insolence than address. He availed himself of the faults of his rivals, and was always solicitous to open to them the way to honours and to riches, in order to have a pretext for destroying them. Naturally ambitious, he covered his projects by an impenetrable veil. His most intimate friends knew not the secrets of his soul; he oppressed those whom he could not seduce; he set one faction against another, and was ever in the midst of them to destroy the victorious party. Such was the secret of his successes; and his fall may be attributed more to his want of energy than to the superior talents of his adversaries. In attempting briefly to trace the principal traits of his life, we shall simply detail facts; they will speak more than all the reflections of the historian. Maximilian-Isidore Robespierre was born at Arras, in 1759. His father was an advocate in the Supreme Council at Artois, and, ruined by his dissipation, had left France long before the revolution. An orphan at the age of 9, and without fortune, he was indebted to the benevolent protection of the Bishop of Arras, M. de Conzié, for the situation of Bursar of the College of Lewis XIV. We are assured that from his infancy he manifested a cruel, reserved, and timid disposition; and an ardent love of liberty and independence. After having passed through his studies, and obtained the honour of being chosen by his fellow students to address Lewis XVI. upon the entrance of that prince into Paris, he returned to Arras, where having become an advocate of the council of Artois, he composed strictures against the magistrates of that province. A daring enthusiast in 1789, he was elected on account of his revolu FRANCE.] ROBESPIERRE. tionary principles, by the third estate of Artois, to a seat in the Constituent Assembly. We shall not follow him in detail in that assembly; we shall simply remark, that he spoke much without obtaining any particular influence, and evinced himself constantly the courtier of the people. Robespierre, in all his harangues, appears to foresee events. The avowed enemy of royalty, we behold him enlisted on the side of Republicanism, of which he ventured to alter the name, on the day when the Assembly decreed the French government monarchial. We behold him again, after the arrest of the king at Varennes, resuming his projects for the destruction of that monarch, preparing the movements which took place at the Champ-de-Mars, on the 14th, 16th, and 17th of July 1791, and attacking on the 14th, in the assembly, the principle of the inviolability of the sovereign, in the hope of having him arraigned: but at the end of the sitting, finding his opinion rejected, he began to tremble for his temerity, and required, that they should not provoke the ruin of persons who had engaged in that affair. If Robespierre was unable to distinguish himself among the orators of the Constituent Assembly, if his principles appeared obnoxious to the innovators, acting from sentiment in 1789, if they often drew upon him the indignation of his colleagues, they were the means of his acquiring among the Jacobins that reputation and favour, which, daily increasing, rendered him at last the idol of the people, and the ruler of the government. The day of the closing of the assembly, the populace surrounded him on his coming out of the hall, put a crown of oak upon his head, placed him in a carriage, and, taking out the horses, dragged him to his house, exclaiming as they moved, "Voila l'ami du peuple, le grand defenseur de la liberté." Robespierre was fully sensible of the advantages which might result from his alliance with the Jacobins. He devoted himself entirely to the direction of a club bearing that name, and refused, in order to give up his whole time to the objects they had in view, the office of accuser in the criminal tribunal at Paris, to which he had been appointed. Until his election to a seat in the convention, he was never seen personally to engage in those insurrections which produced the atrocious attack upon the king, nor in the horrible massacres, which, in 1792, covered Paris with murder and blood, and the French name with eternal opprobrium. He refused even to preside at the tribunal of the 10th of August, because, as he said, "He had long since denounced and accused the conspirators, whom this tribunal was ordained to judge." But he had scarcely entered the Convention, when he resolved to raise his faction upon the ruins of all the others, and his power upon the destruction of those factions, which he might employ. To attain this end, he was seen at first to strengthen the ties by which he had already been united to Marat and Danton, and to avail himself particularly of the latter, in order to overthrow the Girondins, who, from the fifth session, had exposed his ambition, and accused him of aspiring to the dictatorship. It was during this struggle that Louvet pronounced against him that very eloquent harangue, which Mad. Roland called the Robespierreiad. Assisted by his brother and by Danton, Robespierre, in the sitting of the 5th of November, overpowered the Girondins, and went to the Jacobins to enjoy the fruits of his victory, where Merlin de Thionville declared him an Eagle, and Barbaroux a Reptile. From that moment he never FRANCE.] ROBESPIERRE. ceased to promote the death of Louis XVI. with an asperity and a perseverance almost incredible. In short, until the fatal day of the martyrdom of that amiable and unfortunate prince, he continually importuned the tribune to pronounce upon him (according to the expression of one of his colleagues) des vociferations de cannibale, and the most atrocious prejudgments. It is almost superfluous to add, that he voted for his death on the day of the nominal appeal to the nation. Constant in his hatred of the Girondins, he attacked them with great vehemence until the 31st of May, when The obtained a complete triumph. His most dangerous enemies among the men of that faction were outlawed, and the others arrested. The success of this day rendered him absolute ruler of the Convention, and founded 'that tyrannical empire, which only terminated with his life. Among the factions which had lent him their assistance, the Hebertistes was the first that separated from his cause. This faction aspired to sole dominion, but the good fortune or the address of Robespierre was able at once to oppose the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, and it sunk in March 1791, under their united efforts. Danton, who had been particularly serviceable on this occasion, whose energy had been of such utility, who had aided him in sweeping away the other factions; Danton, in short, whom he ought to have considered as the instrument of his power, became a formidable enemy, after having been for a length of time a most devoted friend and a faithful ally. The two parties were at issue; one br the other must necessarily be overcome. The cunning of Robespierre triumphed over the inconsiderate ardour of his rival, whom he took pains to render unpopular, by sending him to enrich himself in Belgium. A few days afterwards he was accused, arrested, and conveyed to the scaffold, with Desmoulins, La Croix, Fabre, and others. In the course of the same month (April 1794) he delivered over to the Revolutionary Tribunal the remainder of the party of the Hebertistes, and that of the Cordeliers, whom he degraded by the name of atheists, and from that moment, until the period of his downfal, his power met with no opposition. It was then that his language assumed a different tone. I must be, it is necessary, I will, were his general expressions; and the Convention, as he himself called it, was only his machine à decrets. What is worthy of remark is, that France -groaning under the struggles of different parties, should applaud the conduct of Robespierre, from an idea that she would be less miserable under a single tyrant. His new plan of religion, ridiculous as it was, gained him some adherents: but it must be evident to every reflecting mind, that Robespierre must have conceived himself at the head of the government, since he attempted to rebuild, whose sole object had hitherto been to destroy. It is impossible to conjecture how long his power might have continued had he spared his colleagues, and if he had not incited to resistance men, who, until then, had blindly executed his orders, and who desired nothing more than to continue to serve and obey him but in sacrificing the leaders of the revolationary government, Robespierre sought a support in the moderate party. This policy ruined him those whose destruction he had meditated occasioned his downfal. 1 Danger, however, inspired him with courage. From the 10th of June, Ruamps and Bourdon de l'Oise in particular, had expressed some distrust of the committee of |