Robespierre. He loaded them ed, and his fmiles courted like thofe of a monarch; and when he fpoke the profoundeft filence and attention enfued. He wanted nothing, in fhort, of royalty. but the formalities of a court; and those were amply fupplied by the fubmiffion and deference which he commanded,both inprivate and public. In this career of intoxication he could not refrain from difplaying the high opinion which he entertained of his deferts, and of how much importance he thought himfelf to the public. To this intent he repaired to the Convention on the 27th of May, two days after a fuppofed attempt againft his perfon, and in a fet fpeech of fome length, dwelt with great fervour on the fervices rendered to the common caufe by himself and his friends. He thanked God that thefe fervices had pointed him out to tyrants as an object of their vengeance. Unable to reach him by their own prowefs, they had employed the dagger of domeftic traitors and affaffins. The French republic had now rifen, he said, to the fummit, of its glory. Standing on the brink of confpiracies ready for fucceffive explosion, the intrepid reprefentatives of the nation claimed the united attention of heaven and earth: with one hand they offered up to the Almighty the homage of a great people, with the other they launched their thunderbolts with the greatest vengeance against the tyrants that were fo bafely, and without provo cation, coalefced against them. with abute and fcurrility; charged them with counter-revolutionary projects and flying in the face of the Convention; and ordered them to depart in filence and fubmiffion to its decrees. Notwithstanding the repeated inftances of his barbarous and brutal difpofition, the adulation of his numerous partizans and admirers extolled him as a prodigy of patriotic virtue. The epithet of Incorruptible was always annexed to his name; he was ftyled the fhield of the republic. He was defcribed as poffeffing the firmnels of a Roman, the felf-denial of a Spartan, and the eloquence of an Athenian. He was compared to the Meffiah, fent by Heaven to reform the world, and manifefting his miffion by miracles. Thefe, and a variety of other fpecimens of the baseft adulation that could poffibly be thought upon by the most fervile and worthless mifcreants of the human race, were continually offered up as an homage due to his fupereminent merit! It is not furprizing that the mind of Robespierre fhould have been inebriated by the incenfe of fo much flattery; and that his vanity fhould have induced him to accept it as a tribute to which he was justly entitled. It was difficult, indeed, for him to deny himself the graification arifing from felf-complacency on fuch inceffant invitations to indulge it. Exclufively of the numerous addreffes pouring upon him, as it were, from all quarters, he feldom appeared abroad without a crowd of dependants furrounding him on every fide, and vying with each other both in verbal and perfonal demonftrations of attachment. His looks were watch This fpeech was perfectly fuited to the temper and taste of a French audience, ever prepared to liften with applaufe to ideas that place them at the bead of all mankind; and and reprefent their ftrength and,valour as fit to contend with the combined power of the univerfe. It was by reprefentations of this kind that Robefpierre had fo frequently confirmed his popularity, and gained the applaufes of the Parifians, who were peculiarly delighted with thofe affected and bombaftic strains of oratory, that filled them with lofty notions, and foothed their national vanity. But the fpeech made by Barrere on the 30th, tended much more directly to inflame the French against the British government. He explicitly attributed to it every finifter attempt against the Convention; and concluded by moving an addrefs to the French armies, conceived in the most rancorous terms. England, he faid, was capable of every outrage against humanity, and of every crime towards the republic: it attacked the rights of nations, and threatened to annihilate liberty. He exhaled his enmity to the British monarch in the moft unqualified language. He laid a variety of charges to him, which amounted to no more than acts of hoftility, committed fince France and Great Britain were at war. But the inference he drew was truly favage and inhuman. Addreffing himfelf to the French foldiers: "When the event of battle," he faid, "fhall have put in your power either English or Hanoverians, bring to your remembrance the paft tracks of country that Eng. - Jith flaves have laid wafte; carry your views to La Vendée, Toulon, Lyons, Landrecy, Martinique, and St. Domingo, places ftill reeking with the blood which the atrocious policy of the English has fhed. Do not trust to their artful language, which is an additional crime, truly worthy of their perfidious character, and their Machiavelian government. You ought, therefore, republican foldiers, when victory fhall put into your power either English or Ha noverians, to strike :-not one of them ought to return to the trai. torous territory of England, or to be brought into France. Let the English flaves perish, and let Europe be free." Such were the preposterous and contemptible effufions of Barrere's wrath against the English! they afford a genuine fpecimen of that fpecies of