FRANCIS MAXIMILIAN ROBESPIERRE.

rapid and eventful in its march, so momentous in its issues, Robespierre was the incarnation. In him the revolutionary idea assumed a shape, and spoke, and acted. He advanced with it to its extreme point, never lagging behind, never seeking to stem its progress. When all other parties had been thrust aside or swallowed up, and he and his followers were left alone at the head of affairs, the Revolution had culminated, and this was at once the sign and the consequence. When he and his party fell, the Revolution had receded. Robespierre was its last idea, its ultimate point.

We have prefaced with these remarks, partly to vindicate the assertion with which we commenced, and partly to apologise for the necessary imperfection of the present sketch. It is absolutely impossible within such limits, to give a detailed biography of Robespierre; for links of connection would be found attaching him to all the events of this eventful period. We must content ourselves with presenting him to view, at the critical passages of the history, in the attitudes he assumed, and the conduct he adopted. This will suffice to display the man. These outward and visible facts will give us some insight into that inner self, of which they are but the exponents. And thus, even in the case of this enigmatical character, we may perhaps accomplish the truest ends of biography, by detecting those elementary principles, into which, after all, the strangest and most contradictory phenomena of human conduct are resolvable.

THE life of Robespierre is the history of one of the world's epochs, and that an epoch, beyond all others, vast in its events and important in its issues. The few years during which the mighty drama of the French Revolution was played out, occupy a larger and more conspicuous page in the annals of history, than ages of the ordinary life of humanity. Those crises, decisive of the destinies of nations, those convulsions shaking society to its centre, those events world-wide in their bearings and transmitting their issues far into the future, which, like the hurricanes and earthquakes of nature, are generally interspersed at wide intervals, here occur simultaneously, or crowd closely upon one another. Those first-class men in politics and strategy, of whom the race is generally so sparing, here cluster together in constellations. Those social changes, that unchaining of thought and march of sentiment, which are generally effected by the slow and imperceptible hand of time, like the growth of plants and animals, during this memorable epoch broke out suddenly, convulsively. Within the short space of six years, dynasties hoary with antiquity were overthrown; institutions that had interwoven themselves with the lives and habits of nations, altogether disappeared; superstitions the most venerated were exposed and profaned; prejudices the most inveterate were uprooted; opinions held as the dogmata of revelation were denied and ridiculed. Within this period, a vast and terrible drama was enacted, of which France was the stage and the world the theatre; in which kings and generals, statesmen FRANCIS MAXIMILIAN ROBESPIERRE, and orators, fanatics and assassins, were was born at Arras, in the year 1759, so the actors; the downfal of thrones and that he was just thirty years of age tyrannies, the blood of a hundred battle- when the Revolution broke out. His fields, the massacre of a million citizens, father, who was of English extraction, the catastrophes and the regeneration had ruined his fortunes by dissipation, of modern society, the denouement. and was in consequence compelled to There may have been, there doubtless take refuge in Germany from his crediwere, latent and adequate causes, which tors. He afterwards escaped to America, had been long working under the sur- and was never more heard of. When face of society, and of which the French young Maximilian was but nine years Revolution was only the development; old, his mother died, so that at that these, however, were its ostensible facts. early age he was left an orphan and And with the French Revolution Ro- destitute. The Bishop of Arras bebespierre has identified himself. Of friended him, sent him to the college of this mighty movement of humanity, so Louis le Grand, at Paris, and defrayed

the expenses of his education. At college he pursued his studies with diligence, and made respectable progress. Even then he was distinguished by the austerity of his manners. The philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau, occupied much of his attention, and made a profound impression on his ardent and speculative mind. Such was his enthusiasm that we find him making a pilgrimage of thirty miles on foot, to visit this great forerunner of the Revolution. On quitting college, he established himself as an advocate in his native town, sharing his time between literature and the law. Two incidents trivial in themselves, but remarkable when considered in connection with his subsequent history, are recorded of this his early career. He resigned a situation as member of the common tribunal of Arras, to which he had been appointed by the Bishop, because his sensibility was wounded on being compelled to condemn an assassin to death. A prize was offered by the Academy of Metz, for the best essay on the inhuman law by which the whole family of a criminal condemned to the scaffold, was rendered infamous. Robespierre entered into the competition and carried off the prize. In his essay he indulges in much pathetic remonstrance, and goes the length of advocating the total abolition of capital punishments.

