, he lost his Hfe, he gained by that 
 stubbornness the respect of fiiture generations. ; 
 
 After Camille's hesitating apology for his eulogies of 
 Philippeaux, Robespierre rose to defend his young 
 colleague. We must remember, in common justice, 
 that there is this to be said for the method which 
 Maximilian adopted ; it was probably the only possible 
 way by which, if Camille had been disposed to take 
 advantage of it, he might have been saved from the 
 fury of the extreme party and those of the Committee 
 who were his violent personal enemies. The fault of 
 Robespierre's defence lay in the fact that he had taken 
 up the worst possible line of treatment as far as 
 Camille, personally, was concerned ; and this he did, 
 probably, from sheer ignorance of human nature, and 
 want of appreciation of a character so alien to his own 
 as was that of the journalist. 
 
 " I have several times taken up the defence of 
 Camille," said Robespierre. " I permitted myself 
 then some reflections on his character ; friendship 
 allowed this ; but to-day I am forced to adopt 
 a different tone. Camille promised to abjure the 
 political heresies, the erroneous, ill-sounding proposi- 
 tions which cover all the pages of the ' Vieux Cor- 
 delier.' Camille, puffed by the prodigious success 
 of his numbers, and the perfidious praise that the 
 aristocrats heap upon him, has not abandoned the 
 path which error had traced for him. His writings are 
 dangerous ; they nourish the hopes of our enemies and 
 favour public malignity. . . . The writings of Camille 
 are condemnable ; but notwithstanding it is necessary 
 to distinguish carefully the person from his works. 
 Camille is a spoilt child who has good dispositions, but 
 whom bad companions have misled. It is necessary 
 to protest against his numbers, which Brissot himself 
 would not have dared to avow, and to preserve 
 Desmoulins in the midst of us. I demand, in conse- 
 
26o CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 quence, that the numbers o£ Camille's paper shall be 
 burnt in the Society." 
 
 During Robespierre's speech Camille's anger and 
 indignation had been growing to fever heat. He was 
 both bewildered and infuriated at this change of front 
 on the part of his friend. Gould this be Robespierre 
 who was speaking — Robespierre, who had guided his 
 pen in the beginning, who had corrected the proofs 
 of the " Vieux Cordelier " with his own hand ? 
 Disregarding the veiled threats, Camille chafed 
 impotently at the contemptuous indulgence of Robes- 
 pierre's tone. 
 
 At last he saw his opportunity ; the speaker gave him 
 the opening for a retort. Without pause for con- 
 sideration Camille sprang from his seat. 
 
 " That is all very well, Robespierre ! " he cried, 
 clearly and without his usual stammer. " But I reply, 
 like Rousseau : ' To burn is not to answer ! ' " 
 
 At this bold retort Robespierre lost patience. It is 
 probable that he was really conscious of doing the best 
 he could for Camille, seeing that it was not in the 
 nature of the man to defend another at the expense 
 of his own safety and popularity. Since the fool 
 would not be saved, let him go his own way, even if it 
 led him to destruction. It was in vain that Danton 
 tried to explain matters, to make peace between the 
 two angry men. 
 
 " Do not be afraid, Camille," he said, " at the 
 rather severe lesson which Robespierre, out of his 
 strong feeling of friendship, has just given you." 
 
 Even if Danton had been ^ble to appease Camille, 
 he could not soothe Robespierre. The latter answered 
 Camille's daring challenge with a bitter vindictiveness 
 which should have warned the young man that he 
 had indeed gone too far. 
 
 " So be it," replied Robespierre. " We will answer, 
 then, instead of burning, since Camille still defends 
 his writings. If he wishes it, let him be covered with 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 261 
 
 ignominy ; let the Society restrain its indignation no 
 longer, since he is obstinate in maintaining his dia- 
 tribes and his dangerous principles. I was evidently 
 mistaken in believing that he was merely misled ; if 
 he had been in good faith, if he had merely written 
 in the simplicity of his heart, he would not have dared 
 to uphold works which are proscribed by patriots 
 and welcomed by counter - revolutionaries. His 
 courage is only borrowed ; it betrays someone con- 
 cealed, who has dictated what he has written in his 
 journal ; it betrays that Desmoulins is the organ of a 
 rascally faction which has borrowed his pen to spread 
 its poison with all the more audacity and sureness. 
 Let Camille be judged out of his own mouth ; let his 
 numbers be read to the Society immediately." 
 
 And then, speaking to Camille directly, with 
 venomous irritation, Robespierre added : — 
 
 " Learn, that if thou hadst not been Camille, we 
 should not have had so much indulgence for thee. The 
 manner in which thou seekest to justify thyself proves 
 to me that thou hast bad intentions." 
 
 Too late Camille saw the mistake he had made in 
 browbeating Robespierre. He tried to obtain a 
 hearing, that he might speak in his own defence, but 
 the Society refused to listen to him. They at once 
 proceeded to hear the debatable numbers of the 
 " Vieux Cordelier." 
 
 At this sitting a secretary read aloud the daring 
 fourth number, and the ceremony was continued next 
 day. On this occasion the famous No. 3 was read by 
 Momoro, once Camille's overprudent printer of the 
 " France Libre," now the most violent of ultra- 
 revolutionaries. 
 
 At the end of the session Robespierre spoke again, 
 and incidentally showed his own hand very plainly. 
 Camille, he said again, with contemptuous patronage, 
 Camille was a strange mixture of truth and falsehood, 
 of cleverness and self-deception. Whether the Jacobins 
 
262 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 retained or expelled him mattered very little ; he was 
 only an individual. The interests of the nation, 
 Robespierre added, were menaced by two parties, the 
 counter-revolutionaries and the ultra-revolutionaries — 
 " Both Camille and Hebert are equally wrong in my 
 eyes." 
 
 The result of all this discussion appeared, at least 
 for the moment, to be fairly satisfactory as far as 
 Camille was concerned. He was not expelled from 
 the Jacobins ; he was even tacitly permitted to retain 
 his membership, although it appears that he rarely 
 went to the Club again after this date, but the 
 Cordeliers passed an ominous resolution on hearing 
 of the apparent moderation of the sister Club. 
 
 They decreed that : " Camille, already excluded 
 from their ranks, had also lost their confidence, 
 although formerly he had rendered great services to 
 the Revolution." 
 
 There was no doubt that the Moderates were dis- 
 credited and distrusted, at least by those in power. 
 As for the others, who had welcomed Camille's appeal 
 for clemency so enthusiastically, they could do nothing 
 to direct the course of events ; nobody, as yet, dared 
 to oppose the Great Committee, and the Committee 
 was resolved upon the downfall of the Dantonists. 
 
 At last Camille fully realised his own danger and the 
 inevitable end of his course of action. Robespierre's 
 attitude must needs have opened his eyes. Yet, on 
 the whole, it is plain that he did not regret what he 
 had done. There is a story told by Jules Claretie and 
 repeated in a slightly different form by M. Lenotre, 
 which reveals clearly enough the attitude of mind of 
 both Camille and his wife. 
 
 Brune, the future marshal of the Empire and their 
 devoted friend, was breakfasting with the pair one 
 morning. The guest was depressed and full of 
 mournful forebodings, and he felt impelled to warn 
 Camille of the grave danger which he ran by con- 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 263 
 
 tinuing to publish the " Vieux Cordelier." But 
 Camille and Lucile refused to be intimidated, and the 
 young wife said, with serious confidence, as she poured 
 out the chocolate for their friend : — 
 
 " Let him alone, Brune. Let him fulfil his missiqn. 
 He must save his country." 
 
 And Camille answered more lightly, playing with 
 his little boy as he spoke : — 
 
 " Pooh ! What matter ? Edamus et bibamus, eras 
 enim moriemur ! " 
 
 It was not always that Camille could laugh thus at 
 the danger which threatened him and those whom he 
 loved. There is a passage in the worts of a contempo- 
 rary writer which shows us what a dark cloud of 
 depression had habitually settled now upon the spirits 
 of the highly strung, sensitive journalist. 
 
 One Miot de Melito, a brilliant man of affairs, who 
 was later to take a prominent part in the politics of 
 the Napoleonic era, was at this time attached to the 
 Ministry of War at Paris. The young diplomatist 
 tells us that he dined frequently at the house of 
 Deforgues, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and that 
 he often met Camille at these gatherings. The whole 
 passage gives such a vivid impression of the journalist's 
 bodily and mental attitude at this time that it is best 
 to reproduce it at length. 
 
 " Camille Desmoulins," Miot de Melito writes, " was also 
 amongst the number of those who dined pretty frequently, at 
 Deforgues'. His personal appearance was commonplace, he 
 had no external advantages, nor did his conversation belie the 
 grudging hand with which nature had endowed him. Gloomy 
 and silent, his countenance wore an expression of profound 
 melancholy, and it was difficult to recognise the orator of the 
 early days of the revolution of 1789, the orator who, standing 
 on a chair at the Palais Royal, had by his stirring words pro- 
 duced the great popular movement of that famous period. 
 
 " At the time when I was in the habit of seeing him, he was 
 horror-struck at the terrible scenes which passed before his 
 ^es every day, and was endeavouring to arouse a spirit of 
 
264 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 humanity. In several numbers of a newspaper entitled the 
 ' Vieux Cordelier ' which . was edited by him, he ventured 
 (for it was then an act of the greatest courage) to advocate a 
 return to clemency. Danton laughed at him for what he 
 chose to call his weakness, but Camille Desmoulins, who 
 was also excluded by each so-called patriotic society for having 
 advocated these new doctrines, made no reply. 
 
 " His gloom announced that he already foresaw the fate 
 awaiting him, and the few words that he uttered were always 
 enquiries or observations on the sentences of the Revolutionary 
 • Tribunal, on the kind of death inflicted on the condemned, 
 and on the most dignified and decorous way of preparing for 
 and enduring it." 
 
 It is strange to note how this idea o£ dying with 
 decorum had always obsessed Camille. At the very 
 beginning of his literary career, in one of the early 
 numbers of the " Revolutions de France et de Bra- 
 bant," he dwells on the same subject when he is 
 speaking of the ignominious death of the royalist 
 Marquis de Favras. 
 
 " The firmness with which he died was that of a gladiator, 
 who, being mortally wounded, strives to fall with decency 
 and dignity." 
 
 The same thought haunted Camille once jnore, 
 save that now it was his own death which he had in 
 mind, that death which intuition and common sense 
 alike must have warned him was drawing near. 
 
 But by far the most living picture of the life of 
 Camille and his wife at this time is to be found in a 
 letter from Lucile herself to Freron. Camille's 
 former sub-editor was on mission from the Convention 
 at Toulon. He was employing against the Royalists 
 in that unfortunate town all the most extreme 
 " terrorist " methods, to put down the counter- 
 revolutionary rising, and earning for himself a name and 
 a reputation very different from that of the " Lapin " 
 Freron of those old happy days at Bourg-la-Reine. 
 Freron had written to the Desmoulins a short time 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 265 
 
 before, at the beginning of the movement for clemency. 
 It is in this letter that he recalls so charmingly their 
 pleasant time of companionship in a passage which has 
 already been quoted. Later, he shows himself very 
 much at variance with Camille's new ideas. He 
 advises him to bridle his imagination with regard to 
 the Committee of Clemency. 
 
 " It would be a triumph for the counter-revolutionaries 
 Do not let his philanthropy blind him ; but wage war to the 
 knife with all these patriot-adventurers." 
 
 It is probably this same letter of Freron's to which 
 Camille referred in No. 5 of the " Vieux Cordelier." 
 In this number he defended his friend against the 
 attacks of Hebert, who " calls Freron, as he calls me, a 
 heretofore patriot, a muscadin, a Sardanapalus " 
 
 There follows an impassioned apostrophe from 
 Camille : — 
 
 " Oh, my dear Freron, it is by means of gross artifices indeed 
 that the patriots of August loth undermine the pillars of the 
 ancient district of the Cordeliers ! You wrote ten days ago to 
 my wife : ' I dream only of Toulon, where I shall either perish, 
 or deliver it up to the RepubHc : I depart. The cannonade 
 will begin as soon as I arrive ; we go to win either laurels or a 
 willow branch ; prepare the one or the other for me.' Oh, 
 my brave Freron, we have both of us wept for joy at hearing 
 this morning of the victory of the Republic, and it is laurels 
 that we shall bear before thee, instead of laying the willow 
 upon thy ashes." 
 
 Lucile answered Freron's letter some weeks later, 
 upon the 24th Nivose. She is writing very soon after 
 that terrible sitting of the Jacobins upon the i8th 
 Nivose, when Robespierre finally repudiated the man 
 who had been his tool, — and his friend. Probably poor 
 Camille was too sick at heart to write himself. It is 
 Lucile who defends her husband's actions and policy 
 against the miscomprehension of their old comrade, 
 writing with all the spirit and enthusiasm of a 
 
266 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 woman whose adored husband has been attacked and 
 betrayed. 
 
 " Come back, Freron, come back quickly. You have no time 
 to lose : bring with you all the old 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 ! Robespierre, your head- 
 piece, has denounced Camille to the Jacobins ; he has had 
 Numbers 3 and 4 read and has demanded that they should be 
 burnt ; he, who had read them in manuscript — can you 
 conceive such a thing ? 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 eiforts to have the cancelling reported ; 
 it was reported ; but he saw that when he did not think or act 
 according to the will of a certain number of individuals, he 
 was not all powerful. Marius (Danton) is not listened to any 
 more ; he is losing courage and vigour. D'Eglantine is 
 arrested, and in the Luxembourg. 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 ; 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 such a 
 sight. Life has become a heavy burden. I cannot even think, — 
 thinking, once such a pure and sweet pleasure, alas, I am de- 
 prived 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 keep up his. You do not seem to 
 have read his five numbers. Yet you are a subscriber. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 267 
 
 " 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. They have got into difficulties 
 through their own fault. They are trying to be forgotten. 
 Farewell, Lapin, you wiU call me mad again. I am not, however, 
 quite yet ; I still have enough reason left to suffer. 
 
 " I cannot express to you my joy in learning that your dear 
 sister had met with no accident ; I have been quite uneasy 
 since I heard Toulon was taken. I wondered incessantly what 
 would be their fate. Speak to them sometimes from me. 
 Embrace them both from me. I beg them to do the same to 
 you for me. 
 
 " Do you hear ? My Loup cried 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 thee 
 impatiently." 
 
 Nothing could possibly make us realise better what 
 Luci'le's life was at this time — a life which must also 
 have been that of many another loving, anxious wife 
 and mother. She knew, as well as Camille himself, the 
 daily and hourly danger which her husband ran. It is 
 plain from this letter that she suffered the added misery 
 of knowing that her supposed, wholly imaginary wealth 
 was one of the reproaches directed against Camille. 
 
 There is infinite pathos and infinite tenderness in 
 the words which describe how she " shuts up this 
 terrible sorrow in her heart " — " meets Camille with a 
 serene look " — " affects courage that he may keep up 
 his." We can imagine that this was no easy task, this 
 keeping up of Camille's courage, whilst her own heart 
 ached so unbearably. For Camille, sensitive, volatile 
 Camille, must have been difficult to soothe and calm 
 now that his enemies were closing in on every side, 
 whilst he saw his popularity slipping away from his 
 grasp, leaving him to meet their attacks, defenceless. 
 Poor Camille, whose one preoccupation now was. how 
 
268 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 to die decently ; one can fancy that his thoughts and 
 words must have wounded Lucile's loving heart. 
 
 The sixth number of the " Vieux Cordelier," 
 although dated Nivose loth, did not in reality appear 
 until Pluviose 15 th (February, 1794). 
 
 At the forefront of this issue Camille printed two 
 mottoes. One was a quotation from Valerius Maximus : 
 " Peregrinatus est, animus ejus in nequitia non 
 habitavit." For his other epigraph the journalist 
 used an extract from CoUot d'Herbois' speech at the 
 Jacobins, thus trying to turn the words of one of his 
 deadliest enemies to good account, with a kind of 
 despairing recklessness. 
 
 " Camille Desmoulins," CoUot had said, " fait une 
 debauche d'esprit avec les aristocrates ; mais il est 
 toujours bon republicain et il lui est impossible d'etre 
 autre chose." 
 
 This sixth number, with its unfinished " Credo 
 Politique du Vieux Cordelier," was rather more 
 orthodox from the point of view of the " Mountain " 
 than its predecessors. Nevertheless, with one of those 
 errors of judgment for which we love him, Camille 
 breaks off in this quite legitimate creed of his to relate 
 the incident of the arrest of his father-in-law, who 
 had been imprisoned on a charge of conspiracy in the 
 Carmelite Convent, in a fashion which can scarcely be 
 called respectful towards the laws and manners of the 
 Republic. 
 
 He again insists that the law of kindness would prove 
 to be more' powerful than that of terror as the order of 
 the day, and he declares that he has from the first hoped 
 and preached that the Republic would tring peace and 
 happiness rather than misery and terror in its train. 
 
 In a postscript to this number Camille attacks 
 Hebert once more, almost for the last time, with most 
 terrible and bitter raillery. 
 
 " Miracle ! " he cries. " Grand conversion of Pere 
 Duchesne ! ' I have already said a hundred times/ writes he 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 269 
 
 in one of his last numbers, ' and I will say it always that one 
 should imitate the sansculotte JesBS ! That one should obey 
 the letter of the Gospel and live in peace with all men. . . .' 
 " When Hebert speaks thus, I shall be the first to cry : ' The 
 National Treasury cannot pay too highly for such numbers ! ' 
 Continue, Hebert ; the divine sans-culotte whom you quote 
 has also said : * There is more joy in Heaven over one Pere 
 Duchesne who repents, than over ninety-nine Vieux Cordeliers 
 who need no repentance.' But you ought to remember to 
 have read in the same book : ' Thou shalt not say to thy 
 brother, Raca, that is to say, viedase. Thou shalt not lie.' " 
 
 During the early spring of 1794 Robespierre con- 
 tinued to attack the Hebertist faction relentlessly. 
 The " ultras " did, not fall without a struggle. Carrier, 
 the butcher of Nantes, hero of " noyades " and of 
 deeds unspeakable, thundered from the tribune of the 
 Cordeliers, whilst Hebert, in the " Pere Duchesne " 
 threatened and raved, with the fear of death before 
 his eyes. 
 
