The author mentions other instances of Brissot's corruption: but we are inclined to think that he has advanced these charges without sufficient ground. Brissot's revolutionary enemies, who took away his life, did not substantiate any allegation of the sort against him; and a very intelligent historian of the revolution, who was acquainted with him, who was of a different party in politics, and who is not sparing in his censure of him, admits that he was incorrupt, and that he died poor. It must be admitted that, in one passage, the author has presented a just abstract of the revolution:

The faithful page of History will, in the first place, display the ambitious and imprudent pretensions of Foreign Courts, and the jealousy and avidity of the intriguers of the Court at home, giving the first blows to the Royal Authority, by raising against the pretended Ministerial despotism that general murmur which soon became the shout of rebellion, and the pretext for the insurrections of the month of July 1789, which completely annihilated the authority of the Ministers, and consequently that of the King. It will then trace the different Orders of the State, successively attacking, by fresh insurrections always excited by the class immediately inferior to that which had just triumphed, and the fatal struggle continued till all the ranks of society were absolutely levelled, and till the supreme power, separated from the Throne, was, by one dreadful event after another, forcibly acquired by the lowest class of the people, armed and rallied by the name of equality."

M. Bertrand corroborates all other accounts in stating that, when the second assembly had removed the obstructions which stood between it and the supreme power, at that precise moment, this fond object of its exertions and its crimes completely slipped through its hands into those of the leaders of the usurping commune of Paris; where, to the unspeakable calamity of France, and of Europe, it remained till the fall of Robespierre, on the 9th of July 1794.

Speaking of the decree by which the Assembly conferred the title of French citizens on various foreigners, whom the author styles turbulent and seditious, we were sorry to find him enumerating, as belonging to this class, the brave Kosciusko; who had so greatly suffered, and still suffers, from his exertions in a cause as glorious, in our estimation, as any that ever attracted the respect of mankind. We think also that the literary eminence, the services to science, the private worth, and the persecutions, of another associate, might have withheld a generous mind from inserting his name in a list so designated.

The reader will easily conceive what must have been the situation of Paris in September 1792, from the following horrible picture;

• The

The decree that authorized domiciliary visits was passed on the 28th of August, and immediately sent to the Commune, of which Robespierre was then President. The orders for the execution of it were instantly made out and directed to all the Sections; the barriers were shut at four o'clock in the evening, the drums beat the generale, and an order of the Commune gave all the citizens notice to be at

home at six.

This order spread alarm and consternation through every worthy family in the capital. It was aimed not only at the nobles and priests, but at the citizens of every class who had signed the famous petition of the twenty thousand, and who were said to be included in the lists of proscription. All who were afraid of being arrested made use of the little time the order of the Commune left them. in seeking a hiding place, in which they might shun the domiciliary visits. Closets concealed by painted paper or sham pannels, cellars, lofts, *chimnies, and sinks, sheltered a great many: some hid themselves in empty casks, others under piles of fire-wood, under bundles of straw, between mattresses, and in old rolls of tapestry. Several took different disguises, and went for refuge to the rooms of labourers, washerwomen, women of the town whom they had never known *, and even to the beds of hospitals between the dead and the dying!

At length the fatal hour struck, and warned the affrighted citi zens home. At the same instant the tradesmen shut up all their shops, the carriages all retired, and in the noisiest and most frequented streets all was still, and not a creature to be seen. Within the houses every family, not protected by some great villain, presented a picture of despair and terror. Each trembled for himself, for his children, for his friends, and for his property. The arrival of the Commissioners of the Sections was expected and watched for with the extreme of anxiety; but the domiciliary visits did not begin till one o'clock in the morning. The Commissioners were attended by patroles of sixty men armed with pikes, who in all the streets protected their operations, prevented the inhabitants of the houses not visited from going to those that had been visited, and served as a guard for the persons taken up as suspected. The continual motion of so many armed men, the knocking at the doors violently repeated to have them opened, or to force such houses as had been left by the inhabitants; the complaints of those dragged away to the Sections, the swearing of those who had charge of them, and the clamours of the patriots in all the public houses, kept the capital in a frightful uproar through the remainder of the night. More than 3000 persons, pretended to be suspected, were arrested. Some of them were released the next day, but the following days the arrests continued to be made. The prisons and National buildings, that is to say, the churches, convents, and seminaries, converted into places of confinement, were filled not only Royalists and priests were shut up in them, but several Constitutionalists, and some moderate patriots of different Sections.'

*These were the safest, and this night of horror produced at least several examples of vice deceiving villainy, to protect virtue.'

In treating of the endeavours made by Lafayette and a few of his officers to induce the army to espouse the cause of the King, and of their escape and seizure, the author remarks; it has been said that their detention, which in some respects might be just, was both irregular and impolitic.'-'I shall only observe, that at a time when it was more material than ever to unite the Constitutionalists with the Royalists against the Re-, publican party, it is possible that the example of M. De la Fayette's being unpunished when he was guilty, and punished when his conduct merited some praise, may have been more prejudicial than useful.' In what respect was it just? who knows better than M. Bertrand, that all which the captors had a right to do was to prohibit his remaining in their dominions? We were sorry to find this writer lending his pen to gloss over a transaction which was a flagrant violation of the public law of Europe; which was in direct contradiction to the usages of civilized nations; which was a display of malice as barefaced as it was ill judged; an act, the injustice of which was only exceeded by its impolicy, and which ought never to be mentioned but in terms of the strongest reprobation. We were glad, however, to hear him speak as became him, when alluding to another event, certainly far more important than the above, but not more detestable in its nature:

Respecting the political measures that marked this period, I shall only add, that the partition of Poland was the most treacherous, the most inconsistent, and, at the same time, the most fatal of all; for it became the chief source of the misfortunes which succeeded the campaign of 1792. How was Europe scandalized in beholding the very Powers who had coalesced to re-establish one King upon the Throne, coalescing also to dethrone another, and divide his territories! What a triumph for the Jacobins, and for their principles ! What blindness, what immorality on the part of certain Cabi

nets!'