eloquence, and of that veracity of reprefentation, which filled the mouths of thofe many declaimers against the English whe occafionally started up in the Convention. The avidity with which thofe fpeeches were received by the generality of the French, and even by the Convention itself, does no honour either to the difcrimination or probity of that people. It betrays an unpardonable readiness to admit as truth whatever may tend to difparage an enemy, and to render him odious. It is much to be lamented, that men are fo prone to adopt fuch meafures to vilify their foes, as are founded upon falfehood and mifreprefentation. Natural enmity is firong enough between nations, without studying to encrease it by means equally bafe and unwarrantable; and which men of generous fentiments in all countries have always condemned, and held in abhorrence. In default of that propriety of behaviour and fentiments, fo notorioufly wanting in the Convention, that very clafs of men whom they fought to pervert by the fcandalous icandalous directions addreffed to them, evinced by their conduct that they had a better fense of their own duty, and entertained more proper notions of the treatment reciprocally due to each other by nations at war, than their barbarous rulers, or rather indeed than thofe fanguinary men by whom they bafely Luffered themfelves to be ruled. The bloody decree that was made, in confequence of this inhuman Speech, prohibiting quarter to be given to the English, was never carried into execution by the re-tary body, ftyled the Revolutionary publican armies. The very conrary happened to what had been propofed by Barrere. When, thro' the events of war the English fell into the hands of the French, they treated them with the wonted humanity long practifed by both na manders. The municipality of Paris was implicitly at his devotion,-the places at his difpofal,-and to which he nominated them preferably to others, were effectual means to fe cure their attachment. The revolutionary tribunal contained a large portion of them. That immenfe body, the Parifian national guards, were wholly at his orders, as he had the naming of all the principal of ficers in the forty-eight fections into which the metropolis was dia vided. This and that other mili tions. But, notwithstanding the difinclination fo pofitively manifefted by the French military to obey injunctions repugnant no lefs to the laws of war than to their own feelings, a decree of a fimilar nature was fhortly after paffed in the Convention, by which no quarter was to be given to the garrifons placed by the allies in the towns they had taken from France, if they refufed to furrender within twenty-four hours after they had been fummond. This decree alfo met with the Came difobedience as the other. The power of Robespierre was now arrived at fuch a height, that was generally confidered as fixed: upon unfhakable foundations. His popularity increafed proportionably with the intelligence daily arriving. of the victorious progrefs of the French armies; which was in a great meafure attributed to his fagacity in the appointment of proper comVOL. XXXVI. Army, formed fuch a fupport, as feemed to place him out of the reach of all attack, founded on vio lence. The tide of popular opinion ran ftrongly in his favour; and his influence in the revolutionary foci eties was irrefiftible. That called the Jacobin Club, was totally under his management; and its numerous affiliations zealously propagated its principles throughout all France. The Cordelier club, which had ventured to difplcafe him, he had fuppreffed; and no private or pub lic affembly feemed inclined either to oppofe or to differ from him. The opinion of numbers of the moft difcerning individuals at this period was, that Robefpierre had now a fair opportunity of perpetuating his power, by relaxing from his feverity. He had destroyed a fufs ficient proportion of the enemies to the predominant fyftem, to fe cure it from the attempts of those that remained. Had he laid afide that plan of profcription and terror by which, not only the foes to thei revolution, but even its friends, were kept in a continual state of intimidation, the various parties into which the revolutionifts hadbeen fplit, were become. fo weary. L of the confufion and uncertainty of the schemes wherein they had been bewildered, that they would gladly have united under fuch a one as would have embraced their general interefts, and allowed every man, profefling himself a republican, to claim and to exercifè an undifturbed freedom of opinion and fpeech on that form of a republican government he might think moft conducive to the public welfare; without being conftrained to adhere to the ideas and meafuies of the prefent, or of any ruling party. This was the reputed fcheme of Danton; and looked upon by judicious people as the most eligible in the actual circumftances of the nation: but as it did not feem to favour that perpetuity of power which Robespierre fought to fix in his own party, and held up maxims that might have weakened his perfonal intereft and defeated his private views, his unbounded ambition, and fettled determination to retain the fole power in his own hands, induced him to crush at once that fcheme, by the deftruction of its author, and to perfecute, unrelentingly, all that appeared