 It was all in vain. One day towards the end of 
 March stern, implacable Saint-Just rose in the Conven- 
 tion and denounced Hebert and his faction. In cold, 
 pitiless phrases he reviewed their misdeeds, and 
 secured their condemnation. On March 24th the 
 " ultras," Hebert, Momoro, Clootz, Ronsin and the 
 rest, went to their death. 
 
 Camille had played no small part in bringing about 
 the downfall of this party ; perhaps for that reason he 
 hoped that he might still escape denunciation. Prob- 
 ably, too, his close association with Danton gave him 
 confidence, for Danton despised the Committee and 
 all its works, and, up to the very end, when warned that 
 they plotted his downfall, repeated that they " would 
 not dare." 
 
 Yet, in a measure, the great Tribune of the people 
 had lost his power. His grip on public opinion had 
 slackened ; that withdrawal to Arcis at a crisis in the 
 history of the Revolution was to cost him dear. The 
 
270 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Terror had progressed without Danton, it had out- 
 stripped him. He, the mover and creator of the 
 insurrection of August loth, was now considered almost 
 a " moderate." 
 
 And Robespierre, he who had said : " Both Camille 
 and Hebert are equally wrong in my eyes," also feared 
 Danton. There was too much brutal, far-reaching 
 humanity in this man to fit in with his narrow, well- 
 regulated schemes for the well-being of France and of 
 France's regenerator, Maximilian Robespierre. Danton 
 would probably spread disorder through the inhuman 
 Utopia of Robespierre and Saint- Just : it would be 
 far better if he were removed. 
 
 Camille had yet another source of confidence. He 
 knew that he had fallen from the favour of those in 
 power, he knew that most of his former friends had 
 deserted him, but he did not believe that the people 
 would allow him to be sacrificed. Camille had not, 
 as yet,, learnt that lesson which almost all the leaders 
 of the Revolution had, sooner or later, to lay to heart — 
 the lesson that no dependence could be placed in the 
 mob. He knew that he had once been popular ; he 
 did not comprehend that the rapid sequence of events 
 had entirely blotted from the minds of the people of 
 Paris the remembrance of his services, those services 
 of which he had reminded his readers so eloquently 
 in the fifth number of the " Vieux Cordelier." 
 
 The spring came early to France that year of 1794- 
 We have the evidence of many contemporaries to 
 prove that it was long enough since such perfect 
 weather had been known at that season. At the 
 beginning of March, it was hot and almost summer- 
 like. The woods all round Paris had broken into their 
 young leaves ; the Seine danced and sparkled beneath 
 a sky of unclouded blue. As the month drew on the 
 lilacs in the gardens of the Luxembourg began to 
 bloom before their time, scenting the air with their 
 hot, clean fragrance. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 271 
 
 Perhaps during those anxious days Camilla and 
 Lucile sometimes walked together there, beneath the 
 flowering trees. One would like to think so, and to 
 believe that they forgot, for a moment, their present 
 dangers and forebodings in recalling those past happy 
 hours of their life, which these same gardens had 
 witnessed. 
 
 It was here that Camille had first met the child who 
 was to be his wife ; it was here also that, a few short 
 weeks later, he was to see her for the last time on earth. 
 
 Yet although the shadow of their approaching fate 
 hung over these two who were all in all to each other, 
 full knowledge was mercifully spared them. We may be 
 very sure that even during these last months there were 
 happy hours, spaces when all their sorrows were for- 
 gotten as they listened to little Horace's baby prattle. 
 Fortunately, a sudden and violent death is unrealisable 
 to a man in the full enjoyment of his health and 
 strength. In moments of despondency Camille may 
 have honestly believed that he expected and was 
 prepared for death, but the moments were probably 
 far more frequent when he was confident that somehow 
 or other he would yet escape. 
 
 Meanwhile the journalist was engaged in writing 
 the seventh number of the " Vieux Cordelier." After 
 the first three issues the paper had not appeared with 
 any pretence of regularity: in fact, it was never a 
 journal in the same sense as the " Revolutions de 
 France." This last number was belated indeed ; it 
 never appeared in Camille's lifetime. 
 
 Had it done so, it might only have made his con- 
 demnation the more sure, for it was bold : bolder 
 even than its predecessors. Indeed, according to 
 Michelet, the allusions to Robespierre in this seventh 
 number of the " Vieux Cordelier " actually did lead 
 to the author's arrest. 
 
 The pamphlet takes the form of an imaginary 
 conversation between Camille himself and a typical 
 
272 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 " old Cordelier." When Desenne, the publisher, 
 saw the proofs of this No. 7 he took fright and declared 
 that he dared not print it. He was not so bold as 
 Camilla ; moreover he had none of the journalist's 
 reasons for personal animosity. The attacks on 
 Robespierre were too flagrant and too obvious ; it did 
 not certainly require any very extraordinary degree of 
 perspicacity to guess who was intended by such a 
 passage as this : " Car jamais ces tyrans n'ont manque 
 de juger pour faire perir, sous le pretexte de calomnies, 
 quiconque leur deplaisait." 
 
 In another place Camilla writes still more openly, 
 comparing Robespierre and Danton to Octavius and 
 Antony, much to the disadvantage of the former. 
 
 In spite of Desenne's protests, Camille insisted that 
 the number should be published exactly as he had 
 written it, without alterations. The proofs passed 
 to and fro, and were doubtless read by many people. 
 It is exceedingly probable that Robespierre heard of 
 Camilla's contemplated attack upon him, and deter- 
 mined that ha must be silenced, although Michelet 
 would have us believe that it was with extreme 
 reluctance that he consented to the arrest of the 
 journalist. 
 
 Camille's seventh number is, in many respects, a 
 very noteworthy piece of work. Once again, and for 
 the last time, he claims the liberty of the Press, 
 although he allows that there may be danger to the 
 State where each writer gives free vent to his own 
 personal opinions — a strange sentiment this, coming 
 from Camille ! 
 
 He bitterly taunts the members of the Convention 
 with cowardice : — 
 
 " If a deputy feels 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 and 
 oratorical precautions he envelops his meaning, for fear the 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 273 
 
 guillotine should find a way to the neck of it. . . . 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. ... I, on this celebrated Mountain, have merely 
 seen mice deliberating, while no one dared to beU the cat." 
 
 Further on, he is even more vehement. 
 
 " I contend that we have never been so enslaved as since 
 we have called ourselves Republicans, that we have never 
 grovelled so abjectly before men in credit and in place as 
 since we have spoken with them, hat on head." 
 
 Camille concludes the number with another instal- 
 ment of his poHtical " Credo," in some respects braver 
 and more generous than anything which he had yet 
 written. 
 
 " I believe that Liberty is humanity ; thus I believe that 
 Liberty would not prevent the relations of prisoners from 
 seeing their fathers, their husbands, or their sons ; I believe 
 that Liberty would not condemn the mother of Barnave to 
 knock in vain for eight hours at the door of the Conciergerie, 
 in the hope of speaking to her son, and when this unhappy 
 woman had accomplished a hundred leagues in spite of her 
 great age, to oblige her, to see him yet once again, to wait for 
 him upon the road to the scaffold. ... I believe that Liberty 
 is magnanimous : she would, not jnsult a condemned criminal 
 at the foot of the guillotine, and after his execution, because 
 death wipes out the crime." 
 
 To those who contend that Camille was a mere paid 
 poHtician, whose pen' was at the service of the highest 
 bidder, this number is surely a sufficient refutation. 
 There is no retractation here, no drawing back from 
 the position which he had taken up, although now he 
 was left, unsupported, upon that solitary and dangerous 
 height. 
 
 It is plain, surely, that sorrow and the imminent 
 shadow of death had worked a great miracle in 
 Camille ; the faun had become a very human man. 
 For long, he and Barnave, the great orator of the first 
 
274 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Assembly, had been strenuously opposed in policy. 
 Friends they could never have been ; their tempera- 
 ments were too entirely dissimilar. Yet Gamille 
 wrote no words which haunt one's memory more 
 than these few lines in which he speaks o£ Barnave and 
 his widowed mother. 
 
 On one of the last days of March, an old teacher of 
 Camille's at the College Louis-le-Grand met the 
 journalist in the Rue St. Honore, carrying a bundle of 
 papers under his arm. 
 
 " What have you there, Camille ? " he asked. 
 
 " Only some numbers of my " Vieux Cordelier,' " 
 answered the young man. " Will you have one ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ! It is too dangerous ; they burn ! " 
 
 " Coward ! " laughed Camille, and quoted once 
 more that favourite line of his : " Edamus et bibamus, 
 eras enim moriemur." 
 
 " To-morrow we die " Camille did not guess 
 
 how almost literally true his words were to prove. 
 
IV 
 
 THE first direct move against the party of the 
 " Indulgents " was made in the middle of 
 March, when Herault de Sechelles was 
 expelled from the Committee of Public 
 Safety. A few days later he was arrested and im- 
 prisoned, on various trumped-up charges of treasonable 
 conspiracy. 
 
 This arrest was an open threat to Danton, since 
 Herault was his intimate friend. Yet when those 
 around him implored him to escape, he heard them 
 with seeming indifference. 
 
 " There is nothing to be done," he said. " Resist ? 
 No, enough blood has been shed ; I would rather die 
 myself. I prefer to be guillotined rather than to 
 guillotine." And, when they still urged flight : " Does 
 a man carry his fatherland on the soles of his shoes ? " 
 
 Arguments and entreaties were useless with one 
 who would only answer : 
 
 " I know that they wish to arrest me, but no — they 
 will not dare ! " 
 
 There is something grand in this confidence, ill- 
 founded as it was. It is not surprising if it inspired 
 Camille with the same feeling, accustomed as he was 
 to rely upon the judgment of those whom he respected 
 and trusted. 
 
 During the last days of March sinister rumours 
 spread. It was whispered that the arrest of the 
 Dantonists was imminent, and the Members' of the 
 Committee maintained an obstinate silence when 
 questioned. A fairly well authenticated story tells 
 
 275 
 
276 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 how someone dared to speak to Robespierre himself 
 of his ancient friendship for Danton, asking him to 
 intervene in his favour. Robespierre is said to have 
 answered that he could do nothing, either for or 
 against his colleague, that justice was there to defend 
 innocence, that, as far as he himself was concerned, his 
 entire life had been a continual sacrifice of his affec- 
 tions to the fatherland : and that, if his friend were 
 guilty, he would sacrifice him with regret, but still 
 he would sacrifice him, like all the others, to the 
 Republic. 
 
 It is very probable that this was the light in which 
 Robespierre viewed himself, and that he thus expressed 
 his intentions. 
 
 Six days after the execution of the Hebertists, upon 
 March 29th (gth of Germinal), there was a sudden 
 outbreak of counter-revolutionary feeling in Paris. 
 The downfall of the " ultras " had led many to think 
 that the Terror was at an end, and there was talk of a 
 revolt against the extreme Republican party. 
 
 That same evening Legendre rose at the Jacobins 
 to protest against the widespread belief that such an 
 anti-revolutionary project was to be attributed to his 
 friends, " the indulgents." This well-meant but 
 exceedingly ill-advised speech drew forth an open 
 threat from CoUot d'Herbois. 
 
 " Be calm ! " he cried. " Such plans will be dis- 
 appointed. We have caused a thunderbolt to fall 
 upon the infamous men who deceived the people, we 
 have torn the mask from them, but they are not the 
 only ones ! . . . We will tear away all possible masks. 
 The ' indulgents ' need not imagine that we have 
 fought for them, that it is for them that we have held 
 here these glorious sessions ! Soon we shall know 
 how to undeceive them." 
 
 On the following day, March 30th, an extraordinary 
 meeting was convoked of the two great Committees, 
 sitting together, as was their practice on important occa- 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 277 
 
 sions. The Committee of Legislation was also sum- 
 moned, to give more authority still to the proceedings. 
 
 At this meeting, Saint- Just was the principal speaker. 
 He denounced the Dantonists with all the force and 
 eloquence at his command, charging them with 
 " moderatism " and " reaction " in much the same 
 terms as Camille himself had used in the accusations 
 which he brought against the Girondins. Finally, he 
 demanded the arrest of the whole party of the " in- 
 dulgents." 
 
 Saint- Just's personality and the knowledge that he 
 was Robespierre's mouthpiece swayed the united 
 Committees, and they jointly signed the warrant for 
 the arrest of the Dantonists. Only a very few had the 
 courage to withhold their names ; amongst them were 
 Ruhl and Robert Lindet. At the close of the sitting, 
 these two men sent Panis to warn Danton that the 
 warrant was actually signed. 
 
 The perturbed messenger found Danton at home, 
 sitting by the fire in his study. It is from M. Robinet 
 that we learn how the great Tribune passed this, his 
 last evening of freedom. He sat silently by the hearth, 
 grave and preoccupied, with the glow of the flames 
 falling upon his rugged face. 
 
 Maybe his thoughts had strayed to the days of his 
 boyhood in Arcis, that pleasant, homely Arcis, where 
 he had won back a little peace of mind but a few 
 months before.. It would perhaps have been well for 
 Danton if he had not returned to his birthplace during 
 those stormy autumn months of 1793 ; well for 
 Danton if, having returned, he had remained there, 
 far from the turmoil of the capital and the stress of 
 party warfare. 
 
 The errand of Panis was fruitless. Even now Danton 
 would not fly. He was disturbed by the news, we read ; 
 he paced with long strides up and down the room, 
 muttering broken sentences to himself, and pausing now 
 and then to embrace his nephew, but still he .would not 
 
278 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 seek a place o£ safety. He was sick of revolution and 
 bloodshed — sick of life, if it must be bought at such a 
 cost. It was thus that Danton awaited his arrest. 
 
 Meanwhile it was with a very heavy heart that 
 Camille watched through the long hours of that March 
 night. He had a more personal grief to sadden him 
 than had Danton, something which, for a moment, 
 outweighed those anxieties which had become custo- 
 mary and part of his life. Only that morning he had 
 received a letter from his father, telling him that the 
 mother, whom he so tenderly loved, was dead. 
 It is long since Camille had seen his parents ; in 
 his letters he often speaks of a visit which he hopes 
 to pay to them, but that visit, it seems, had never 
 taken place. Yet the old tie of love uniting the parents 
 and the son remained as strong as ever. 
 
 It has sometimes been asserted that Camille was 
 on bad terms with his father, and it is true that the 
 impetuous son was often irritated by what he con- 
 sidered, quite unjustly, to be coldness and lack of 
 enthusiasm on the part of the elder man. In the days 
 of his first great success Camille was apt to think that 
 others, and especially the townsfolk of his birthplace, 
 did not fully recognise his true worth and capabilities. 
 
 Yet this letter which the young man received on the 
 eve of his arrest will prove to any unprejudiced reader 
 that the bond between the father and the son had not 
 been weakened by these little disagreements and mis- 
 understandings in the past. These are the words of 
 M. Desmoulins : — 
 
 " My dear son, I have lost the half of myself. Your mother 
 is no more. I have always hoped for her recovMy, 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." 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 279 
 
 There was no sleep for Camille that night. Never 
 the man to feel in moderation, or to take either sorrow 
 or happiness calmly, he sat for hour after hour, over- 
 whelmed with grief. We can fancy how Lucile laid 
 aside her own heartache to soothe her husband's 
 sorrow. Perhaps the remembrance of that very sorrow 
 was a comfort to them both during the days which 
 followed ; it must have drawn them to each other 
 very closely on this, the last night together. 
 
 At intervals during those restless, wakeful hours, 
 after Lucile had at last gone to lie down in the adjoin- 
 ing room, Camille corrected the proofs of the seventh 
 and last number of the " Vieux Cordelier " which 
 had been sent back from the printers that day. The 
 occupation served to distract his mind, to some extent, 
 from his sorrow ; the work was to be, as it were, his 
 last will and testament. 
 
 At about six o'clock in the morning there was an 
 unwonted disturbance in the usually quiet street. 
 There rose to CamiUe's ears the sound of the tramp of 
 heavy feet, and, a moment later, the clang of arms 
 grounded on the cobbles at a word of command. 
 
 He flung open the window, and leaning out, looked 
 down into the street. As he had expected, he saw 
 that a patrol of soldiers was drawn up before his 
 door. Camille was not unprepared for this ; he knew 
 only too well for what purpose they had come, and he 
 went unhesitatingly into the adjoining room, where his 
 wife lay asleep, with their little boy in his cradle at 
 her side. ' 
 
 For a moment the young man must have hesitated 
 as he looked down upon the peaceful face of the 
 sleeping girl. But this news of his must be told and 
 at once ; there was no time to think of how it might 
 be broken gently. 
 
 " They have come to arrest me," he said quietly, and 
 Lucile started up at the words, scarcely awake, hardly 
 understanding. . • . 
 
28o CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 The scene which followed can be better imagined 
 than described. It was a scene which took place again 
 and again in those days — days which witnessed so often 
 the tearing apart of wives and husbands, of parents 
 and children. Yet each fresh actor in that tragedy 
 must have felt that he or she alone suflEered its full 
 bitterness, and surely this was the thought of Camille 
 and Lucile as they clung together on that spring 
 morning. 
 
 Their married life had been so completely happy, 
 in spite of, nay, even because of, the trials and sorrows 
 which surrounded them. Was it to end like this, cut 
 short in a moment of time ? 
 
 Yet, mercifully, there can have been but little space 
 for tears. Lucile was obliged to think of other things, 
 to collect such clothes as Camille would need in 
 prison, where even the barest necessaries were not 
 provided. It must all be done, even though their 
 hearts were breaking, and we may be sure that Lucile 
 forgot nothing which could add to the comfort of the 
 man she loved. Camille hastily selected a couple of 
 books and thrust them into the valise. Both were in 
 English, and curiously indicative df his mood. They 
 were Hervey's " Meditations among the Tombs " and 
 Young's " Night Thoughts." 
 