Having exhausted his store of vituperative epithets on the ill-fated Brissotins, where is the author to find adequate terms to designate the miscreants who make the principal figure in the remainder of his work; the instigators and abettors of those deeds, the remembrance of which will excite horror in the most distant times, and which cotemporaries knew not how to believe?-Giving an account of the measures of the Assembly immediately after the 10th of August, he says;

They entirely abolished the distinction of citizens active and not active; and to the intent of establishing the grand principle of equality in as formal a manner as possible, they decreed that in future, and for the approaching Convention, every citizen of the age of twentyone years, and maintaining himself by his own labour, should be

admitted

admitted to vote without any distinction in the Primary Assem blies *.'

The remarks which occur in M. Bertrand's sketch of Robespierre illustrate the origin and constitution of the same dread body:

The event,' he tells us, of the 10th of August had entirely destroyed the Constitutional Monarchy: the Assembly, terrified by the threats of the Jacobins and of the Commune, had already taken a solemn oath of hatred to Royalty; the sovereign people wished for a Republic, and a National Convention was convoked to determine the form of it: thus all succeeded to Robespierre's wish, and his object seemed to be attained; but his boldness and ambition increased with his success. A Republican Government could no longer answer his views, but by his being at the head of it; and he got several Journalists, and particularly Marat, to point him out for Dictator. He could not endure the thought of a National Convention, composed, like the Legislative Body, of the most distinguished speakers of all the Jacobin Clubs. He was afraid of having colleagues whose talents might counterbalance his influence. Villains as stupid as furious suited him much better. He thought of two ways for having a great number of such persons sent as Deputies to the Convention: the one was to admit all the rabble of the kingdom to vote at the elections, which was the object of the decrce obtained by the Commune, abolishing the distinction of citizens active and not active; and the other was, to keep from the Primary Assemblies all the worthy citizens who were incapable of being accessary to the election of such worthless people; and this end was effected by the universal terror excited at the period of the elections by the arbitrary arrests and massacres instigated and encouraged by the Commune of Paris, who were always governed by Robespierre.'

Having taken so much notice of the Assembly, let us now attend to our author's representation of the terrific chief who was destined to take the lead in it.

The coincidence stated in the first part of the subsequent paragraph is of great importance, since it influenced the choice of deputies for Paris; who very soon obtained the guidance of the destinies of unhappy France;

The election of Members for the National Convention began at Paris on the same day with the massacre of the prisoners, and marked as much as possible the bloody auspices under which it took place. Robespierre was the first named. The part, as astonishing as execrable, which he played in the Revolution from the 10th of August till his death, presents an enigma the more difficult to be resolved, as the history of no country, of no Revolution, ever offered the like.

There could not be a surer way of composing the Assembly, that was to determine the fate of the King, of the greatest villains in the kingdom.'

It is still asked, how did it happen that a man without a name, without talents, without courage, without fortune, and of a hideous figure, managed, in the space of six months, completely to annihilate the most ancient monarchy of Europe, to bring to the scaffold a good and virtuous Prince, who had always deserved to be the idol of his subjects; to erect on the ruins of all the laws, all the Constitutions, all the Authorities, the most sanguinary, the most enormous power that had ever existed on earth, to concentre it entirely in his own hands, and to consolidate it by means of the new crimes with which he abused it? Such were, in fact, the horrible miracles of Robespierre.'— Robespierre, condemned by his mediocrity to be nothing more than a petty Provincial Advocate under the old system, hated it only be. cause he saw in it no opening favourable to his inordinate ambition, of which neither glory nor wealth was the object.'-' His extreme vanity made him believe that he was destined to play a very conspi cuous part, and such was ever his principal object. The convocation of the States-General opened a field to his hopes the more extensive, as there then existed a violent and general fermentation against the Government, which was attacked at once by all the passions, not excepting even the love of the public good, some to reform it, others to destroy it. Robespierre, professing the most popular sentiments, and the most ardent zeal in the cause of the Tiers-Etat, easily succeeded in gaining an election as a Deputy to the States General, and repaired to Versailles, transported with the most fanatic enthusiasm for all Republican ideas. The motions and extravagant speeches which they suggested to him rendered him completely ridiculous, and made him pass for a madman in the eyes even of the faction most violent against the government; and whenever he spoke, the ennui and disgust of his hearers were manifested by the most unequivocal signs. This outset, not very flattering to his vanity, convinced him that it was not in this Assembly he could hope to play successfully the conspicuous part to which he aspired, and that he would never have the slightest influence in it, without some great revolution. That of the 14th of July revived his hopes. It opened to his mind at once the extreme weakness of the Government, the advantage that was to be derived from insurrections, and the means of exciting them. It was now in his power to form a plan, and he determined upon that of gaining completely the confidence and favour of the people in order to make use of them one day for the purpose of overawing the Assembly. He soon became one of the principal leaders of the Jacobin Club. From that time he published a vast number of pamphlets, flattering the people, whose sovereignty he proclaimed and exalted. He gained over to him Marat, Camille Desmoulins, Danton, and all the Revolutionary furies, whose writings or motions always tended to exasperate the people against the King, the nobility, and the clergy; and thus successively followed the burning and pillaging of the country seats, the persecutions of the priests, the outrages against the King's authority and person, the seizure of the property of the clergy, the abolition of the feudal rights, of the nobility, &c.'

Naturally a despot, his vanity and ambition made him a demagogue. He detested Royalty and nobility, because he could neither

be