were as well satisfied with our theatrical representations, as with the declamations from the tribune. The women were delighted that there had never been a single victim in our little town, and that we performed comedies; I believe, indeed, that at that period there were very few communes of which they could say so much good.

"But a storm from the higher regions was about to burst over our heads. Barras and Fréron were at Marseilles !

"Some months which had elapsed after my arrival at St. Maximin had been filled with the successes and crimes of the Jacobins. In September, Lyons had fallen; Collot d'Herbois and Fouché de Nantes, had courageously destroyed with grape-shot the vanquished population, and pulled down with French hands the finest edifices of the second town of France, which, forty years afterwards, was doomed to be again delivered up to the horrors of civil war. The army of General Čarteau, with whom was Napoléon, was besieging Toulon. The proscriptions of the suspected, organized more widely by the law of Merlin de Douai, extended over three hundred thousand citizens, and consigned them without mercy to the dictatorship of each of the communes.

"In October, Marie Antoinette was dragged to the scaffold in a tumbril, with her hands tied, in the midst of six hundred thousand Parisians, stupified and trembling before a handful of brigands.

"In November, the assassins deified themselves with their mock worship of reason; for that reason, which they endeavoured to substitute for the gospel, was but the idol bathed with human blood, which presided over their frantic orgies. The heads of the Girondins, of Bailli and Lavoisier, those worthy interpreters of true reason, were the first sacrifices of the new worship. Powerful members of the Convention traversed the departments to prevent the rage of the populace from cooling. Barras and Fréron were at Marseilles !

"Our little commune vainly hoped to escape from their lynx eyes. Some miserable denunciator had informed them that St. Maximin had not furnished the smallest repast for the guillotine, and that in the house of our suspected, open to the families of the prisoners, they were sufficiently calm to make a practice of amusing themselves with the charms of music. They immediately took the resolution of destroying such a scandal, and two familiars of the representative inquisition were charged to put us in the right road.

• In

"I was walking one day with the ex-monk, Epaminondas, when an old woman, whose son was among the suspected, ran towards us. the name of heaven,' she cried, citizen president, come and defend us! They are carrying off our children to Orange To Orange!' I exclaimed; and without an order from the committee! Let the tocsin be instantly sounded.' We returned to the town as fast as possible; and we encountered on our road numerous persons dispersed in the fields in search of me. The whole town was in an uproar; I renewed the order to sound the tocsin, which was instantly obeyed. I then convoked the popular society and the committee upon the place which was close to the house where the prisoners were confined, and I ran thither, accompanied by about a hundred persons. The prison was surrounded by an amazed crowd, who prevented us from seeing the door of entrance. They made way for us. Five or six carts were already there, filled with a part of our prisoners, chained together. A man, girt with a tricolored scarf and a hat and feathers, presided over the ceremony, surrounded by some gend'armes, and, accompanied by a secretary, beplumed like himself, was writing in his portfolio the names of the victims. The chief of the band was one of the familiars of Barras. I sprang before him. In the name of the law,' I cried, retire from hence! The revolutionary committee have not ordered any delivery of the prisoners. The popular society is

6

about to assemble; come there, and present your authority; and in the meantime let the suspected be replaced whence they were taken. Gend'armes, release the suspected.' The familiar, surprised at my audacity, attempted at first to frighten me with the names of those who sent him: he called me a ci-devant and a moderate, and endeavoured to continue his work. The gend'armes, who had already in the same way cleared out several prisons, acknowledged only the mission of their chief; and the names of club and committee, so powerful to kill and destroy, were too feeble to save. Fortunately, the tocsin had raised all the population. The relatives of the victims had regained courage at my words: several were armed. I profited by my advantages, and ordered the crowds to release the captives, and the delegates to follow me to the committee. In a few moments the suspected were in their chambers, and the doors of the house, well closed, were guarded by a numerous troop, who acknowledged only my orders. Thirty victims were thus saved, and thank God, I cared but little for the danger to which I had exposed myself with all my heart.

"The delegate of the representatives of the people was but a miscreant, who, I afterwards heard, had been one of the servants of Barras. He sought after these missions to provide for the guillotine; but he was not in order with his papers, and, fortunately for us, he was frightened. In the presence of the united committee I demanded his papers: he stammered and hesitated. Whether he had not got them, or whether he was afraid of compromising his master, whom we had in our turn menaced to denounce at Paris, he became pacified by degrees, and told us that he had been deceived. He said that he only acted from motives of pure patriotism, and according to the orders of the members of the Convention; that he had not got his papers about him, but that he depended upon us, and had nothing further to say, since the revolutionary committeee was presided over by a Corsican patriot, and the popular society had all agreed not to expedite any of the suspected to Orange. We received all his compliments, without confiding too much in them, when suddenly he decided upon going away: he would not even do us the honour to sleep at St. Maximin; and he disappeared with his alguazils. Among the suspected whom I had saved, were several members of the Rey family, one of the most respectable in the town; but it will be seen hereafter the recompense I received from a young man belonging to that family; but his conduct towards me did not prevent me from considering that day to be one of the happiest in my life.