 Then, for a moment, Camille knelt beside the cradle 
 of the sleeping child, that little Horace, who was never 
 really to know his young father. He kissed the baby 
 very gently, his unnatural calmness almost giving way 
 at the touch of the soft cheek, and turned to Lucile 
 for one last embrace . . . the very last. 
 
 Camille left his wife, now mercifully scarcely 
 conscious, and descended the stairs. He opened the 
 door himself, and his captors surrounded him and 
 bound his arms roughly, as though he had been a 
 common malefactor. Then, while the startled, 
 distressed neighbours stared from their windows and 
 doorways, they led him away. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 281 
 
 It Was only a short distance from Camille's home to 
 his prison. He was taken to the Luxembourg, once a 
 palace, now a gaol. Here it is probable that he met 
 Danton in the common ante-chamber before they were 
 committed to separate cells. We know, at least, that 
 Danton saw and spoke with Lacroix and Philippeaux, 
 but there is no record of any conversation with 
 Camille. 
 
 The journalist was imprisoned in a cell which over- 
 looked the gardens of the Luxembourg ; we can 
 imagine that it was a sad joy to him to be able to see 
 those lawns and terraces once more from the window 
 of his prison. 
 
 Two days elapsed between the arrest cf -the Danton^- 
 ists and their trial. The best account which we can 
 possibly obtain of Camille's thoughts and actions 
 during those forty-eight hours is to be found in the 
 two letters which he wrote to Lucile from the 
 Luxembourg. One cannot do better than give these 
 letters almost in their entirety. They show Camille 
 in his best and tenderest aspect ; they are amongst the 
 most pathetic love-letters in literature or history ; 
 it would be fair neither to the man nor to his genius 
 to omit or to mutilate them. 
 
 The first was written on the day of his arrest. It is 
 simply dated from the prison of the Luxembourg. 
 
 " My Lucile, my Vesta, my angel," Camille begins. 
 " Destiny leads my eyes from my prison over that garden where 
 I passed eight years in following you. A glimpse of the 
 Luxembourg recalls to me a crowd of memories of my love, 
 I am alone, but never deserted by thought, by imagination, 
 almost by the sense of the bodily presence of you, of your 
 mother, of my little Horace. 
 
 " I have only written this first letter to demand some neces- 
 sary things. But I am going to pass all my time in prison in 
 writing to you ; because I have no need to take up my pen for 
 my defence. My justification is complete in my eight Republi- 
 can volumes. They are a good pillow, upon which my con- 
 science reposes, awaiting the tribunal -and posterity. 
 
282 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 " Oh, my good Lolotte, speak of other things ! I throw 
 myself upon my knees, I extend my arms to embrace you, I 
 find no more my poor Loulou. ... 
 
 " Send me a water-glass, that one on which there is a ' C ' 
 and a ' D ' ; our two names. Send me a pair of sheets, and a 
 book in duodecimo which I bought a few days ago at Charpen- 
 tier's, and in which there are blank pages, made expressly for 
 notes. This book treats of the immortality of the soul. I 
 have need to persuade myself that there is a God, more just 
 than men, and that I shall not fail to see thee again. Do not 
 be too much affected by my ideas, dearest. I do not yet despair 
 of men and of my liberation ; yes, my well-beloved, we shall 
 be able to meet yet once more in the garden of the Luxem- 
 bourg ! But send me that book. Farewell, Lucile ! Fare- 
 well, Horace ! I cannot embrace you, but, dirough the tears 
 which I shed, it seems to me that I hold you still against my 
 breast." 
 
 On the following day Camille wrote again to Lucile, 
 for the last time : — 
 
 " Kind slumber suspended my woes. One is free when one 
 sleeps : one has no more the sense of captivity : heaven has 
 had pity upon me. It was only for a moment that I saw you 
 in a dream, I embraced you turn by turn, thou and Horace,- 
 but our little one had lost an eye through some affection 
 which had settled there, and grief at this accident awoke me. 
 I found myself in my cell ; it was just beginning to grow light. 
 Not being able to see thee any more and to hear thy repUes, 
 because thou and thy mother spoke to me, I rose, that I might 
 at least speak to thee and write to thee. But, on opening my 
 windows, the thought of my loneliness, the frightful barriers, 
 the bolts which separate me from thee, have vanquished all 
 my firmness of soul. I burst into tears, or rather I sobbed, 
 crying in my tomb : ' Lucile, Lucile, where art thou ? ' 
 
 " Yesterday, in the evening, I had a similar moment, and my 
 heart was equally moved when I perceived thy mother in the 
 gar-dens. An involuntary movement threw me on my knees 
 against the barriers ; I joined my hands as though imploring 
 her pity, she, who mourned, I am certain, upon thy breast. 
 I saw her sorrow yesterday by her handkerchief and by her 
 veil, which she lowered, not being able to bear this spectacle. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 283 
 
 When you both come, let her seat herself a little nearer with 
 thee, that I may see you better. It seems to me that there is 
 no danger. My spy-glass is not very good. 
 
 " But, above aH, I implore thee send me the portrait ; let 
 thy painter have compassion on me, who only suffer for having 
 had too much compassion for others ; let him give thee two 
 sittings a day. In the horror of my prison, the day when I 
 receive thy portrait will be a festival, a day of merry-making 
 and of joy. In the meanwhile, send me a lock of hair, that I 
 may wear it against my heart. My dear Lucile ! Behold me 
 returned to the time of my first love for thee, when the mere 
 fact that anyone came from thee was enough to interest me 
 in him. To-day when the citizen who bore thee my letter had 
 returned : ' Well, you have seen her ? ' I asked, as I used to 
 say to the Abbe LaudrevUle, and I caught myself looking at 
 him as though some sign of thee lingered about his clothes, 
 upon his person. He has a charitable soul, since he has given 
 thee my letter without erasures. I shall see him when he 
 comes, twice a day, in the morning and the evening. This 
 messenger of my sorrows becomes as dear to me as would 
 formerly have been that of my pleasures. 
 
 " I have discovered a crack in the wall of my apartment ; 
 I applied my ear to it ; I heard a sigh : I ventured to whisper 
 a few words ; I was answered by the voice of a sick man who 
 suffered. He asked my name ; I told it to him. ' Oh, my 
 God ! ' he cried at that name, falling back upon his bed, from 
 which he had raised himself, and I recognised distinctly the 
 voice of Fabre d'Eglantine. ' Yes, I am Fabre,' he said to me, 
 ' But thou here ! The counter-revolution is then accom- 
 plished ? ' 
 
 " We did not dare, however, to speak together for fear that 
 hatred would grudge us this feeble consolation, and that, if 
 anyone should chance to overhear us, we should be separated 
 and more strictly confined ; because he has a chamber with a 
 fireplace, and mine would be sufficiently comfortable if a cell 
 could ever be called so. 
 
 " But, dearest, thou canst not imagine what it is to be in 
 solitary confinement, without knowing for what reason, 
 without having been interrogated, without receiving a single 
 newspaper ! It is to live and to be dead at one and the same 
 time ; it is only to exist to feel that one is in a tomb. It is 
 said that innocence is calm, courageous. Ah, my dear Lucile, 
 
284 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 my well-beloved ! Often then my innocence is feeble, as that 
 of a father, that of a son, that of a husband ! 
 
 " If it was Pitt or Cobourg who treated me so severely ; 
 but my colleagues ! — but Robespierre, whb has signed the 
 order for my imprisonment — but the Republic, after all that 
 I have done for her ! This is the reward which I receive for 
 so many virtues and sacrifices for her sake ! 
 
 " When I entered here I saw Herault-S^chelles, Simon, 
 Ferroux, Chaumette, Antonelle ; they are less unhappy ; 
 not one of them is in soHtary confinement. 
 
 "It is I who have called down upon myself for the past 
 five years so many hatreds and perils for the sake of the Re- 
 public, I, who have preserved my poverty in the midst of the 
 Revolution, I, who have only to ask pardon from thou alone 
 in all the world, my dear Lolotte, and to whom thou hast 
 accorded it, because thou knowest that my heart, in spite of 
 all its faults, is not unworthy of thee ; it is I, whom the men 
 who called themselves my friends, who called themselves 
 Republicans, throw into a cell, alone, as though I were a con- 
 spirator. Socrates drank hemlock ; but at least he saw in his 
 prison his friends and his wife. How much harder it is to be 
 separated from thee ! The greatest criminal would be too 
 severely punished if he were torn from a Lucile otherwise than 
 by death, which, at least, only makes one feel for a moment 
 the bitterness of such a separation ; but a guilty man would 
 not have been thy husband and thou hast only loved me 
 because I existed for nothing save the happiness of my fellow- 
 countrymen. 
 
 " They call for me. . . . 
 
 " At this moment the commissaries of the Government came 
 to interrogate me. Only this one question was put to me : 
 If I had conspired against the Republic. What mockery, and 
 how can they insult thus the most pure Republicanism ? I 
 see the fate which awaits me. Adieu. 
 
 " Thou seest in me an example of the barbarity and of the 
 ingratitude of men. My last moments shall not dishonour 
 thee. Thou seest that my fears were well-founded, that my 
 presentiments were always true. I have married a wife 
 celestial by her virtues ; I have been a good husband, a good 
 son ; I would have been also a good father. I carry with me 
 the esteem and the regrets of all true republicans, of all lovers 
 of virtue and of liberty. I die at thirty- four years of age, but 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 285 
 
 it is a miracle that I have passed scatheless, during the last 
 five years, over so many of the precipices of the Revolution, 
 without falling, and that I still live ; I rest my head calmly 
 upon the piUow of my writings — too numerous — but which ^ 
 all breathe the same love of mankind, the same desire to render 
 my feUow-countrymen happy and free, and which the axe of 
 tyrants cannot touch. I see plainly that power intoxicates all 
 men and that all say, like Dionysius of Syracuse : ' Tyranny is 
 a fine epitaph.' 
 
 " But console thyself, desolate widow. The epitaph of thy 
 poor CamiUe is more glorious : it is that of Brutus and of 
 Cato, the tyrannicides. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Lucile, I was born to make verses, to defend 
 the unhappy, to render thee happy, to compose with thy 
 mother and thy father and a few more after our own heart, an 
 Otaheite. I have dreamed of a Republic which all the world 
 would have adored. I could not have beheved that men were ' 
 so fierce and so unjust. How could I think that some jests in 
 my writings against the colleagues who provokeds^pe would 
 efface the remembrances of my services ? I cannot hide from 
 myself that I die the victim of those jests and of my friend- 
 ship for Danton. I thank my assassins that they let me die 
 with him and Philippeaux ; and since my colleagues have been 
 so cowardly as to abandon us and to lend ear to calumnies 
 which I do not know, but which I am advised are of the 
 gravest nature, I can say that we die the victims of our courage 
 in denouncing two traitors and of our love for truth. We 
 can bear with us this knowledge, that we perish the last of the 
 Republicans. 
 
 " Pardon me, my dearest, my true life, that I lost when we 
 were separated, if I occupy myself with my memories. I 
 ought rather to strive to make you forget. My Lucile, my 
 good Loulou ! Live for Horace, speak to him of me. Thou 
 wilt say to him what he cannot yet understand, that I would 
 have loved him well. In spite of my sacrifice, I believe that 
 there is a God. My blood will perhaps wash out my faults, 
 which are the common weakness of humanity, and God will 
 recompense me for the good which I have tried to do, for my 
 virtues, my love of Liberty. I shall see thee again some day, 
 oh, Lucile ! Is death so great a misfortune since it delivers 
 me, easily affected as I am, from the sight of so many crimes ? 
 
 " Farewell, my life, my soul, my earthly divinity. I leave 
 
286 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 thee to the care of good friends — all those amongst men who 
 are virtuous and right-feeling. I perceive the shores of my 
 life receding before me. I see still Lucile. I see thee, my well- 
 beloved, my Lucile ! My bound hands embrace thee, and my 
 severed head rests still upon thee its dying eyes." 
 
 Lucile never received these last words of her hus- 
 band. The Dantonists ,were removed to the Concier- 
 gerie during the night of April ist (i zth Germinal), 
 and, on Kis arrival there, Camille gave the letter to 
 one Citizen Grosse-Beaurepaire, a prisoner like himself, 
 begging him, if possible, to deliver it. But this errand 
 could never be performed ; th.6 message passed from 
 hand to hand, and remains to us now, after more than 
 a century, as Camille's best and most worthy testament, 
 a letter so brave in its pathos that it makes one's heart 
 ache to think that it never reached its destination, 
 never carried its message to Lucile's loving soul. 
 
 The gre,ater part of those two days in prison must 
 have been spent by Camille in writing. The nervous, 
 highly-strung man was on the verge of a breakdown ; 
 he was ill in mind and body alike, unable to sleep, 
 unable to eat, tempted only hy the soup which Lucile 
 made with her own hands and sent to the Luxembourg. 
 It was now that his profession came to his aid ; the 
 journalist's overwrought brain could find some relief, 
 some relaxation in setting down on paper the thoughts 
 which pressed upon him. 
 
 Besides the letters to Lucile, Camille wrote part of 
 what was intended to be the eighth number of the 
 " Vieux Cordelier." These few somewhat disjointed 
 passages remained unpublished, for obvious reasons, 
 until 1834, when they were included by M. Matton 
 in his edition of Camille's works. They treat, almost 
 entirely of the danger of allowing one or more in- 
 dividuals to retain the dictatorship in the State for an 
 indefinite period, and there is no ambiguity, nor any 
 doubt as to whom Camille indicated in such words 
 as those which follow. They show plainly enough that 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 287 
 
 arrest and imprisonment had not induced the journalist 
 to change his opinions. 
 
 " Freemen ! You desire to be free — be so then, in very 
 truth : do not content yourselves with the Uberty of the 
 moment, seek also to secure your future enfranchisement. 
 You have cast forth your Tarquin, you have done more ; 
 his execution has affrighted all kings, those pretended masters 
 of the world, who are only its tyrants and despoUers. But why 
 does the power of Brutus last more than a year ? . . . Why 
 is it to individuals that one owes one's preservation, instead 
 of to the Republic ? " 
 
 According to Jules Claretie, Camille wrote to 
 Robespierre from the Luxembourg, but the historian 
 gives no proof of this assertion, and it would seem to 
 be contradicted by the testimony of Charlotte Robes- 
 pierre, as contained in her " Memoirs " : — 
 
 " My brother loved Camille DesmouUns dearly," she says, 
 " they having studied together : and when he learned of his 
 arrest and incarceration at the Luxembourg, he went to the 
 prison that he might beg Camille to return to the true Revolu- 
 tionary principles which he had abandoned for an alliance 
 with the Royalists. CamiUe 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 pohtical heresies, abandoned him to the terrible justice 
 of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Now Danton and CamiUe 
 were so intimately connected that he could not have saved the 
 one without the other ; if, therefore, CamiUe had not repulsed 
 him, when he held out his hand to him, CamiUe and Danton 
 would not have perished. . . . Desmoulins published his 
 ' Vieux Cordelier,' 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 sorrowfuUy to me on this subject, 'CamiUe is 
 ruining himself ' ; he took up his defence several times ; several 
 times also he tried to reclaim him, and spoke to him as a 
 brother, but in vain. . . . Despite his immense popularity 
 and extraordinary influence his words (in defence of CamiUe) 
 were received with murmurs. Then he saw that by trying to 
 save CamiUe he was working his own ruin." 
 
288 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 It is in that last sentence that Charlotte Robespierre 
 gives the key to all her brother's conduct, as we judge 
 it. The remainder of this piece of special pleading is 
 full of obvious misstatements. It is idle to assert, for 
 instance, that Robespierre was not a party to the 
 publication of the " Vieux Cordelier." We have too 
 many irrefutable witnesses to prove that the paper was 
 indeed originally his own project, and that he passed 
 the proofs of, at least, the first three numbers. 
 
 It is perhaps natural that his sister should believe 
 that, had he met with encouragement, Maximilian 
 would have taken up the defence of Camille and 
 Danton, but the statement does not, unfortunately, 
 carry conviction. Neither does it seem probable that 
 Robespierre, as Charlotte infers, heard with consterna- 
 tion that Camille was imprisoned, since he himself had 
 signed the warrant for the arrest of the journalist 
 and his colleagues. 
 
 We know that Lucile tried to see her husband's one- 
 time friend and plead with him for Camille's life. 
 That interview she could not obtain, but the letter 
 which she wrote to Robespierre is still extant — a letter 
 almost incoherent, but with terrible truth in every 
 line of it. 
 
 " That hand which so 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 ! " 
 
 The preliminary interrogations of the prisoners took 
 place at the Luxembourg on the morning of the I2th 
 Germinal (April 2nd), Camille being the first to be 
 questioned. On this occasion, as we have read in his 
 letter to Lucile, besides a few formal questions as to 
 his name, address and profession, the journalist was 
 asked only whether he " had conspired against the 
 French nation by wishing to restore the Monarchy, 
 by destroying the National Representation and the 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 289 
 
 Republican Government ? " At this interrogation the 
 advocate, Chauveau de Lagarde, was nominated as 
 Camilla's counsel. 
 
 In the meantime public opinion had been stunned by 
 the arrest o£ the Dantonists ; very few o£ their former 
 friends had been daring enough to plead for them in 
 public. At the meeting of the Convention on the 
 nth Germinal one man only rose to speak in their 
 favour. This was Legendre, the eloquent, stentorian- 
 voiced master^butcher, whom Camille had, on one 
 occasion, compared to Demosthenes. 
 