Such was Robespierre up to the time of his election into the States-general, and the incorporation of his biography with the history of France. And we have here the elements of all that he afterwards became, as indeed we should expect in so pertinacious a character. Some of these circumstances may indeed appear contradictory to the part he sustained in after life, but such contradiction exists only in appearance. Robespierre pedestrinating thirty miles to see that great philanthropist, J. J. Rousseau, abdicating the tribunal because too sensitive to condemn a murderer to death, advocating with eloquence and pathos the abolition of all capital punishments; and Robespierre, the extreme democrat of the Revolution, the sanguinary despot of the Reign of Terror is perfectly consistent with himself. Nay, the same principles that, acting upon the susceptible and enthusiastic mind of youth, gave warmth and vigour to his pen when he contested for the premium of the academy of Metz, those same prin

ciples, coming into contact with the stern and steeled heart of the fanatic, erroneously and relentlessly applied, still governed him when he consigned his hundreds of daily victims to the tender mercies of the revolutionary tribunal. And these were the principles of the philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Robespierre was consistent with himself in the same way that the dazzling and philanthropic theories of this philosopher resulted in the way of certain consequence in the commotions and outrages and blood of the worst times of the revolution.

Voltaire, Rousseau, and their disciples, were the true leaders of this great and terrible epoch. They had taught the people to examine and think. They had shown that the traditions of ages were open to question, that opinions were not necessarily true because they were universally received and had wrought themselves into the life of a people, that the dogmata of popes and priests were not infallible, that the despotism of kings and nobles was not a matter of inherent right. They had already effected a revolution in idea, which was only waiting its opportunity to develop itself in fact. Each of them had his separate department, but they were coadjutors in the same great cause. Voltaire attacked the tyranny of superstition, that tyranny that wielding the prestige of tradition, the anathemas of conscience and the terrors of futurity, is the most oppressive and debasing in its bondage, and the hardest to throw off. Possessed of extraordinary and multifarious powers, dexterous in the use of that most trenchant of all weapons, wit, inveterate, even malignant in his hatred, of indomitable perseverance and restless activity, living far beyond the usual term of existence, Voltaire seemed directly qualified and preserved for the purpose to which he devoted his life. Of this purpose he never lost sight. From the commencement to the close of his long career, in all his compositions, and their name is legion, in almost every department of literature, for almost every department he essayed, directly and indirectly, by sneer and sarcasm, laughter and invective, the church and the religion with which he unhappily confounded it, were the objects of his incessant attacks. It needed such a foe to overthrow such a colossal tyranny, and emancipate the thought and con

a soul, and arrayed in the charms of only hidden. Either we do not look such a style, struck upon deep and deep enough, or have not sufficient acready sympathies in the hearts of thou-quaintance with facts. Robespierre was sands. All the youth and enthusiasm an unusual phenomenon, it is true, yet of France responded to the wails and he was a phase of our common nature. and aspirations of this impassioned In 1789, in consequence of an attack visionary. Amongst the rest we have upon the superior council of Artois, seen how powerfully they affected the which had gained for him the favour of young lawyer of Arras. Robespierre the popular party, Robespierre was was formed by nature of the tempera- elected as deputy to the States-General. ment out of which fanatics are made. This convocation of representatives Restlessly active, inflexible of will, ca- from all classes in the nation had been pable of long and severe concentration summoned by Louis XVI. as a last of thought, ardent and ambitious, un- desperate measure, to quiet discontent, scrupulous as to the means by which and rescue himself from his embarrasshe attained his ends, he was one of ments. These at all events were the those who, when once they meet with a ostensible causes, yet in truth the real great and congenial idea, surrender cause lay more deep and hidden. Few themselves to it with complete and life- at that time discerned it. It was the long devotion. It was thus that Robes- growth of public sentiment in advance pierre embraced the philosophy of of existing institutions. Society had Rousseau. He did not merely hold now reached an adult, reflective age, these doctrines as opinions. They had and was impatient of the tutelage and not merely a cold and barren place in leading strings of its childhood. An his creed. They impregnated his soul. expansion, correspondent with its own They possessed him. He gave himself recent growth, was needed in its instito them, mind and heart, strength and tutions. The revolutionary idea allife. He became their incarnation. ready on its irresistible march, had To realize Rousseau's ideal of rege- reached a stage in its progress, in nerated society became henceforth his which the convocation of the Stateswarmest aspiration, his supreme pur- General became a matter of necessity. pose. He only waited opportunity, The alternative was between the opening and that was at hand, as generally to of this safety valve, or some yet more those who wait for it. violent and terrific explosion. And throughout the whole of its history, it is remarkable how, like a secret but resistless fate, the Revolution was itself the cause of all things. It was the origin of events, not the consequence of them. It was the convener of assemblies, not the offspring of their deliberations. It employed men as its instruments, but would not submit to be controlled or guided by them. The moment they attempted to moderate its advance or give it direction, their fate was sealed. The revolution passed by them, or if they persisted to stand in its way, over them. This is the true philosophy of the National Assembly. The embarrasment of the finances, the liberal character of the king, the false policy of ministers, the refractoriness of parliaments, these were but the occasions; the Revolution itself was the cause. But this the king and his ministers did not understand. Precedents had existed in the ancient history of France, and they hoped to find in the States-General at the close of the eighteenth century the tractable and