defirous to adopt it. Thus he continued the fyftem of terror and tyranny without the leaft relaxation, or rather indeed with additional violence. Among the many unfortunate individuals who were yet deftined to be the victims of his barbarity, was that truly great and refpectable man Lamoignon Malefherbes. The juftice due to his tranfcendent merit, had been fhewn him at a time when France was governed folely by corruption and intrigue, and when the court confifted almoft entirely of men without principle, and whole views were directed in the moft fhameless and fcandalous manner, to oppofe the influence and exaltation of any man whom they fufpected to be capable and inclined to fet his face against their practices. The unhappy Louis XVI, who, if not a prince of very eminent abilities, was certainly the most virtuous man in his court, had however difcernment enough to perceive, and equity to fingle out Malefherbes as a perfon deferving the royal favour, and promoted him to a minifterial post of the higheft dignity and importance. No choice ever did that monarch more, if fo much honour. Malefherbes juftified it not only by the talents he difplayed, but by an uprightnefs and integrity of conduct that won him the admiration and applaufe of a court funk in all manner of vices; and his contempt and reprobation of which, he was above concealing. But that part of his character which will transmit him to the veneration of pofterity, is the gratitude and intrepidity with which he undertook the defence of that unhappy monarch, when it was accompanied with the highest danger to himself, and when he muft have been confcious that the party he thus had the fpirit to oppofe would watch him ever after with an eye of rancour, and that he would probably pay with his life for the magnanimity he had fhewn. He was accordingly dragged from the retirement, wherein he had proposed to spend his latter days; and, upon fome of thote frivolous charges which were always at hand for the fanguinary purposes of the day, this venerable man, verging towards fourfcore, was condemned to die by the guillotine. Ons One of the many pretexts on which thofe mercilefs condemnations were founded, was the carrying on a correfpondence with emigrants. This was an unpardonable offence, even in the neareft relations. Another, no lefs effectual, was the charge of confpiracy; together of which perfons imprisoned were frequently accufed, when no other charge could be fabricated. It was even fufficient, in cafes of confpiracy, to be fufpected of a readine's to join the confpirators. A lady of high rank, whofe husband, Vifcount Noailles, had warmly efpoufed the cause of the revolution, was, notwithstanding a circumftance fo much in her favour, doomed to die, on a mere prefumption that fhe would certainly have taken part in a confpiracy, of which fome individuals in confinement were accufed of having affifted each other there in forming, though the made it appear on her trial that she was not in that prifon when the fuppofed confpiracy was formed. Among the multitudes that fuffered under the tyranny of Robefpierre, were four foreigners of note; two of them were Germans, and two English. Befides Anacharfis Clootz, already mentioned, we find his countryman, the celebrated Baron Trenck, who had fled to France in hope of efcaping the defpotic power, of which he had, during a long portion of his life, experienced the woful effects in abfolute monarchies;-he too fell by the axe of the guillotine, on a charge of counter-revolutionary practices. The two Englishmen were, the one Colonel Newton, who had risen to this rank in the .. French army by his yalour and feryices: he perifhed on the fcaffold for vindicating the conduct of the Briffotine party, and reprobating the other as oppreflors and murderers. The other, the famous Thomas' Payne, a man whofe writings have made as much noife, and produced more conípicuous effects than thofe of any writer on fimilar fubjects. As he was well known to be averfe to the tyranny of Robespierre, he did not fail to incur his hatred; and · was imprisoned on pretence of enmity to the fate. He probably would have been facrificed as well as many others, had that tyrant lived long enough to accomplish his and their deftruction. Were we to relate the barbari- . ties of Robefpierre, we would of neceffity make them the fubject of a feparate volume. The following, which we have from unquestionable authority, is an indication of fuch complete calloufness to all the feelings of humanity, that we cannot forbear giving it a place in this fummary of the History of Europe: -A lady of the name of St. Amarante, thinking to secure the safety of her family by polite attentions to Robefpierre, invited him to dine with her and her family and friends. Robespierre accepted her invitation, and was accompanied by one of his greatest intimates. Next. day his friend told him, that, he (Robefpierre) having drank more freely than ordinary at dinner, had let fall fome things which it had been better to conceal. Having paufed a little, he required a lift of the names of all who were of the company, and alfo of the fervants who waited at the table. A lift of all thefe was immediately sent to him. In four-and-twenty hours Madame St. Amarante, her family, friends, and domeftics, all perified L2 by |