 " Citizens," he cried, " four members of this 
 assembly have been arrested to-day: I know that 
 Danton is one of them ; I am ignorant of the names of 
 the others ; but, whoever they may be, I demand that 
 they be heard at this bar. Citizens, I declare that I 
 believe Danton to be as innocent as I am myself ! " 
 
 But brave as were Legendre's words, his courage was 
 not of the lasting order. On being coldly reproved by 
 Robespierre, he hesitated, stammered, and finally 
 apologised for what he had said on his first generous 
 impulse. For Robespierre and his party did not intend 
 for one instant that Danton should be given the 
 opportunity to defend himself before the Convention, 
 which he had so often swayed by his words. It was 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal and no other which was 
 to judge and condemn the " Indulgents." 
 
 After Robespierre had scared Legendre into silence, 
 after he had spoken at length upon the cultivation 
 of the Republican virtues, upon the necessity that 
 the few should suffer for the good of the many, 
 Saint-Just rose to speak. He read a Report relating 
 to the crimes and treasons of the Dantonists with that 
 austere conviction which so often concealed the 
 falseness of his premises. 
 
 " The Republic is the people and not the renown 
 of a few men ! " he declared, and went on to denounce 
 each one of the accused by name. It is unnecessary to 
 
290 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 examine this speech at length ; it was an astounding 
 tissue of lies and misrepresentations, woven with 
 subtle skill upon a foundation of half-truths. Philip- 
 peaux, Lacroix, Herault — Saint- Just attacked each in 
 turn. Camille he dismissed contemptuously as " a 
 dupe first, and afterwards an accomplice — wanting in 
 character " — yet he proceeded to calumniate him 
 most grossly. It was Danton, finally, whom the orator 
 attacked with the most bitter venom, accusing him of 
 all imaginable crimes, public and private. 
 
 Yet Saint-Just, by the sheer force of personality, 
 carried the cowed Assembly with him. At the close 
 of the Report, an almost unanimous decree of 
 accusation was passed against the Dantonists. 
 
 On the following day, April ist (12th Germinal), 
 this accusation was read to the prisoners, previous 
 to their removal to the Conciergerie. 
 
 The accused men were brought together for the first 
 time on this occasion. Fabre d'Eglantine was sick 
 almost to death, Chabot in no better case, for he had 
 taken poison in his cell, Philippeaux, calm and com- 
 posed as ever, whilst Herault, his personal charm 
 unchanged to the last, embraced and thanked a faithful 
 servant, who was not permitted to accompany him 
 to the Conciergerie. 
 
 Danton heard the iniquitous report with unmoved 
 contempt, but Camille was furious at the caluinnies 
 brought against him by Saint-Just. He raged arid 
 stormed until rebuked by Danton, after which he 
 managed to compose himself. We are told that he 
 murmured, with quivering lips : " I go then to the 
 scaffold, because I have shed tears at the fate of so 
 many unhappy people. My only regret, in dying, is 
 that I have not been able to serve them better." 
 
 The prisoners were transferred to the Conciergerie, 
 that ante-chamber to the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
 where they were confined together in the same cell 
 which the Girondins had occupied six months before. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 291 
 
 It was on their arrival here that Danton used the words 
 which have since become famous. 
 
 " It was on such a day that I instituted the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal. I ask pardon for it from God and 
 man ! My aim was to prevent fresh September 
 massacres, not to establish a scourge for humanity." 
 Then, speaking of Robespierre and his colleagues, he 
 said bitterly : " These Cains know nothing of govern- 
 ment. I leave everything in a frightful muddle." 
 And he added : " It were better to be a poor fisherman 
 than to rule men." 
 
 During this short time in the Conciergerie, Camille 
 composed the " Notes upon the Report of Saint-Just," J 
 which were to be his last written words. There is 
 bitter anger in this defence, yet, beneath it all, we can 
 plainly read his despair. 
 
 " If I could only print in my turn," he begins. ..." If 
 they would leave me only two days in which to compose 
 No. 7, how I would confound M. le Chevalier Saint- 
 Just ! . . . But Saint- Just writes at his leisure, in his bath, in 
 his dressing-room ; he meditates on my assassination for 
 fifteen days ; and I, I have nowhere even to place my writing- 
 case ; I have only a few hours left in which to defend my life. 
 . . . But there is a Providence, a Providence for Patriots, and 
 already I can die contented : the Republic is saved. ... It is 
 proved by many decisive facts that those who accuse us are 
 themselves the conspirators. 
 
 " I come to that which concerns me personally in this 
 Report. There has been no such atrocious example of calumny 
 as this piece of work within the memory of man. And in the 
 first place there is no one in the Convention who does not 
 know that M. the heretofore ChevaHer Saint-Just has sworn 
 implacable hatred against me, because of a light pleasantry^ 
 which I permitted myself five months ago in one of my num- '^ 
 bers. ... I put Saint-Just into a jesting newspaper paragraph, 
 and, in return, he puts me into a murderous report, where, 
 with regard to me, there is not one word of truth." 
 
 In this, and all the rest of Camille's defence, eloquent 
 and impassioned as it is, we feel that the writer did not 
 
292 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 hope for acquittal, that he knew himself and his 
 colleagues to be already judged and condemned, 
 since they had fallen into the hands of these, their 
 enemies. 
 
 Yet their condemnation was to be no easy task. 
 Fouquier-Tinville was busy preparing the case against 
 the Dantonists, and perhaps it is scarcely fair to blame 
 .the astute Public Prosecutor for the futility of much 
 of his evidence. The work was almost beyond his 
 power. It was no light matter to be called upon to 
 bring forward irrefragable proofs that Danton, Camille 
 Desmoulins, Herault, Westermann — the heroes of the 
 Bastille and of August loth — were Royalists, con- 
 spirators and traitors to the Republic. 
 
THE Dantonists were brought before the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal, in the Salle de 
 Liberte of the Palais de Justice, on April 
 2nd (13th Germinal), at eleven o'clock in 
 the morning. The accused were sixteen in number, 
 including the Alsatian, General Westermann, who had 
 only been arrested that same day. 
 
 There was distinct method in the apparently pro- 
 miscuous way in which the prisoners were herded 
 together. Firstly, there was the party of the " In- 
 dulgents," Danton, Camille, Philippeaux, Herault, 
 Lacroix and Westermann, and, included in the same 
 indictment with them, were a number of men accused 
 of bribery, forgery and other criminal offences against 
 the Government. These were Fabre d'Eglantine, 
 Delaunay, Chabot, the two Freys, Bazire, Despagnac, 
 Lhuillier, Guzman and Diederichsen. 
 
 There is no doubt that this measure, by which at 
 least three distinct groups of persons, having absolutely 
 no connection with each other, were committed for 
 trial together, was adopted deliberately by the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal, acting on the authority of the 
 Committees of Government. Here is the affirmation 
 of Nicolas- Joseph Paris (nicknamed Fabricius), regis- 
 trar to the Tribunal, given in his evidence at the trial 
 of Fouquier-Tinville. 
 
 " This refinement of perfidy," he says, " was often made use 
 of by the Committees and 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." 
 
 293 
 
294 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Herman was the President of the Tribunal, of which 
 the other members were Masson-Denizot, Foucault 
 and Bravet. Fouquier-Tinville held, o"f course, the 
 position of Public Prosecutor, and his deputy was 
 Fleuriot-Lescot. The jurors were most carefully 
 selected by Fouquier himself. Paris tells us that the 
 Public Prosecutor asked for the jury-list and, when it 
 was brought to him, after making a cross beside several 
 names, he marked another with the letter " F." On 
 Paris enquiring what this meant, Fouquier answered : 
 " It signifies ' faible.' He is fond of reasoning, and 
 we don't want people who reason, we want this 
 business done with." Then, staring at the registrar 
 fixedly, the Public Prosecutor added : " Moreover, 
 it is what the Committee of Public Safety wills." 
 
 These well-chosen jurymen were Trinchard, Leroy 
 (nicknamed Dix-Aout), Lumiere, Souberbielle, Des- 
 boisseaux and Renaudin. The last-named was chal- 
 lenged by Camille at the opening of the trial, and 
 apparently on good grounds, but the Tribunal dis- 
 regarded his appeal. 
 
 In a volume entitled " Anecdotes inedites de la fin 
 du dix-huitieme siecle," there is a curious story relating 
 to one of the jurors at the trial of the Dantonists, 
 whose name is not given. The author of the book tells 
 us that this juryman was an intimate friend of 
 Camille's, and that, whilst he was in the court, the 
 journalist never took his eyes from his face ; he seemed 
 to say : " Would you dare condemn me ? " 
 
 Against his heart and his conscience the juror voted 
 for the death of Camille and his aoUeagues, but, not 
 long after, he was overcome by remorse at what he had 
 done. The health of the unfortunate man com- 
 pletely broke down : he brooded incessantly over the 
 terrible result of his action, and he is reported to have 
 said despairingly to a friend, who enquired of him the 
 re^on of his misery : " I have assassinated my friend, 
 and I cannot live ; I am torn by remorse. Camille is 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 295 
 
 perpetually before my eyes ; even now, while I am 
 speaking to you, he is there — I see him, I hear him 
 ... he reproaches me with my barbarity, and yet I 
 live ! " 
 
 Our best account of the process of the Dantonists 
 is contained in the vivid, hasty notes of Topino- 
 Lebrun, the artist. He had been nominated on the 
 jury, but was not called upon to serve. He remained 
 in the court, however, and wrote down his impressions 
 of the proceedings as they passed. 
 
 One by one the prisoners made answer to Herman's 
 formal interrogations, each according to his nature. 
 
 Danton's reply thunders down to us, typical alike 
 of the man and the epoch. 
 
 " My name is Georges-Jacques Danton, formerly a 
 lawyer, afterwards a Revolutionist and representative 
 of the people. My dwelling will soon be in nothing- 
 ness, after that, in the Pantheon of history." 
 
 Camille's answer is even better known ; we have 
 discussed it more fully in an earlier chapter. 
 
 " I am thirty-three, the age of the sansculotte 
 Jesus, when he died ; a critical age for every patriot." 
 
 Herault replied with the easy lightness which he 
 preserved throughout : " I am called Marie- Jean — 
 hardly a striking name, even among the Saints. I sat 
 in this hall and was detested by Parliamenteers." 
 
 Westermann, after protesting against this arraign- 
 ment, since he did not even know what was his indict- 
 ment, made answer in a soldierly fashion, worthy of 
 his high military reputation. 
 
 " I am from Strasburg, a soldier from my infancy. 
 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 appealed in the beginning against the in- 
 justice which endeavoured to implicate himself and 
 his friends with the conspiracies of perjurers and 
 forgers, but his protest was disregarded. 
 
296 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 This first day of the trial was mainly occupied in the 
 examination of Chabot, Bazire, the Freys and De- 
 launay, accused of financial offences. Herman and his 
 colleagues were apprehensive and nervous ; very disin- 
 clinedtocometothe real business inhand. They dreaded, 
 and with reason, the effect which Danton's eloquence 
 might have upon the crowds who thronged the hall. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all their efforts, he succeeded in 
 obtaining a hearing late in the day. He rose to demand 
 that a Committee, composed of members of the Con- 
 vention, should be nominated to hear the protests 
 which he, Camille and Philippeaux wished to make 
 against the dictatorial methods of the Committee of 
 Public Safety. The Tribunal was not by any means 
 prepared to accede to this request ; nevertheless no 
 valid reasons could be given for refusal, and to evade 
 the necessity for answering decisively, Herman hastily 
 broke up the sitting for that day. 
 
 He then immediately went with Fouquier to take 
 counsel with the Committee of Public Safety as to 
 whether it was necessary to subpoena the witnesses 
 of the accused ; the only members present were Saint- 
 Just and Billaud-Varennes. It was decided that no 
 answer should be given to the demands of the 
 prisoners, but that, by some means or other, the 
 sittings must be spun out until the three days had 
 elapsed, after which, according to the rules of the 
 Tribunal, the jurors might declare themselves suffi- 
 ciently instructed to give a verdict without further 
 evidence. 
 
 On this second day, as Paris tells us, the hearing 
 began very late. There had been many strange, heroic, 
 amazing trials before the Tribunal, but never one like 
 this. It was not possible to postpone Danton's 
 examination any longer ; he rose now to speak, to 
 justify himself before the people. 
 
 And the people were there, to hear his defence. 
 The Court was crowded to overflowing, a dense throng 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 297 
 
 filled the Cour des Pas Perdus, and the Cour du 
 Harlay. It extended outside, all around the walls 
 of the Palais de Justice, and beyond along the Quais, 
 crowding the PlaceDauphine and reaching from thence 
 to the Pont Neuf and the Mint. 
 
 Each incident within the hall was repeated and 
 repeated again from mouth to mouth in this packed, 
 agitated mob, uneasy, they scarcely knew why, vaguely 
 terrified at the sense of something portentous which, 
 it seemed to them, was about to come to pass. Almost 
 incredible as it may appear, we have it on the authority 
 of many witnesses that Danton's great voice could be 
 heard, through the open windows of the Court, even 
 as far as the opposite bank of the Seine, when he raised 
 it now and again in protest or indignation. 
 
 And this was the voice which had so often called 
 these self-same people to arms, it was the voice which 
 had mustered the levies to destroy the Army of the 
 Coalition, which had sounded like a tocsin on August 
 loth, that terrible day of vengeance. This voice had 
 had the power to move the Parisian mob again and 
 again ... it had the power to move it still. Back- 
 wards and forwards the crowd swayed, excited almost 
 unbearably, ready for almost anything. It needed but 
 a word to make them rise and carry the prisoners in 
 triumph from the court — and that word might come 
 at any moment. 
 
 It is Danton's personality which dominates the 
 whole of the proceedings henceforth. There is a 
 rough but lifelike engraving which represents the 
 great Tribune as he appeared on this day. He stands 
 in the dock, towering above his companions, like a 
 lion at b^y — the hackneyed metaphor rises involun- 
 tarily to one's lips in speaking of Danton — with head 
 thrown back and collar open at the throat, his hair 
 in wild disorder, and on his lips a smile of fierce disdain. 
 Never did a man defend his life in such a fashion. 
 With even more than his old energy and audacity of 
 
298 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 phrase and gesture he alternately browbeat and 
 mocked at his accusers, crushing them beneath the 
 weight of his just anger and his terrible scorn. 
 
 They accused him o£ having been bought by the 
 Court ; he interrupted their words with a veritable 
 shout o£ indignation : 
 
 " I sold ? A man of my stamp is priceless ! . . . 
 Let him who accuses me to the Convention produce 
 the proofs, the semi-proofs, the faintest signs of my 
 venality ! . . . I have laboured too much ; I am sick 
 of life : it is a burden to me." 
 
 In violent, trenchant words he held up to scorn the 
 insinuations brought against him of cowardice upon 
 the day of August loth and contemptuously rebutted 
 the accusation that he was the paid supporter of 
 Mirabeau — D'Orleans — Dumouriez — each and all of 
 those who had played for supremacy in the Republic 
 and lost. He boasted — yet it was no boast but the 
 simple truth — that he would willingly embrace his 
 enemy for the sake of his country, for which he would 
 give his body to be devoured. 
 
 There is insight in the words in which Danton 
 summed up certain of his contemporaries, 
 
 " Ararat had a fiery nature," he said. " Robespierre 
 is tenacious and firm — and I — I was useful after my 
 own fashion." 
 
 Again and again Herman interrupted this torrent 
 of words. 
 
 " Danton," he said, " audacity is no proof of 
 innocence. Your defence should be made in a more 
 orderly manner." 
 
 Then, as the accused man persisted in his loud 
 justification, and the galleries buzzed with sympathy 
 and half-suppressed applause, the President grew 
 more and more agitated and indignant. 
 
 " Do you not hear my bell ? " he cried. 
 
 " A man defending his life despises your bell, and 
 cries aloud," Danton shouted back defiantly. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 299 
 
 Danton had spoken no mere empty words at the 
 beginning of his examination. 
 
 "Provided that we are allowed to speak and to 
 speak freely," he had said, " 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 
 the rascals." 
 
 Camille, according to Topino-Lebrun, echoed these 
 words. 
 
 " Ah, we shall be allowed to speak ! " he cried. 
 " That is all we ask," and the juror adds that the 
 accused deputies showed signs of great and heartfelt 
 
 joy- 
 
 It was small wonder that Herman trembled, that 
 Fouquier-Tinville trembled, that the whole Tribunal 
 dreaded what would be the outcome of all this. The 
 " Indulgents " might yet escape condemnation — 
 unless Danton could be silenced. 
 
 No easy task this. Louder and louder rose his voice, 
 as he demanded that Billaud-Varennes and certain 
 others should be called as witnesses. The Tribunal 
 refused this, which every accused man might be^ 
 thought to have the right to demand, and there is real 
 and unaffected dignity in Danton's answer, choking 
 with rage as he was. 
 
 " 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." 
 
 Herman saw his opportunity and seized it. Pro- 
 testing hypocritically that Danton appeared to be 
 exhausted, he declared that the remainder _of his 
 defence must be postponed until the following day, and 
 incontinently broke up the sitting. 
 
 Throughout this day certain members of the 
 Committee of General Security, Amar, Vouland and 
 Vadier, had listened to all the proceedings from a 
 plade of concealment in an adjoining room. They 
 
300 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 shared the fears of the judges as to the outcome of the 
 trial, and were equally determined that Danton and 
 his colleagues must somehow be silenced. 
 
 On the following day (the 15 th Germinal) it was 
 again very late before the court was convoked. 
 Although Danton demanded to be heard again at once, 
 Herman passed on to the examination of certain of the 
 other prisoners. After Herault came the turn of 
 Camille, and we can gather plainly enough the course 
 which his cross-examination took from his answers 
 as reported in Topino-Lebrun's notes, scrappy and 
 disjointed as they are. 
 
 " At the time of my dispute with Saint- Just the latter said 
 that he would kill me. ... I denounced Dumouriez before 
 Marat. D'Orl^ans first. I commenced the Revolution ; my 
 death will end it. . . . Marat was deceived in Proly. . . . 
 What man is there who has not had his Dillon ? . . . Since 
 the Fourth Number I have written only to retract. ... I 
 have been encouraged, written to. . . . Have unmasked the 
 Hebert faction. It is a good thing that someone did it." 
 