It is thus that the apparent contradictions of Robespierre's conduct are to be reconciled. When he shrank from the infliction of capital punishment, it was Rousseau's humane philosophy that wrought within him; when a few years after he steeled his heart to the massacres of the Reign of Terror, it was still as the fanatical adherent of the same doctrines. This was but the baptism of blood, through which society had to pass to its ideal renovation. These lives were obstacles in the way, and they must be removed. He thought that having but the choice of evils, he chose the least. He forgot that nothing -no end. no motive. can sanctify crime. It was a mad, mistaken, relentless, and guilty effort to realize a fascinating impossibility.

This is a long digression, but necessary; not merely to explain these inconsistencies in Robespierre's conduct, but as a key to his entire life. There are really no anomalies in humanity any more than in nature. In what we deem and call anomalies the laws are

convenient assembly it had been in the middle ages. They forgot that it is a perilous thing to apply the precedents of one age to the altered sentiments and conditions of another. Or rather, they were ignorant of the changes that had taken place. They knew not what novel ideas were fermenting in the minds of the people. Hence king, ministers, and nobles were unanimous in convening an assembly which did not dissolve till it had engulphed the hierarchies of the church and the dignities of the state, profaned the sanctity of the palace, and reduced to a form and a shadow the despotism of ages.

the luminaries of the Assembly to wane before the obscure deputy of Arras, so much as his fidelity to principle. When Mirabeau, to cater to his pleasures and ambition, had taken bribes of the Court; and Barnave had relented at the sight of the majestic grief of fallen royalty, and the innocent fair face of the young Dauphin; when the two Lameths seeing whither things were tending would fain have retraced their steps, Robespierre felt that his convictions yet urged him onward, and he obeyed them. The revolution thrusting aside those who had betrayed it, and mocking the silly presumption of those who would moderate it, demanded a leader. Robespierre presented himself and was accepted. This was the secret of his extraordinary rise.

In the National Assembly Robespierre did not at first occupy a conspicuous place. The eminent men who took the lead in its debates threw him into the shade. His insignificant figure, shrill Overborne by the surpassing talents voice, awkward gestures, and hesitating of his rivals in the Assembly, Robesand confused speech drew but little at-pierre sought without its walls the influtention. Impelled by the restlessness ence denied him within. The man of of his disposition, and the strong feelings that fermented within him, he frequently spoke; but so miserable were his first efforts that the Assembly hardly tolerated him.

the people, to the people he appealed. The organ of the appeal was the Jacobin club. At the commencement of the sittings of the National Assembly, certain Breton deputies belonging to But there were two features in Robes- what was then the extreme revolutionary pierre's character which carried him party, had formed a society to concoct triumphantly through these difficulties, measures and stimulate the progress of and converted the obscure and em- liberty. Among its founders were Barbarrassed deputy into an orator and the nore and the two Lameths. It accomdespot of the revolution. These were panied the National Assembly in its his indomitable perseverance and his removal from Versailles to Paris, and fidelity to principle. Nothing daunted selected, as the place of its sittings, the by his repeated failures, submitting with old convent of the Jacobins, near to all the impassibility of his character to the Manège, where the representatives the taunts, and laughter, and impa- of the nation assembled. Hence it detience of the Assembly, he persevered, rived the appellation which became till at length he acquired that facility afterwards so notorious and terrible. and force of expression so essential to Here, in the vast and desolate nave in the public man in times of popular the church, rudely fitted up for the purcommotion. He never possessed the pose, an uncouth multitude, gathered copious and impassioned speech of chiefly from the lowest classes, assemthose to whom eloquence is a natural bled nightly, and listened, with furious gift. He seldom trusted himself to ex- outcries and gesticulations, to the tempore effusions. His more important harangues of orators who knew well harangues bear the appearance of severe how to arouse the stormiest passions; and careful premeditation. And this while a few straggling torches, barely has been corroborated by the manu- sufficient to light up the gloomy hall, scripts that have been found among his flung a flickering glare on the bizarre and papers. But in the art of public speak- tumultuous crowd, and bats flitting to ing he attained great excellence. He and fro, added to the unearthly characacquired some of the capital qualifi-ter of the scene. Revolutionary songs cations of the rhetorician, clearness and condensation, energy and tact.

It was not, however, the improvement of his oratory, marked and rapid as that was, which ultimately caused

were sung, the most violent propositions carried by acclamation, the speakers perpetually interrupted by the freely expressed enthusiasm or disapprobation of the audience, and debates held at

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