 Furthermore certain passages from the " Vieux 
 Cordelier " were read, in which Camille (and with 
 reason) was accused of having scoffed at the Conven- 
 tion and the Committees. It does not appear that 
 Chauveau de Lagarde, who had been appointed the 
 journalist's counsel, spoke on his behalf, but Camille, 
 as we have seen, had prepared a written defence 
 against the accusations in Saint-Just's report, which, 
 however, he was to be given no opportunity to read. 
 
 Herman then proceeded with the examination of 
 Lacroix, but the accused man obstinately demanded 
 that certain witnesses should be called in his defence. 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville replied that he could not summon 
 them, since they were members of the Convention, 
 but this answer did not satisfy any of the prisoners. 
 They protested indignantly against the injustice 
 of this treatment, and a tumult arose in the court. 
 The President tried vainly to interrogate Westermann, 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 301 
 
 the Freys and Guzman ; he was constantly in- 
 terrupted, especially by Danton, who never ceased to 
 demand that their witnesses should be called. At 
 last Fouquier rose to make an apparently reasonable 
 proposal. 
 
 " It is time to put a stop to this brawl," he said. 
 " It is a scandal both to the Tribunal and to those who 
 hear you. I will write to the Convention and ask what 
 its wishes are ; they will be exactly carried out." 
 
 This was more or less what the accused men desired ; 
 they declared themselves satisfied, and the examination 
 proceeded more quietly. 
 
 Fouquier indeed immediately despatched a letter, 
 but not, as he had promised, to the Convention. He 
 wrote to the Committee of Public Safety, employing 
 exaggerated and unjustifiable language to gain his 
 purpose. 
 
 " A terrible tumult has been raging ever since the sitting 
 began," he wrote. " The maddened prisoners claim the hear- 
 ing of their witnesses. . . . They appeal to the public from 
 the refusal which they pretend to have met with, in spite of 
 the firmness of the President and of the entire Tribunal ; 
 their protestations disturb the sitting, and they declare loudly 
 that they will not be silent until their witnesses are heard, 
 . . . We request you to trace our line of conduct for us 
 definitely, as the judiciary order furnishes us with no means 
 whatever for justifying this refusal. . . . We foresee that the 
 only way to make them keep silence would be by a decree." 
 
 It will be seen that even Fouquier does not pretend 
 that the act which he contemplated was lawful — it 
 was merely expedient. 
 
 On receipt of this letter from the Public Prosecutor, 
 the members of the Committee were undecided as to 
 their course of action : Saint-Just alone persisted that 
 it was necessary to refuse the demands of the accused 
 at all costs. Yet some pretext was necessary ; some 
 means must be found of putting the prisoners to 
 silence. It was not until the end of the third day 
 
302 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 that the jurors could declare themselves satisfied, and, 
 in the meantime, who knew what might happen, if 
 Danton was permitted to speak freely. A pretext 
 was ready to the hand of the Committee, and, infamous 
 as it was, the members did not hesitate to avail them- 
 selves pf it. 
 
 Arthur Dillon, who played the part of an unwilling 
 evil genius in the lives of Camille and his wife, was 
 at this time a prisoner in the Luxembourg, having 
 been rearrested shortly before this date. It is very 
 probable that Lucile wrote to the General after 
 Camille's arrest ; he owed a great deal to her husband's 
 efforts and might be expected to be ready to serve 
 him by every means in his power. It is quite likely, 
 moreover, that Dillon formed a plan to incite the 
 populace to attack the Palais de Justice and release 
 the prisoners, and, since he had plenty of money in 
 his possession, he may have decided to distribute it 
 judiciously to serve his purpose. 
 
 Whatever his plans may or may not have been, it is 
 said that the ex-general, under the influence of drink, 
 talked freely and unwisely to one Laflotte, a fellow- 
 prisoner, who had formerly been ambassador to 
 Florence. This man resolved to betray Dillon, in 
 the hope of receiving his own freedom as a reward, 
 and he confided his intention to Captain Amans, one 
 of those infamous prison spies or " moutons " who 
 owed their existence to the system of terror. 
 
 Laflotte and Amans wrote to the Committee of 
 Public Safety on April 2nd and were conducted to 
 the Tuileries and cross-examined on the subject. 
 They exaggerated and misrepresented the affair, so as 
 to make it appear as an organised prison conspiracy. 
 Laflotte stated that Dillon had told him that it was 
 time for good Republicans to make a stand against idle 
 oppressors, that, if Danton was able to hold his own 
 at the Tribunal, his condemnation was by no means 
 assured, and that a large sum of money had been 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 303 
 
 remitted to Lucile Desmoulins, in order that she might 
 have the means of stirring up the people to revolt. 
 
 At her trial Lucile expressly denied that she had 
 received any money from Dillon. Moreover, it is 
 inconceivable that she was engaged in any organised 
 conspiracy at this time. Her one idea was how she 
 might save Camilla. She had wandered round the 
 Luxembourg for hour after hour, in the hope of seeing 
 him, she had written to, and sought interviews with, 
 those in authority, she had snatched at any and every 
 means by which she might obtain her husband's 
 release, but very certainly she had no room in her 
 thoughts for these schemes of " overturning the 
 Republic," " of setting the son of Louis XVI upon 
 the throne," whereof she was accused. 
 
 It mattered very little to Saint- Just and his col- 
 leagues whether the information which they had 
 received was true or false. The hint of a " prison 
 conspiracy " was always sufficient to scare the Conven- 
 tion into submission, moreover it was the one thing- 
 calculated to thoroughly alarm the mob. 
 
 Accordingly on the afternoon of this same day of 
 15th Germinal, Saint -Just and Billaud - Varennes 
 hastened to the Convention, and the former demanded 
 an immediate hearing, in order that he might make a 
 report in the names of the two Government Com- 
 mittees. 
 
 " The Public Prosecutor at the Revolutionary Tribunal," 
 so this document began, "has informed us that the revolt 
 of the culprits has caused the proceedings of justice to be 
 suspended until the National Convention shall have deliber- 
 ated." 
 
 The whole report did great credit to the ingenuity 
 of Saint- Just. Even the natural anger of the accused 
 men was made to appear unwarrantable and even 
 criminal. Could sophistry go further than in this 
 phrase ? 
 
304 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 " What innocent man ever rebelled against the 
 laws ? We want no other proofs of their criminal 
 attempts than this audacity." 
 
 Saint- Just then went on to speak of the supposed 
 prison conspiracy. 
 
 " Dillon, who ordered his army to march upon 
 Paris, has declared that the wife of Desmoulins has 
 received money in order to promote a rising for the 
 assassination of patriots, and of the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal." 
 
 Finally the report practically demanded that the 
 Convention should adopt the accompanying decree, 
 which ran as follows : — 
 
 " The National Convention orders 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 cause his authority and that of the Revolutionary Tribunal 
 to be respected, and to repress every attempt on the part of 
 the accused to trouble public tranquillity 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." 
 
 This decree was adopted by the whole Convention 
 unanimously, so completely were even the friends of 
 Danton cowed into submission at this moment. 
 Vouland and Amar were immediately despatched 
 with it to the Palais de Justice. 
 
 Meanwhile things had not gone well at the Tribunal, 
 as far as Fouquier and his associates were concerned. 
 Danton had resumed his defence, and again his voice 
 and words stirred the emotions of the crowd. Wester- 
 mann also had made an impression on the people, 
 justifying himself quietly and simply, like the valiant 
 soldier that he was. 
 
 It was at this vital moment that the emissaries of 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 305 
 
 the Committee of General Security arrived with the 
 decree. Paris has graphically described the scene. 
 
 " They were pale," he says. " Anger and terror were painted 
 on their countenances, so much did they fear that their 
 victims would escape death. . . . Vouland said : ' We have 
 them, the scoundrels ; they were conspiring at the Luxem- 
 bourg.' They sent for Fouquier, who was in the court. He 
 appeared at once. On seeing him, Amar said : ' 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." 
 
 One can faintly imagine the horror and indignation 
 of the prisoners on hearing this infamous proclama- 
 tion. Danton sprang to his feet. 
 
 " I take my hearers to witness," he cried, " that 
 we have not insidted the Tribunal ! " 
 
 There was a murmur of assent from many of those 
 present, and Herman dreaded that some demonstration 
 might be made in favour of the prisoners. Confident 
 in the support of the Convention, he ordered that the 
 accused men were to be at once removed from the 
 court, such an order literally amounting to outlawry. 
 It was in vain that the prisoners vehemently protested. 
 
 " It is infamous ! " cried Lacroix. " We are judged 
 without being heard." 
 
 " No documents have been produced against us," 
 shouted Danton. " Neither have any witnesses been 
 called." 
 
 The members of the Committee of General Security 
 who had brought the decree to the Tribunal now 
 entered the hall, their whole bearing full of ill- 
 concealed triumph. Danton's eyes fell upon them, 
 and he pointed them out to his companions, exclaiming 
 with bitter scorn : 
 
 " Look at those cowardly assassins ; they will hunt 
 us to death ! " 
 
 Unhappy Caraille had an even more terrible cause 
 
3o6 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 for distress than his own imminent death. He had 
 listened with horror as Fouquier read Saint-Just's 
 iniquitous decree, had heard, with almost incredulous 
 agony, that Lucile was to be involved in his own fall. 
 
 " The wretches — the infamous wretches ! " he 
 groaned. " Not content with killing me, they will 
 murder my wife also ! " 
 
 Camille's self-possession gave way entirely under 
 this new blow. In a fury of anger he tore up his now 
 useless defence and flung the fragments into Fouquier's 
 face. When the guards came to remove the prisoners 
 from the court, he citing to his seat and refused to 
 leave the dock with his companions. It became 
 necessary at last for three men to drag him from his 
 place and practically to carry him from the hall. 
 
 The prisoners were taken back to the Conciergerie 
 and confined in separate cells. The crowds in the 
 hall of the Tribunal and in the surrounding streets 
 dispersed moodily. Notwithstanding the arbitrary 
 methods of the Committees, notwithstanding the 
 decree of the Convention, it was by no means certain 
 that these measures would be successful. It was whis- 
 pered that the jury would not agree — that the majority 
 of them would be in favour of acquittal. 
 
 But Fouquier, Herman and their colleagues were 
 not to be baulked when their victory was so nearly 
 won. Next morning, the i6th Germinal, the members 
 of the Committee of General Security went to the 
 Palais de Justice, as Paris tells us, before nine o'clock 
 and held a consultation in the Public Prosecutor's 
 private room. Herman and Fouquier then went to the 
 jury-room, and we are told, again on the authority of 
 Paris, that the two men deliberately set themselves to 
 persuade and threaten the jurors into declaring that 
 they were satisfied with the evidence. 
 
 Their task was accomplished before the court was 
 declared open. Lhuillier alone of all the prisoners 
 was acquitted. The rest were to die that same r'— 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 307 
 
 The accused men were not summoned again before 
 the Tribunal: Herman and Fouquier doubted, 
 reasonably enough, their ability to control Danton ; 
 they feared the effect of his wrath and indignation. 
 Accordingly it had been decreed 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." 
 
 Judgment was already pronounced. Even before 
 the jury had given their verdict the death-sentence 
 had been virtually passed and the compositors were 
 setting it up in type, in order that it might be published 
 immediately throughout Paris. 
 
 The Dantonists themselves knew well what that in- 
 evitable judgment would be. They awaited it on the 
 whole calmly. 
 
 One by one they were taken to the waiting-room of 
 the Conciergerie to hear their sentences of death read 
 to them by the clerk, Ducray. All of them refused to 
 listen to that iniquitous pronouncement of judicial 
 murder. 
 
 " It is useless," said Danton sternly. " You may as 
 well take us at once to the guillotine. I will not listen to 
 your judgment. We are assassinated ; that is enough." 
 
 Camille, crouched in a corner of his cell, sat with his 
 face buried in his arms, his body shaken by sobs. 
 From time to time broken sentences escaped him : 
 "Lucile . . . my little Horace. . . . Oh, my beloved ! 
 . . . What will become of them ? " 
 
 It must be remembered, before one calls him weak 
 or unmanly, what poignant cause Camille had for 
 grief — nay, almost for despair. It was not only the 
 thought of his own death which he must needs face — 
 though that, to a man as keenly alive as Camille, 
 can be no light matter — but he knew also only too 
 well that Lucile, his beloved Lucile, stood in the 
 same peril as himself. 
 
3o8 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 One must not forget, moreover, in judging Camilk, 
 that almost from the first he had realised to what 
 goal his campaign of clemency would lead — and, 
 knowing it, had yet persisted to the end. 
 
 Camilla was no stoic-; he was only a helpless man, 
 broken down in mind and body by all that he had 
 passed through, a husband who saw his wife about to 
 die for his sake, a father who pictured his baby son 
 left desolate. This, then, was the end of it all. Never 
 again would he feel the fierce exultation of popular 
 triumph, the intense pleasure of the writer in fashion- 
 ing the perfect phrase ; above all, never more would 
 he know the closer and more intimate joys of his home 
 Hfe — ^never sit with Lucile, they two alone together 
 in the flickering firelight. . . . Can we wonder if 
 Camille wept ? — Heaven knows he had paid dearly 
 enough for the right to shed those tears. 
 
 It was but a short space in those days which elapsed 
 between the passing of the sentence and its fulfilment. 
 Short enough — yet the hours of that spring day must 
 have seemed long to those who awaited their death. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when Sanson and his 
 assistants came to make the last preparations. Poor 
 Camille resisted impotently even now ; before they 
 could bind his arms and cut away his hair and the 
 collar of his shirt, the executioners were obliged 
 to tie him to a chair. He only calmed himself when 
 Danton, at his request, placed in his pinioned hands a 
 locket which contained a tress of Lucile's hair. 
 
 At five o'clock two tumbrils, drawn by huge grey 
 Normandy horses, waited before the Conciergerie. 
 A vast crowd were assembled around the gates of the 
 prison to see the Dantonists pass out to their death. 
 One by one the condemned men entered the carts and 
 seated themselves upon the rough benches fixed against 
 the sides. All of them were bareheaded and in their 
 shirt-sleeves, with their arms firmly bound. 
 
 Danton was the last to ascend the leading tumbril. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 309 
 
 following immediately after Camille. Fabre d'Eglan- 
 tine was so weak that he could scarcely sit upright, and 
 Danton took the place next to him, so that his broad 
 chest served as a support for the sick man, and pre- 
 vented him from falling from his *"§eat when the 
 jolting of the carts over the rough cobbles of the Rue 
 Saint-Honore threw the prisoners against each other. 
 On the other side was Camille, trembling with his 
 efforts to keep calm. His white, drawn face and the 
 scared, piteous look in his eyes arrested the attention 
 of many onlookers. 
 
 And between the two sat Danton, steady as a rock, 
 and as rugged and unmoved. Those broad shoulders 
 of his which had borne the weight of so many burdens 
 now formed a physical support for his weaker com- 
 panions, even as his strong courage nerved them 
 morally. 
 
 In the same tumbril was Herault, he who had been 
 called the handsomest man in France, aristocratic 
 Herault de Sechelles, once a courtier and the friend 
 of kings and queens. It might have been to some 
 great Court function that they led Herault to-day, if 
 one had judged only by his unmoved face and gallant 
 bearing. Philippeaux, who, like Camille, was leaving 
 a devoted wife and a young child, bore himself as a 
 brave and honest man, while Westermann, in the 
 second tumbril, faced death like a soldier, firm-lipped, 
 with a stern, set face. 
 
 The crowd surrounding the death-carts was 
 enormous ; it surged against them in great waves, 
 impeding their progress and forcing the horses, led 
 by the executioner's assistants, to go with extreme 
 slowness. And the vast mob was not silent ; it had 
 neither respect nor pity for these men who were so 
 soon to die. Probably many amongst the crowd were 
 hired by the authorities to lead, as it were, the chorus 
 of imprecation and abuse. The Committees feared 
 the fickleness of the mob ; they dreaded that some 
 
3IO CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 voice might be raised in pity, to recall the services of 
 these one-time leaders, and every precaution was 
 taken to stifle such a cry before it could make itself 
 heard. 
 
 Fierce curses, unspeakable insults rose from that 
 escort of almost dehumanised men and women. 
 Danton eyed them with unspeakable scorn ; he would 
 not deign to appeal to those blind fools to spare his 
 life, since gratitude was dead in them. Herault, 
 Lacroix and Philippeaux seemed oblivious to all that 
 passed around them ; Fabre was in a state of semi- 
 stupor. 
 
 But CamiUe — poor Camille ! He remembered too 
 well the day when this same Parisian crowd, perchance 
 these very men and women, had carried him shoulder- 
 high from the Palais Royal, proclaiming him as their 
 saviour, the leader of the Revolution. 
 
 The change in them seemed to him incredible : he 
 could not, even now, believe that men could be so 
 cruel — so oblivious of past services. Surely — surely 
 they would not let him die. ... 
 
 " You are deceived, citizens," he cried, his voice 
 strained and hoarse. " Citizens ! it is your preservers 
 who are being sacrificed. It was I — I, who on July 1 2th 
 called you first to arms ! I first proclaimed liberty. 
 . . . My sole crime has been pity. . ." 
 
 Then, as the mob only answered him with jeers and 
 derision, his appeals changed to threats — he hurled 
 back insults, he struggled impotently against his 
 bonds, struggled so that his thin shirt was torn to 
 shreds, exposing his chest and shoulders. It was a 
 piteous sight — ^yet it moved the crowd to nothing 
 save mocking laughter. 
 
 Then Danton spoke with rough kindliness. 
 
 " Be quiet ! " he said to the desperate, almost 
 exhausted man at his side. " Be quiet then ; leave 
 this vile rabble alone." 
 
 It would seem that the words of the greater man 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 311 
 
 partially calmed Camille ; he grew quieter as the 
 tumbrils passed slowly and yet more slowly through the 
 thickening throng. 
 
 Only once again he broke out. In the Rue Saint- 
 Honore they passed a silent, shuttered house : it was 
 the house of Duplay, and within Robespierre sat in 
 his darkened room, pale and silent, whilst the man 
 who had been his boyhood's friend passed by to his 
 death. 
 
 And at sight of those closed, dumb windows 
 Camille drew himself upright in the tumbril — shouted 
 at the top of his hoarse, weak voice, so that his words 
 must surely have reached Robespierre's ears. 
 
 " My assassins will not long survive me ! " he 
 cried. 
 
 Slowly the tumbrils entered the Place de la Revolu- 
 tion. Over the heads of the crowd, close-packed in 
 the great square, the condemned men could see the 
 instrument of iheii death reared on the spot where the 
 obelisk now stands. Above it rose an enormous plaster 
 statue of Liberty, silhouetted against the rose-flushed 
 sky, and the rays of the setting sun tinged the por- 
 tentous image and the guillotine itself with stains like 
 blood. 
 
 The carts reached the foot of the scaffold ; the 
 prisoners descended from them one by one. Herault 
 was the first of the " Indulgents " to die. He bent to 
 kiss Danton as he passed him, but the executioners 
 interposed. 
 
 " Fools," said Danton, with bitter and terrible 
 mockery. " You cannot prevent our heads from 
 meeting later in the basket." 
 
 Lacroix next ascended the scaffold, and then 
 Camille was summoned. 
 
 At this last supreme moment, his self-control 
 returned ; he faced death steadily. He ascended the 
 ladder with a firm step, his dark eyes fixed on the great 
 statue, towering above him. 
 
312 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 " So the first apostle o£ liberty falls . . ." he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 Sanson approached to bind him to the plank, and 
 Camille showed him the lock of Lucile's hair which 
 was still clasped in his hand. 
 
 " Send this to her mother . . ." he said, and then, 
 as they pushed him under the knife, with his last 
 breath came the broken words : " Oh, my poor 
 wife. . . ." 
 
 Last of them all died Danton. He also thought of 
 his wife, and, at the thought, even his iron self-control 
 gave way. 
 
 " My beloved, I shall never see thee again," he 
 muttered, under his breath, and then, fighting back 
 his grief : " Come, come, Danton, no weakness ! " he 
 said aloud. 
 
 Once again, and for the last time, that mighty 
 voice rang out, over the heads of the awed and 
 trembling crowd. 
 
 " Show my head to the people ! " he commanded 
 Sanson. " It is good to look at ; they do not see the 
 like every day." 
 
 " My poor wife. . . ." Lucile would not have 
 echoed those words of Camille's. We have seen how 
 one of these faithful lovers died, and the story is sad 
 enough. Now, we must turn to watch the triumphant 
 passing of Lucile Desmoulins. 
 
 Alexandre de Laflotte and Captain Amans, the 
 sheep of the prisons, had filled in the outlines of an 
 almost imaginary plot in the Luxembourg, until it 
 grew well defined, and in the end became formidable 
 enough to bring about the condemnation and death 
 of the Dantonists. 
 
 But their work was not yet at an end. 
 
 On the 15th Germinal, the eve of Camille's death, 
 the warrant was issued for Lucile's arrest. They 
 did not leave the girl to mourn her husband even upon 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 313 
 
 the day of his execution ; she was carried to the 
 prison of Saint-Pelagie, dragged from her parents and 
 her little boy, the only living creatures who could have 
 consoled her. 
 
 Yet we are told that Lucile went willingly and even 
 gladly ; she seemed assured that it was only by this 
 pathway that she could reach Camille's side once more. 
 
 Lucile was transferred to the Conciergerie on the 
 1 8th Germinal. She met there those who were to 
 be her companions in death — ^Arthur Dillon, Gobel, 
 the ex-bishop, Chaumette, the Grammonts, father and 
 son, Hebert's widow — in all eighteen men and women. 
 It was a strange fate which decreed that Lucile 
 Desmoulins and the wife of Hebert should die together. 
 All the bitter enmities of their husbands were for- 
 gotten now, and we read that the two women sat 
 together for hours, on a stone in the courtyard, 
 weeping for the men whom they so dearly loved. 
 
 On the 2 1 St Germinal the prisoners were brought 
 before the Tribunal. They were accused, said their 
 judges, of having conspired against the safety of the 
 people, and of having wished to destroy the National 
 Convention, further, of being in the pay of the 
 foreigner and of having aimed at replacing on the 
 throne of France the son of Louis XVI. 
 
 All defence was useless, even if it had been permitted. 
 As Chaumette truly said : " You have decided upon 
 my fate. I await my destiny with calmness." 
 
 It was with more than calmness that Lucile heard 
 that fate pronounced. She had remained perfectly 
 serene all through the three days' trial, quietly denying 
 the charges of treason brought against her, yet almost 
 dreading acquittal, so it seemed to the onlookers. 
 When the death sentence was passed upon herself and 
 her companions, a strange, supernatural joy shone in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " What happiness ! " she cried. " In a few hours I 
 shall see my Camille again ! " 
 
314 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 And then, so it was said, a spirit o£ prophecy seemed 
 to come upon the girl, as she turned to her judges. 
 
 " In quitting this earth to which love no longer 
 binds me," she said solemnly, " I am less to be 
 pitied than you ; for, at your death, which wiU be 
 infamous, you will be haunted by remorse for what 
 you have done." 
 
 Lucile's strange exaltation filled her until the end. 
 Those who saw her were amazed at her joyful bearing. 
 Hebert's widow said to her with bitter self-con- 
 demnation : 
 
 " You are lucky ; nobody speaks ill of you : there 
 is no stain on your character ; you will leave life by 
 the grand staircase." 
 
 When Lucile apologised sweetly to Arthur DiUon 
 for having aided to bring about his death, the gallant 
 Irishman laughed at her self-reproach. But when he 
 tried to find words for his own sympathy, Lucile 
 interrupted him. 
 
 " Look at my face," she said joyfully. " Is it that 
 of a woman who needs to be comforted ? " 
 
 She was dressed all in white, as though for a bridal, 
 and with a white handkerchief passed over her head 
 and tied under her chin. She seemed a very child, 
 for she had cut off her soft, fair hair, and sent it to her 
 mother with a little note of farewell. 
 
 " Good-night, dearest mother. A tear drops from 
 my eyes ; it is for you. I am going to sleep in peace 
 and innocence. Lucile." 
 
 As they waited for the summons to death, the girl's 
 courage never failed her. 
 
 " They have assassinated the best of men," she said. 
 " If I did not hate them for that, I should bless them 
 for the service they have done me this day." 
 
 She bowed to Dillon almost merrily as she ascended 
 the tumbril ; she talked sweetly and calmly to those 
 who travelled with her along that gloomy road which 
 led to death. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 315 
 
 Dillon no longer tried to hide his real feelings at the 
 end. " Long live the King ! " he cried, as he stood 
 upon the scaffold, aiid laughed at the outcry of the 
 mob. 
 
 Of Lucile no last words are recorded. She had no 
 thought of how her bearing would impress the by- 
 standers, no thought at all beyond the ever-present 
 consciousness that she was about to rejoin Camille. 
 No faintest shadow of doubt dimmed that hope. She 
 passed lightly up the steps of the guillotine, her " grand 
 staircase," she lay down as directed upon the plank. 
 Her colour had scarcely changed, and always she 
 smiled — as one sees a child smile at some inward, 
 joyful thought. 
 
 Very sure it is that death had lost its sting for 
 Lucile Desmoulins. It is even hard for us to feel the 
 tragedy of it all, since to her it was no such thing, but 
 a very joyous journey which should end in " lovers' 
 meetings." 
 
 The tragedy lies here as always with those who were 
 left, those on whom such overwhelming sorrow and 
 loss had descended. 
 
 In quiet, homely Guise a lonely old man mourned 
 for all who were nearest and dearest to him, for his 
 wife, " the half of himself," and for his eldest son, the 
 brilliant, lovable son who had been his pride. The 
 letter is still preserved in which M. Desmoulins pleaded 
 with Fouquier for Camille's life, a letter as noble and 
 dignified as was the man himself. 
 
 ■ " Camille Desmoulins (my son)," he writes, " I speak from 
 sincere conviction, is a true Republican, a Republican in 
 feeling, in principles, and, so to speak, by instinct. . . . His 
 perfect disinterestedness and love of truth have kept him on 
 a level with the loftiest aspirations of the Revolution. . . . 
 
 " Citizen, I ask of you but one thing, in the name of 
 justice and of our country — for the true Republican thinks 
 of naught besides — to investigate, and to cause the examining 
 jury to investigate the conduct of my son, and that of his 
 
3i6 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 denouncer, whosoever he may be ; it will soon be known which 
 is the true Republican. The confidence I have in my son's 
 innocence makes me believe that this accusation wiU prove a 
 fresh triumph, as well for the RepubHc as for him." 
 
 This letter is dated 15th Germinal; it was, there- 
 fore, not received by Fouquier until after the death of 
 Canaille. 
 
 It was not for long that M. Desmoulins mourned 
 his son ; a few months later he too was dead, literally 
 of a broken heart. At about the same time M. Du- 
 plessis died also, for the guillotine had killed both 
 Lucile and her father with one and the same blow. 
 
 And now two only were left of that happy little 
 group — " our dear Daronne " and " the little Horace." 
 From henceforth Madame Duplessis devoted her life 
 to the child of Camille and Lucile. She toiled and 
 schemed untiringly for his interests, and, in spite of 
 dreary poverty and innumerable obstacles, she managed 
 to give him a good education and to enrol him in his 
 father's profession. 
 
 Nevertheless, Horace Desmoulins remains, as far 
 as we are concerned, a colourless, shadowy figure. In 
 1 817 he migrated to Hayti, where he married, and in 
 that far-off tropical island he died, not long, after- 
 wards, when he was but thirty-three years old — 
 Camille's age. 
 
 Madame Duplessis survived her grandson ; she 
 lived far into the nineteenth century, a lonely, sorrow- 
 ful woman. Few sought her out in those humble 
 lodgings in the Rue Sorbonne, where she dwelt, as 
 it were, in a land of shadows, in which Camille and 
 Lucile, her husband, and little Horace, were as real 
 as the living people about her. 
 
 And so we close our story ; for, after all, what more 
 is there to say ? To some it may seem that this life 
 of Camille's was indeed a vain shadow, and his death 
 profitless — that only proves that they have misread, 
 of we miswritten his history. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND 317 
 
 We have tried throughout to portray the man as he 
 really was, hiding none of his faults, striving not to 
 exaggerate his virtues. He must needs appear as 
 weak, emotional, easily moved from one extreme to 
 the other ; as a modern writer says : " He was the 
 prey of impulses, the sport of passions, a fascinating 
 child." 
 
 Yet, with it all, and in spite of all, the better one 
 learns to know Camille, the easier it is to forgive him ; 
 for he loved, and was loved much. 
 
 Moreover, his political ideals were high, although 
 he pursued them along devious paths. The Republic 
 of his dreams was a fair thing, a mistress for whom men 
 might well live and die. 
 
 And to those who think that it was but a lost cause 
 for which Camille gave his life, there can be no better 
 answer than the words of a decree, passed by the 
 Council of Five Hundred two, years later — words 
 which form also his most fitting epitaph. 
 
 " Considerant que Camille Desmoulins, aussi representant 
 du peuple, membre de la Convention Nationale, fut conduit 
 a la mort pour s'etre ^lev6 contra las proscriptions, at avoir 
 rappele des sentiments d'humanit6 deja trop longtamps 
 oubli6s ; qu'il est instant de venir au secours de ces inf or- 
 tunes, qui ont das droits egaux a la reconnaissance nationale." 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 List of Chief Authorities Consulted 
 
 " CEuvres de Camille Desmoulins." Editions of Charpentier ^ 
 
 and Matton, 
 " Correspondance de Camille Desmoulins." 
 " Camille Desmoulins and his Wife." Jules Claretie. »^ 
 " PortefeuiUe de Lucile Desmoulins." 
 " Etudes biographiques sur Camille Desmoulins et Roch Mar- ^y 
 
 candier." Edouard Fleury. 
 " Political History of the French Revolution." A. Aulard. 
 " French Revolution." F. von Sybel. 
 " Historical View of the French Revolution." J. Michelet. 
 " The French Revolution." Louis Blanc. 
 " Histoire des Journaux de France, ou un chapitre de la 
 
 Revolution Francais de 1789-99." C. de Monseignat. 
 " The French Revolution." J. H. McCarthy, 
 " Secret Societies of the French Revolution." U. Birch. 
 "The French Revolution." J. F. Mignet. 
 " Travels in France." Arthur Young. 
 " Lectures on the French Revolution." Lord Acton. 
 " Lectures on the French Revolution." William Smyth, w' 
 " Histoire des Girondins." A. de Lamartine. «. 
 " Les Jacobins." H. Taine. 
 
 " Robespierre and the Red Terror." Jan ten Brink. 
 " The Great French Revolution." P. A. Kropotkin. 
 " Memoires." Madame Roland. 
 " Revolutionary Biographies." J. Adolphus. 
 " Letters." H. M. Wilhams. 
 " Memoirs." Dr. Moore. 
 " The French Revolution." Thomas Carlyle. - 
 "The Men and Women of the French Revolution." P. Gibbs. 
 " Danton." A. H. Beesley. 
 " Robespierre." H. Belloc. 
 
 319 
 
320 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 "Danton." H. BeUoc. 
 
 " The French Revolution." H. Belloc. 
 
 " Vieilles Maisons, Vieux Papiers." G. Lenotre. — 
 
 " The Tribunal of the Terror." G. Lenotre. 
 
 " The Flight of Marie-Antoinette." G. Lenotre. 
 
 " Memoirs." B. Barere. 
 
 " Maximilien Robespierre." G. H. Lewes. 
 
 " Memoirs." Marquis de Barras. 
 
 " Histoire Anecdotique du Tribunal Revolutionaire." Charles 
 
 Monselet. 
 " Hommes des Proies." Roch Marcandier. 
 " Paris in 1789-94." J. G. Alger. 
 " Glimpses of the French Revolution." J. G. Alger. 
 " The French Revolution." Thiers. 
 " The History of Europe." A. Alison. 
 " Memoirs." H. Sanson. 
 
 " Marat, the People's Friend." E. Belfort Bax. 
 " Reflections on the Revolution in France." Edmund Burke, 
 " Memoirs." Miot de Melito. 
 " Memoirs." MdUe. des EcheroUes. 
 " Walks in Paris." Georges Cain. 
 " Proems des Dantonistes." H. Robinet. 
 " Comment se tuent les Republiques." H. Robinet. 
 " La Famille Sainte-Amaranthe." Madame A. R. 
 " Journal of a Spy in Paris, 1794." Raoul Hesdin. 
 " The Public Prosecutor of the Terror." A. Dunoyer. 
 " Anecdots inddits de la fin du dix-huitieme Siecle." 
 " Nouveau Voyage de France." C. M. Saugrain. 
 "Paris." H. Belloc. 
 " Wanderer in Paris." E. V. Lucas. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbaye, Prison of the, 84 
 Achilles, 115 
 
 " Actes des Apotres," 135 
 Acton, Lord, " Lectures on the 
 French Revolution," 196, 
 
 197,319 
 Adam, L'lle, 183 
 Adolphus, J., " Biographical 
 
 Memoirs," 161, 319 
 Agrarian Laws, 76, 78 
 Alger, J. G., " Glimpses of the 
 
 French Revolution," 320 
 " Paris in 1789-1794," 320 
 Alison, Sir A., "History of 
 
 Europe," 320 
 Amans, Captain, 302, 312 
 Amar, 299, 304, 305 
 " Ami du Peuple," 102, no, 174, 
 
 " Anecdotes inedites de la fin du 
 dix-huiti^me si^cle," 294 
 
 Anthoine, F. P. N., 159 
 
 Antonelle, 220, 284 
 
 A. R., Madame, 43 
 
 Arcis-sijr-Aube, 182, 226, 229, 
 269, 277 
 
 " Argus, The," 214 
 
 Arras, 38, 49 
 
 Arsenal, The, 68 
 
 " Assassinateurs, The," 118, 119 
 
 " August 4th, day of," 83, 84 
 
 " August loth, day of," 185, 188 
 seq., 265, 270, 297 
 
 Augustus, 238, 239, 240 
 
 X 32 
 
 Aulard, A., " Political History of 
 the French Revolution," 28, 
 8j, 170, 174, 201, 243, 319 
 
 B 
 
 BaiUy, J. S., 55, 158, 160, 161, 
 
 173> 178 
 Barbaroux, C. J. M., 169, 184, 
 
 185, 212 
 Bar^re, Bertrand, 219, 250, 320 
 Barnave, A. P. J. M., 103, 137, 
 
 143, 148, 151, 168, 23s, 273, 
 
 274 
 Barras, Marquis de, 320 
 Bastille, The, 68 seq., 97, 107, 113, 
 
 114, IIS, 123, 184 
 Bax, E. Belfort, "Marat, the 
 
 People's Friend," 320 
 Bazire, 293, 296 
 Beaubourg, 62 
 Beauharnais, Alexandre, 149 
 Beesley, A. H., " Danton," 319 
 Beffroi, 171 
 Belesme, 98 
 
 Belloc, H., " The French Revo- 
 lution," 196, 319 
 "Danton," 196, 319 
 "Robespierre," 319 
 " Paris," 320 
 Berardier, Abbe, 24, 125, 127, 128 
 Bergasse, N., 116 
 Bernard, 161, 163 
 Bernese Oberland, The, 64 
 Berthier, 84 
 
322 
 
 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Besenval, Pierre Victor B. de, 
 
 71, 72 
 Billaud-Varennes, J. N., 215, 231, 
 
 250, 296, 299, 303 
 Birch, Una, " Secret Societies of 
 
 the French Revolution," 45, 
 
 46, 319 
 Blanc, Louis, "The French 
 
 Revolution," 242, 319 
 Boilly, L. L., 122 
 Bois de Boulogne, irg 
 Boisguyon, G., 173 
 Bonnem^re, Aubin, 72 
 Bonneville, 146 
 Boucher Saint-Sauveur, 158 
 Bouchotte, 251, 253 
 Bouille, F. C. A., Marquis de, 144 
 Bourdon de I'Oise, 257 
 " Bourgeois Monarchy, The," 
 
 170, 17s 
 Bourg-la-Reine, 38, 112, 130, 183, 
 
 186, 188, 264 
 Bourville, Abbe de, 51 
 Boverie, 64 
 Brabant, 100 
 Bravet, 294 
 Breard, 213 
 Brest, 185, 192 
 Breze, Marquis de, 55, 56 
 Brink, Jan ten, " Robespierre and 
 
 the Red Terror," 319 
 " Brissot D^masque," 87, 172, 
 
 177, 206, 220, 233 
 Brissot, J. P., 46, 98, 127 seq., 139^ 
 
 159, 169 seq., 202, 206 seq., 
 
 216, 219, 234, 259 
 " Brissotins, The," 169 
 Brittany, 52 
 Brune, Marshal (Patagon), 131, 
 
 159, 262, 263 
 Brunswick, Duke of, 176, 183 
 Brutus, 81, 132, 235, 239, 240, 
 
 246, 252, 286 
 Burke, Edmund, " Reflections 
 
 on the Revolution in 
 
 France," 320 
 
 Buzot, 169, 212 
 Byron, Lord, 92 
 
 " Cabran d'Or," 185 
 
 Cahiers, The, 47, 48, 68 
 
 Cain, Georges, " Walks in Paris," 
 23, 24, 320 
 
 Caligula, 165 
 
 Calvados, 185 
 
 Calvin, 20 
 
 Cambon, 233 
 
 Camus, A. G., 118 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, " French Revo- 
 lution," 103, 133, 140, 319 
 
 Carmelite Convent, Prison of, 
 268 
 
 Carnot, L. N. M., 219 
 
 Carrier, J. B., 269 
 
 Carrousel, Place de, 203 
 
 Cateau-Cambresis, 22 
 
 Cato, 240 
 
 Chabot, Frangois, 290, 293, 296, 
 
 304 
 Champ-de-Mars, 56, 65, 71, 113, 
 
 114, 123, 158, 184 
 Champ-de-Mars, Massacre of, 
 
 160, 163, 165, 233 
 Champs Elysees, 65, 114, 166 
 Charenton, 185 
 Charles I, 201 
 Charpentier, 319 
 Charpentier, Gabrielle {see 
 
 Madame Danton) 
 Charpentier, Madame, 188 
 Chateaubriand, F. A., 52, 132 
 Chatelet, The, 93, 1 16, 117 
 Chaumette, Anaxagoras, 229, 
 
 231, 233, 241, 284, 313 
 Chauveau-de-Lagarde, 288, 300 
 Chenier, Marie-Joseph, 219 
 Choderlos de Laclos, 158, 159 
 " Chronicle de Paris," 94 
 Cicero, 27, 76, 80, loi, 252 
 
INDEX 
 
 323 
 
 Claretie, Jules, " Camille Des- 
 
 moulins and his Wife," 19, 
 
 32, 40, 64, 104, no, 122, 
 
 123, 163, 225, 262, 286, 319 
 Ckvi^re, 194 
 " Clemency, Committee of," 
 
 131, 227, 243 seq., 265, 266 
 Clootz, Anarchaisis, 231 seq., 269 
 Clos-Payen, 130 
 Coalition, The, 177, 183, 207 
 Coblentz, 180 
 Cobourg, 284 
 Collot d'Herbois, 248, 255 seq.^ 
 
 268, 276 
 Combes, Louis, 76 
 Commerce, Cour de, 190 
 Commission of Execution {see 
 
 Committee of Public Safety) 
 Conciergerie, The, 74, 273, 285, 
 
 290,291, 306, 307, 308, .313 
 Conde, Prince de, 32 
 Cond6, Rue de, 127, 133 
 Condorcet, J. A. N. de Caritat, 
 
 20 
 Constitution, Committee of, 147 
 Constitution, The, 80, in, 165, 
 
 170, 176, 180, 202, 241, 245 
 " Contrat Social," The, 244 
 Corday, Charlotte, 212 
 Cordeliers, Church of the, 126, 
 
 189 
 Cordeliers Club, 107, 115, 158, 
 
 178, 228, 229, 249, 262, 269 
 Correctional Police Court, 171 
 " Courier de Provence," 97 
 Couthon, Georges, 213, 231 
 Crillon, ri6 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 137, 173 
 Curtius, 64 
 Cyneas, 80 
 
 D 
 
 Danican, General, 67 
 Danton, Georges-Jacques, 38, 46, 
 89, 107, no, ns 
 
 Friendship with Camille, 133, 
 134, 140, 144, 146, 148, 159, 
 161, 169, 178, 182, 185 
 Organises the rising of August 
 
 loth, 188 seq. 
 Raises troops against the 
 
 Coalition, 206 seq. 
 Retires to Arcis-sur-Aube, 219, 
 
 226, 227 
 Returns to Paris, 229, 230 
 Loses his influence, 247, 251 
 Endeavours to make peace 
 between Camille and Robes- 
 pierre, 260 
 Indifierent to danger, 275 
 Arrested and conveyed to the 
 
 Luxembourg, 277 seq. 
 Hears his accusation, 290 
 Removed to Conciergerie, 291 
 Trial of Dantonists, 293 seq. 
 Sentenced to death, 307 
 Execution of the Dantonists, 
 308 seq. 
 Danton, Madame, 188, 190 
 Dauphine, Place, 297 
 Dauphiny, 52 
 Deforgues, 263 
 Delaunay, 293, 296 
 Demosthenes, 289 
 Denisard, M., 36 
 Desboisseaux, 294 
 Desenne (Desein), 53, 244, 250, 
 
 272 
 Desmoulins, Lucie - Simplice - 
 Camille-Benoist : 
 Birth of, 19 
 Statues and portraits of, 20, 
 
 43,64 
 Character of, 23, 25, 39, 40, 
 
 109, 317 
 Personal characteristics of, 35, 
 
 36, 43, 44, 131 
 As a journalist, 82, 87, 88, 102 
 
 seq., 138 
 Education at the College 
 Louis-le-Grand, 23 seq. 
 
324 
 
 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Returns to Guise, 30 
 
 Becomes Advocate to the Par- 
 liament of Paris, 34 
 
 His poverty, 36 
 
 Introduction to the Dupkssis 
 family, 37 
 
 As a Freemason, 45 
 
 Attempts to obtain election to 
 the States-General, 48 seq. 
 
 First published pamphlets of, 
 
 49. 50, 54 
 
 Hears news of Necker's dis- 
 missal and harangues crowd 
 in the Palais Royal, 58 seq. 
 
 Incites the Parisians to attack 
 the Bastille, 70 
 
 Sudden popularity of, 75 seq. 
 
 Publication of " La France 
 Libre," j6 seq. 
 
 Publication of " Discours de la 
 Lanterne," 82 seq. 
 
 Financial difficulties of, 95, 96 
 
 His friendship with Mirabeau, 
 
 97, 98 
 
 Edits " Revolutions de France 
 et de Brabant," loo seq. 
 
 Suitor of Lucile Duplessis, 106 
 
 Joins the Club of the Corde- 
 liers, 107 
 
 Quarrels with Mirabeau, 108 
 
 Denounced to National As- 
 sembly by Victor Malouet, 
 116 
 
 Betrothal and Marriage, 124 
 seq. 
 
 Friendship with Danton, 133 
 
 Relations with Mirabeau, 138 
 seq. 
 
 Implicated in affair of the 
 Champ-de-Mars, 159 seq. 
 
 Ceases publication of " Revo- 
 lutions de France et de 
 Brabant," 162 
 
 Quarrels vdth Brissot, 170 seq. 
 
 Edits " Tribune des Patriotes," 
 172 
 
 Birt^i of Horace-Camille Des- 
 
 moulins, 181 
 Implication in the affair of 
 
 August loth, 187 seq. 
 Elected Deputy to the Con- 
 vention, 199 
 Publishes " Histoire des Bris- 
 
 sotins," Z09 
 Defends Arthur Dillon, 213 
 Reaction of feeling of, 220 seq. 
 Publishes " Vieux Cordelier," 
 
 226 seq. 
 Accused at the Jacobins Club, 
 
 233 seq., 247 
 Defends Philippeaux, 236, 237 
 Expelled from Cordeliers Club, 
 
 249 
 Denounced by Collot d'Her- 
 
 bois, 255 
 Denounces the " ultras," 268 
 
 seq. 
 Arrest of, 279 
 Letters to his wife from the 
 
 Luxembourg, 281 seq. 
 Brought before Revolutionary 
 
 Tribunal, 293 seq. 
 Condemned to death, 306 
 Execution of, 312 
 Desmoulins, Anne - Lucile - 
 
 Philippe-Laridon : 
 First meets CamiUe, 37 seq. 
 Character of, 41 seq., 122, 218 
 Diary of, 42 
 Personal appearanpe of, 121, 
 
 122, 130 
 Her love for Camille, 106, 123, 
 
 124, 219 
 Royalist libels against, 134, 135 
 Account of August loth, 187 
 
 seq. 
 Letter to Freron, 266, 267 
 Grief at Camille's arrest, 280 
 
 seq. 
 Arrest of, 312 
 
 Trial and condemnation, 313 
 Execution of, 314, 315 
 
INDEX 
 
 325 
 
 Desmoulins, Jean-Benoit- 
 
 Nicholas : 
 His character and position, 19, 
 
 20, 21 
 Nominated for States-General, 
 
 49. 
 Relations with Camille, 94, 
 
 I2S 
 
 Warns Camille against voting 
 
 for death of Louis XVI, 205 
 
 Writes to Fouquier-Tinville, 
 
 31s 
 Death of, 316 
 Desmoulins, Marie -Magdeleine 
 
 Godart : 
 Her character, 21 
 Death of, 278 
 Desmoulins, Armand-Jean-Louis- 
 
 DomitiUe du Bucquoy, 21,22 
 Desmoulins, Lazare-Nicolas-Nor- 
 
 bert-Felicite Semery, 21, 22, 
 
 217 
 Desmoulins, Marie-Emilie-Tous- 
 
 saint, 22 
 Desmoulins, Anne-Clotilde-P61a- 
 
 gie, 22 
 Desmoulins, Horace-Camille, 181, 
 
 182, 187, 271, 278, 280 seq., 
 
 316 
 Despagnac, 293 
 Despois, Eugtoe, 120 
 Dessessarts, D., 119 
 " Dictionnaire Universel de la 
 
 France," 47 
 Diednchsen, 293 
 Dillon, Arthur, 43, 213, 214, 215, 
 
 234j 235. 3°o, 30Z. 304. 313, 
 
 314. 31S 
 " Dillon, Lettre au General," 
 
 2iSJ^y., 234 
 Diogenes, 83 
 Directory, The, 208 
 Dithurbide, 171 
 Drouet, J. B., 150 
 Drusus, 232 
 Du Barry, Madame, 113 
 
 Ducancel, 159 
 
 Ducray, 307 
 
 Dumouriez, C. F., 177, 207, 298, 
 
 300 
 Dunkirk, 102 
 Dunoyer, A., " Public Prosecutor 
 
 of the Terror," 320 
 Duplain (Saturn), 131 
 Duplay, 311 
 Duplessis, Monsieur, 37, 41, 106, 
 
 122 seq., 128, 268, 316 
 Duplessis, Madame, 37, 41, 106, 
 
 123 seq., 128, 130, 131, 187, 
 316 
 
 Duplessis, AdMe (Annette), 37, 
 
 128 
 Duport, 138, 168 
 
 E 
 
 Echerolles, Mademoiselle des, 320 
 
 Ecoles, Cafe des, 188 
 
 Electoral Committee of Paris, 69, 
 
 Elie, Captain, 72 
 Elizabeth of France, 128 
 " Emigres," 136, 137, 176 
 Encyclopaedists, The, 45 
 " Enrages " (see " Ultras ") 
 Essarts, Emmanuel des, 1 10 
 
 Fabre d'Eglantine, P. F. N., 107, 
 256, 257, 266, 283, 290, 293, 
 
 309. 310 
 Fauchet, Abbe, 46, 185 
 Favras, Marquis de, 108, 264 
 Fenelon, Archbishop, " Maxims 
 
 of the Saints," 250 
 Ferroux, 284 
 
 " Festival of the Federation," 1 1 3 
 Feuillants, Club of, 251 
 'Feuillants, Terrace of, 179 
 Five Hundred, Council of the, 
 
 219, 317 
 Flesselles, de, 73 
 
326 
 
 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Fleuriot-Lescot, 294 
 Fleury, Edouard, 33, 319 
 Florence, 302 
 Fontenay-sous-Bois, 161 
 Forget, 36 
 Foucault, 294 
 Foulon, J. F., 83, 84 
 Fouquier-Tinville, A. Q., 196, 
 
 214, 292, 293, 294, 296, 299, 
 
 300 seq., 315, 316 
 Foy, Cafe, 63 
 " France Libre, La," 53, 75 seq., 
 
 94. 173, 261 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 28 
 Freemasonry in France, 45, 46 
 French Revolution, Causes of, 44, 
 
 45. 46 
 First bloodshed in, 65 
 Proclamation of Republic, 199 
 Freron, Stanislas (Lapin), 24, 37, 
 
 III, 112, 131, 162, 172, 174, 
 
 175, 189, 264, 265, 266, 267 
 Frey, 293, 296, 301 
 Friends of the Constitution, 
 
 Society of, 165 
 Fusius Geminus, 239 
 
 Garde-Meuble, 67 
 
 Garney, loi 
 
 Garran de Coulon, 146 
 
 " Gavroche," 104 
 
 " Gazette Universel," 233 
 
 General Defence, Committee of 
 
 (see Committee of Public 
 
 Safety) 
 General Security, Committee of, 
 
 248, 276, 299, 30s, 306 
 Gensonne, Armand, 210 
 Gibbs, Philip, " Men and Women 
 
 of the French Revolution," 
 
 174, 198, 220, 319 
 Girey-Dupre, 171 
 Girondins, the, 87, 169, 201, 20^, 
 
 210, 219, 220, 234, 290 
 
 Gobel, Bishop, 313 
 Gobelins Section, 147 
 Godart, Marie- Joseph-Benoit, 22 
 Godart, Rose-Flore-Amelie, 33, 
 
 34. 216 
 Godart-Brisieui, 22 
 Godart-Brisieux, Madame, 32 
 Gracchi, 232 
 Grammont, 313 
 Gr^ve, Place de, 83 
 Grosse-Beaurepaire, 285 
 Guadet, M. E., 143, 169, 210, 233 
 Gueudeville, Abbe, 128 
 Guise, 19, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 49, 
 
 93. 94. 181. 19s. 199. 216. 
 
 314 
 Guzman, 293, 301 
 
 H 
 
 Hamel, Frank, 192 
 
 Hampden, John, 28 
 
 Harlay, Cour de, 297 
 
 Harpe, Rue de la, 75 
 
 Hayti, 316 
 
 Hebert, J. R., 88, 102, 228, 248, 
 251 seq., 262, 265, 268 seq. 
 
 Hebert, Madame, 313, 314 . 
 
 Hebertists {see " Ultras ") 
 
 Herault de SecheUes, M. J., 275, 
 284, 290, 292, 293, 295, 300, 
 309 seq. 
 
 Hermann, A. M. J., 294, 295, 296, 
 298, 299, 300, 30s, 307 
 
 Hervey, John, " Meditations 
 among the Tombs," 280 
 
 Hesdin, Raoul, " Journal of a 
 Spy in Paris, 1794," 320 
 
 " Histoire des Brissotins" ("Frag- 
 ment de I'Histoire Secrete de 
 la Revolution"), 27, 198, 
 209, 210, 211 
 
 Homer, 115 
 
 Hosea, 156 
 
 Hulin, 72 
 
INDEX 
 
 327 
 
 " Indulgents," party of, 275, 277, 
 
 289, 293 
 " Insurrection du 31 mai, Adresse 
 
 des Jacobins aux," 212 
 Invalides, Les, 69, 70, 71 
 Isnard, Max., 169 
 
 J 
 
 Jacobin Club, 89, 103, 107, 120, 
 138,148,150, 158, 159,161, 
 165, 173, 178, 180, 200, 209, 
 211, 215, 228 seq., 241, 255, 
 262, 276 
 
 Jacobins, Church of the, 159 
 
 Job, 224 
 
 " Journal de la Cour et de la 
 ViUe," 135 
 
 " Journal des Etats-Generaux," 
 
 97 
 " Journal Frangais," 200 
 Journalism, 53, 100, 103, 105, 134 
 " July 14th, day of," 70, 72 
 " June 20th, day of," 178, 179 
 Justice, Committee of, 243 
 Justice, Palais de, 293, 297, 302, 
 
 304, 306 
 
 K 
 
 Kersaint, G. P. de C, 198 
 Kropotkin, P. A., "The Great 
 French Revolution," 319 
 
 Lacroix, J. F. de, 281, 290, 293, 
 300, 304, 305, 310, 311 
 
 La Fayette, M. P. R. Y. G. M., 
 Marquis de, 2^, 144, 147 
 seq., 153, 160 seq., 173, 180, 
 230 
 
 Laffrey, in 
 
 Laflotte, Alexandre de, 302, 312 
 
 Lagrange, 22 
 
 Lamartine, A. de, " Histoire des 
 
 Girondins," 319 
 Lambesc, Prince de, 65, (>(> 
 Lameth, Charles de, 103, 137, 
 
 138, 158, 168, 173, 235 
 Lameth, Alexandre de, 118, 168 
 Lamoignon, C. F., 195 
 Lanthenas, 159 
 Laon, 48, 127, 199 
 La Poype, 159 
 La Rochefoucauld, 46 
 La Roche jacquelein, Henri du V., 
 
 233 
 Latour-Maubeuge, M. C. C. F., 
 
 151 
 LaudreviUe, Abbe, 283 
 Launay, R. B. J. de, 69 seq. 
 Lebrun, C. F., 194 
 Lecointre, Laurent, 182 
 Legendre, Louis, 161, 216, 276, 
 
 288, 289 
 Legislation, Committee of, 277 
 Legislative Assembly, 145, 146, 
 
 147, 164, 168, 199, 201, 233 
 Lemoine, 22 
 Lenotre, G., " Flight of Marie 
 
 Antoinette," 147, 319 
 " Tribunal of the Terror," 196, 
 
 320 
 " Vielles Maisons, Vieux 
 
 Papiers," 104, 127, 130, 
 
 262, 320 
 Leroy (Dix-Aout), 294 
 Lescure, L. M., Marquis de, 233 
 " Lettres de Cachet," 80 
 " Lettres de Mirabeau a ses 
 
 Commettants," 97 
 Lewes, G. H., " Maximilien 
 
 Robespierre," 320 
 Lhuillier, 293, 306 
 Liberte, Salle de, 293 
 Liberty, Statue of, 311 
 Lindet, Robert, 277 
 Lorme, de, 72 
 Louis-Quinze, Place, 74 
 Louis, XIV, 80 
 
328 
 
 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Louis XV, 80 
 
 Louis XVI, 47, 56, 73, 81, 88, 99, 
 
 III, 114, 116, 136, 143 seq., 
 
 152, 158, 165, 170, 176 seq., 
 
 194, 200 seq. 
 " Louis XVI, Opinion upon the 
 
 Judgment of," 202 
 Louis XVII, 206, 303, 313 
 Louis-le-Grand, College of, 23, 
 
 24, 274 
 Loustalot, Elysee, 119, 120, 123 
 Louvet de Couvray, J. B., 169, 
 
 212 
 Lucas, E. v., " A Wanderer in 
 
 Paris," 320 
 Lumiere, 294 
 Lunettes, Quai de, 226 
 Luxembourg, Gardens of, 38, 
 
 106, 270, 271, 281 
 Luxembourg, Palace of, 189, 266, 
 
 281, 286, 288, 302 seq., 312 
 Lyons, 248, 255 
 
 M 
 
 McCarthy, J. H., " the French 
 Revolution," 87, 138, 319 
 
 Machiavelli, N. di B. dei, 229 
 
 Madelonnettes, Prison of the, 
 213, 214 
 
 Malouet, Victor, 115 seq., 129 
 
 Mandar, TheophUe, 158 
 
 Manuel, P. L., 205 
 
 Marat, Jean-Paul, 102, no, 1 12, 
 115, 118, 174, 17s, 197, 198, 
 209, 212, 247, 298, 300 
 
 Marcandier, Roch, " Hommes 
 des Proies," 162, 163, 320 
 
 Marck, de la, 140 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, 52, 56, 99, 
 136, 143, 144, ISO, 151, 165, 
 170, 177, 193, 213, 218, 219 
 
 Mark Antony, 77, 272 
 
 Marseillais Federals, 184, 185, 188, 
 190 seq. 
 
 " Marseillaise, The," 185 
 Marseilles, 102, 112, 139, 162 
 Masson-Denizot, 294 
 Massulard, 158 
 Matton, 286, 319 
 Maupeou, R. N. A. de, 195 
 " May 31st, day of," 209, 211 
 Mercier, L. S., " Nouveau 
 
 Tableau de Paris," 89 
 " Tableaux de Paris," 95, 127 
 
 seq. 
 " Mercure Frangais," 162 
 Mericourt, Theroigne de, 107, 
 
 108,192,193 
 Merlin, Antoine (de Thionville), 
 
 182, 200 
 Michelet, J., " Historical View of 
 
 the French Revolution,"i34, 
 
 243, 271, 272, 319 
 Mignet, J. H., "The French 
 
 Revolution," 319 
 Mint, The, 297 
 Miot de Melito, "Memoirs," 
 
 263, 320 
 Mirabeau, Gabriel-Honore de 
 
 Riquetti, 46, 51, 55, 80, 85, 
 
 94 
 Friendship vrith Camille, 96 
 
 seq. 
 Coldness betvireen them, 108 
 
 seq. 
 Influence over Camille, 134 
 Last days and death, 137 seq. 
 Mirabeau-Tonneau, 103, 118 
 Modena, 239 
 Moleville,! Bertrand de, 63 
 Momoro, 54, 75, 80, 261, 269 
 Monge, G., 194 
 " Moniteur, The," 49, 254 
 Monk, General, 177 
 Monseignat, Charles de, " His- 
 
 toire des Journaux de 
 
 France," loi, 104, 319 
 Monselet, Charles, " Histoire 
 
 Anecdotique du Tribunal 
 
 Revolutionaire," 320 
 
INDEX 
 
 329 
 
 Moore, Dr., " Memoirs," 319 
 
 Morcy, 22 
 
 Moreau de Jonnes, 122 
 
 " Mountain, The," 201, 209, 273 
 
 N 
 
 Nancy, 120, 165 
 
 Nantes, 269 
 
 Nantouillet, 248 
 
 National (Constituent) Assembly, 
 
 56,73,80,81,99, III, 116, 
 
 166, 168 
 National GDnvention, 168, 198, 
 
 199, 201, 203, 205, 2IO, 211, 
 
 236, 243, 269, 272, 289, 304 
 National Guard, 68, Ii8, 153,162 
 National Oath, 11 1 
 Necker, Jacques, 51, 58, 60, 61, 
 
 64. 97. 103 
 Nero, 165, 202 
 Neuf Soeurs, Lodge of the, 45 
 Nicolas, 247 seq. 
 Nivernais, Hotel de, 95 
 Normandy, 212 
 " Notes upon the Report of 
 
 Saint-Just," 291 
 Notre Dame, Cathedral of, 166 
 Nursia, 239 
 
 Octavius, 272 
 
 " October 5th, day of," 99, loo 
 
 " Ode upon the opening of the 
 
 States-General," 50 
 " Orateur du Peuple," 1 12 
 Orleans, Duke of, 51, 52, 55, 64, 
 
 158, 204, 298, 300 
 Orleans, Regent of, 80 
 Otriades, 81 
 
 Palais Royal, 53, 55, 57, 59, 64, 
 
 85. "S. IS9. 310 
 Pancemont, de, 126 
 
 Panis, 277 
 
 Paris, temper of, in July, 1789, 
 56, 59, 66, 67 
 Optimism in, 1790, 111 
 Mourning for Mirabeau in, 
 
 140, 141 
 Attitude after return from 
 
 Varennes in, 151 
 Counter-revolutionary move- 
 ment in, 157, 165 seq. 
 Counter-revolutionary move- 
 ment after execution of 
 " ultras," 276 
 Citizens of, demoralised by 
 
 executions, 246 
 Municipality of, 73, 160, 163, 
 178, 185, 194, 211, 241 
 
 Paris, Nicolas-Joseph (Fabricius), 
 293, 294, 296, 305, 306 
 
 Pas Perdus, Cour de, 297 
 
 " Patriote Franjais," 129, 171 
 
 Patrocles, 115 
 
 Paulus Enulius, 74, 116 
 
 Peltier, J. S., 24, 135 
 
 Perdry, 36 
 
 " P^re Duchesne," 88, 102, 228, 
 229, 249 seq., 268, 269 
 
 Perfectibilists, Order of, 45 
 
 Perrin, 36 
 
 Perry, Sampson, 214 
 
 " Peter Pan," 109 
 
 Petion, Jerome, 46, 118, 127, 
 128, 151, 158, 178, 180, 184, 
 210, 212 
 
 Petitions against Property Suf- 
 frage Laws, 146, 168 
 In the Champ-de-Mars, 158, 
 159, 160, 202 
 
 Philippe le Bel, 79 
 
 PhUippeaux, 236, 251, 255 seq., 
 281, 290, 293, 296, 309, 310 
 
 " Philosophe au Peuple Frangais, 
 La," 49 
 
 Picards, character of, 20 
 
 Pitt, William, 229, 240, 251, 284 
 
 Plato, 212 
 
33° 
 
 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Pologne, Hotel de, 37, 42 
 Pont Neuf, 162, 297 
 Procope, Cafe (Cafe Voltaire), 37 
 Proly, 233, 300 
 Provence, Count of, 206 
 Provisional Executive Council, 
 
 194, 199 
 Prudhomme, Louis-Marie, 162 ■ 
 Public Safety, Committee of, 
 
 208, 216, 227, 238, 247, 250, 
 
 254, 262, 269, 27s, 276, 294, 
 
 296, 301, 302 
 " Purification," ceremony of, 
 
 233, 234 
 Pym, John, 28 
 
 RadziviUe, Passage, 171 
 
 Raimond, 210 
 
 Reason, Cult of, 231 
 
 " Reflexions sur le 20 Juin, 
 
 1792," 180 
 " Register of Occurrences and 
 
 Historical Sketch," 214 
 Renaudin, Leopold, 294 
 Republicanism in France, 28, 81, 
 
 149, 152, 159, 160, 170, 173, 
 
 _ 174. 273 
 Retif de la Bretonne, 135 
 Reunion-sur-Oise, 31 
 Revolution, Place de la, 74, 246, 
 
 3". 
 
 Revolutionary Tribunal, the, 88, 
 
 208, 209, 210, 234, 248, 264, 
 287, 289, 293, 313 
 " Revolutions de France et de 
 Brabant," 100 seq., ill, 117, 
 119, 145, 162, 170, 174, 17s, 
 200, 264 
 " Revolutions de Paris," I2p, 162 
 Robert, 160, 189, 190, 191, 266 
 Robert, Madame, 189, 266 
 Robespierre, J. M. L de, 38, 43, 
 46, 48, SI, 94, 109, no 
 Defends Camille in the As- 
 sembly, 117 
 
 Attends Camille's vi^edding, 
 127 seq., 134, 150, 158, 168, 
 173 seq., 185, 186, 188, 209 
 
 Inspires " Histoire des Bris- 
 sotins," 210 seq. 
 
 Influences first numbers of 
 " Vieux Cordelier," 227 seq. 
 
 Defends Camille at the Jaco- 
 bins, 23s, 236 
 
 Deserts Camille, 243, 249, 255, 
 
 257 
 Denounces Camille at the 
 
 Jacobins, 259 seq. 
 Attacks the " ultras," 269 
 Signs warrant for the arrest of 
 
 the Dantonists, 276, 277, 
 
 286, 288, 289, 291, 298, 311 
 Robespierre, Augustin B. J. de, 
 
 2S» 256, 2S7 
 Robespierre, Charlotte de, 25, 
 
 286, 287 
 Robinet, H., " Proces des Dan- 
 
 tonistes," 277, 320 
 " Comment se tuent les Re- 
 
 publiques," 277, 320 
 Roland de la Plati^re, J. M., 177, 
 
 179, 194, 199 
 Roland, Madame Marie, J. P., 
 
 169, 171, 319 
 " Rolandists, The," 169 
 Romeuf, 150 
 Romme, Gilbert, 46 
 Ronsin, 236, 269 
 Rossignol, 236 
 Rouillard, 43 
 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 42, 45, 
 
 131. 244, 260 
 Royal Allemand, Regiment of 
 
 the, 65 
 Ruhl, 277 
 
 Sainte-Amaranthe, the family of, 
 
 43, 122, 320 
 Saint-Andre-des-Arcs, Rue de, 37 
 
INDEX 
 
 331 
 
 Saint-Antoine, Faubourg, 68, 69, 
 
 70, i8s 
 Samte-Beuve, Charles A., 43 
 Saint-Cloud, Palace of, 144 
 Saint-Denis, cathedral of, 203 
 Saint-Frangois, Rue, 54 
 Saint-Honore, Rue, 74, 274, 309, 
 
 3" 
 Saint-Huruge, Marquis de, 93, 94 
 Saint- Jean d'Angely, 120 
 St. John, Gospel of, 83 
 Saint-Just, A. L. L. de, 25, 113, 
 
 215, 2i6, 231, 249, 269, 270 
 Denounces the Dantonists, 277 
 Report against them, 289 seq., 
 
 296, 300, 301 
 Secures their condemnation, 
 
 303 seq. 
 Saint-Malo, 175 
 Saint-Marceau, Faubourg de, 68, 
 
 69, 70, 185 
 Sainte-Menehould, J50 
 Sainte-Pelagie, Prison of, 313 
 Saint-Pierre, J. H. Bernardin de, 
 
 131 
 
 Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul, 
 
 Church of, 19 
 Saint-Simon, L. H. due de, zo 
 Saint-Sulpice, Church of, 126, 
 
 128 
 Salle d'Offremont, de la, 68 
 SaUust, 212 
 " Sansculotte Jesus," 88, 89, 269, 
 
 29s 
 Sanson, Henri, 105, 308, 311, 312, 
 
 320 
 Santerre, Antoine J., 69, 161, 163, 
 
 18s 
 Saugrain, C. M., " Nouveau 
 
 Voyage de France," 20, 320 
 Saumur, 236 
 Scipio Nasica, 232 
 Seneca, 200, 212 
 September Massacres, the, 187, 
 
 196 
 Sgrgent, Antoine F., 159 
 
 Servan de Gerbey, J., 194 
 
 Shakespeare, William, 77 
 
 Sidney, Algernon, 29, 173, 253 
 
 Siey^s, Emmanuel Joseph, 168 
 
 Sillery, C. A., Comte de Genlis, 
 127, 128 
 
 " Silver Mark " property qualifi- 
 cation, 146 
 
 Simon, 284 
 
 Smyth, WiUiam, " Lectures on 
 the French Revolution," 319 
 
 Socrates, 284 
 
 Soissons, 199 
 
 Sombreuil, C. F. Virot, Marquis 
 de, 70 
 
 Sorbonne, Rue, 316 
 
 Sosia, 83 
 
 Souberbielle, 294 
 
 Sourd, La, 192 
 
 " Souvenirs de la Terreur," 43 
 
 Sparta, 81 
 
 States-General, Convocation of 
 the, 47 
 Opening of the, 50 
 Becomes " National Assembly," 
 
 Mirabeau's estimate of, 99 
 Strasburg, 295 
 
 Suleau, L. F., 24, 190, 192, 193 
 " Suspects," Law of, 238, 241 
 Swiss Guards, 120, 191, 192 
 Swiss Restaurant, 119 
 Sybel, Heinrich von, " French 
 
 Revolution," 63, 104, 249, 
 
 319 
 
 Tacitus, 26, 238, 240, 246, 250 
 Taine, H., " Les Jacobins," 319 
 Talon,, Antoine, 116 
 Target, G. J. B., 73, 74, 94 
 Tarquin, 80, 286 
 Tarrieux de Taillan, 33 
 TeUier, de, 84 
 
 " Temple of the National As- 
 sembly, the," 107 
 
332 
 
 CAMILLE DESMOULINS 
 
 Temple, Tower of the, 194 
 
 " Tennis Court Oath, The," 54, 
 
 55, 179 
 Terray, Abbe, 135 
 " Terror, The," 169, 219, 228 
 Theatre Frangais, Rue de, 36, 
 
 107, 128, 133 
 Theatre Frangais, Section of, 146, 
 
 164 
 Thiers, L. A., " Histoire de la 
 
 Revolution Frangaise," 177, 
 
 320 
 Topino-Lebrun, F. J.B.,295, 299, 
 
 300 
 Toulon, 112, 131, 132, 264, 265, 
 
 266 
 Tournay, Louis, 72 
 " Tribune des Patriots, Le," 172, 
 
 . 173, 174. 177 
 Tricolour, the, 68 
 Trinchard, 294 
 Tuileries, Gardens of, 66, 149 
 Tuileries, Palace of, 99, 149, 151, 
 
 179, 189, 193, 194, 302 
 Tussaud, Madame, 65 
 
 U 
 
 " Ultras, The," 84, 228 seq., 238, 
 
 24s. 247, 249, 250, 269, 276, 
 
 300 
 
 V 
 Vadier, M. G. A., 299 
 Valaze, C. E. du F. de, 169 
 Valerius Maximus, 268 
 Vannerie, Rue de la, 83 
 Varennes, 136, 144, 147, 150, 202 
 Vendee, La, 207, 217, 236, 237, 
 
 257 
 Vendome, Place, 158 
 Vergniaud, Pierre V., 169, 205, 
 
 212, 233 
 
 Vermandois, Electors of, 49, 76 
 Vernon, Battle of, 212 
 Versailles, 51, 56, 58, 98, 99, 117 
 Vertot, R. A., "Revolutions 
 
 Romaines," 27 
 " Vervins, Journal de," 21 
 " Veto, The," 175, 179 
 Viefville des Essarts, de, 23, 49, 
 
 196 
 " Vieux Cordelier," 60, 88, 134, 
 
 226 seq., 237, 242 seq., 258 
 
 seq., 268 seq., 279, 286, 287, 
 
 300 
 Vilate, " Memoirs," 220 
 Ville, Hotel de, 68, 69, 70, 72, 74, 
 
 182, 190, 207 
 Vincennes, Fortress of, 68 
 Voltaire, F. M. Arouet de, 45, 
 
 231 
 Vouland, 299, 304, 305 
 
 W 
 
 Washington, George, 28, 173 
 Wattignies, Battle of, 219 
 Weishaupt, the Illuminate, 45 
 Westermann, General F. J., 292, 
 
 293. 295, 300, 304. 309 
 Whittier, J. G., 18 
 Wi^ge, 32 
 Williams, Helen Maria, 62, 209, 
 
 319 
 Wimpfen, General, 212 
 
 Witt, Jean de, 253 
 
 Young, Arthur, "Travels in 
 
 Francfe," S3, 3i9 
 Young, Edward, " Night 
 
 Thoughts," 280 
 
 WILLIAM BHBNDOH AHO SON, LTD., FRINTEIIS, PLYMOUTH 
 
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