"The end of that demagogical year was marked by the taking of Toulon. It was in 1793 that the genius of Napoléon was revealed to the French nation!!! But the tempest was destined to continue a length of time before a transient meteor of the social organization could arise upon the horizon, triumphant over every storm. The first months of 1793 beheld, on the contrary, the Jacobins redouble their atrocities; and Robespierre, the most cruel hypocrite, and greatest coward of them all, obtained an unlimited power. Some ardent imaginations have not hesitated to celebrate the praises of that man, and of his Couthon and St. Just: they have not even feared to insinuate that Robespierre was a patriotic victim, immolated by various conspirators more guilty than himself. They have mentioned that he fell, because he did not wish to proceed in the path of crime. These assertions are contradicted by facts. The revolutionary tribunal was never more active than during the last months of the power of that merciless tribune. Then were struck, with hasty blows, all those whom birth, fortune, or talents, distinguished from the crowd. In the month of April, Malesherbes, the most virtuous of men, was dragged to the scaffold at seventy-two years of age, in the same cart with his sister, his son-in-law, his daughter, his granddaughter,

and the husband of that young woman! Even the judges of Fouquier Tinville turned away their eyes at the aspect of the venerable old man. Robespierre, far from stopping, caused Lavoisier to be condemned (in May) a few days after Malesherbes; and, that he might have nothing to envy the most savage tyrants, he dared to sacrifice the honour of her sex, the angel who bore upon earth the name of Elizabeth. Robespierre was then at his apotheosis of power. Because he afterwards decimated his accomplices, and because he struck at Danton and his partisans, was he for that reason to be considered more excusable? Blood cannot wash away blood. And as for his festival of the Supreme Being,—what else was it but a contempt for the religion of all Frenchmen, and a denial of the gospel? Blood was not sufficient for the incorruptible! He desired even to thrust his sacrilegious hands into the very depths of our conscience. No, so many crimes can never be comprised in the philosophical sentiment of indulgence. We should strike them, each and every one of us, with a universal anathema, especially when those horrible names have lately resounded as a rallying signal in the ears of France and of dismayed Europe.

"The brother of Robespierre, after the capture of Toulon, had been sent as commissary to the army of the Alps. Napoléon was considered as the hero of that memorable siege, and was appointed general of brigade: he was at Nice, where he commanded the artillery. His connexion with the army had brought about an intimacy with the young Robespierre, who appreciated him. It appears that the ruler of the Convention had been informed of the uncommon talents of the conqueror of Toulon, and that he was desirous of replacing the commandant of Paris, Henriot, whose incapacity began to tire him. Here is a fact which I witnessed.

"My family owed to the promotion of Napoléon a more prosperous situation. To be nearer to him, they had established themselves at the Château Sallé, near Antibes, a few miles distant only from the headquarters of the general; I had left St. Maximin to pass a few days with my family and my brother. We assembled together, and the general gave us every moment that was at his own disposal. He arrived one day more pre-occupied than usual, and, while walking between Joseph and myself, he announced to us that it depended upon himself to set out for Paris the next day, and to be in a position by which he could establish us all advantageously. . . For my part, the news enchanted me. To go to the great capital appeared to be the height of felicity, that nothing could overweigh. They offer me,' said Napoléon, the place of Henriot. I am to give my answer this evening. Well, what say you to it?' We hesitated a moment. Eh! eh!' rejoined the general; ‘but it is worth the trouble of considering: it is not a case to be enthusiastic upon; it is not so easy to save one's head at Paris as at St. Maximin. The young Robespierre is an honest fellow; but his brother is not to be trifled with: he will be obeyed. Can I support that man? No, never. I know how useful should be to him in replacing his simpleton of a commandant of Paris; but it is what I will not be. It is not yet time; there is no place honourable for me at present but the army. We must have patience: I shall command Paris hereafter! Such were the words of Napoléon. He then expressed to us his indignation against the reign of terror, of which he announced the approaching downfall: he finished by repeating several times, half gloomy, half smiling, What should I do in that galley?' The young Robespierre solicited him in vain. A few weeks after, the 9th Thermidor arrived, to deliver France, and justified the foresight of the general. If Napoléon had taken the command of Henriot, on which side would have been the victory? . . . Ten days before the 9th Thermidor, the defection of Paoli had been consummated.

his error.

A general parliament, under his presidence, offered to the King of England the title of King of Corsica, which was accepted; but with which the English were not contented. Paoli soon suffered the punishment of Those whom he had called, desired to reign in the island where his presence rendered every other domination than his impossible. There was, therefore, a perpetual struggle between them. What regrets must he not have suffered in his last days! For he lived a sufficient time to behold that France, which he had abandoned, arise from the abyss into which she had fallen. He lived long enough to behold the victories and the accession to the consulate of that son of Charles, whose head he had proscribed."

The following is the account of the Prince's arrival in Paris, and of the state of affairs there at that period.

"I arrived in the great capital a few days after the opening of the legislative councils, which I entered three years after. I found my brother in high favour with the Directory. It was through his influence that I was appointed commissary of war to the army of Moreau; which I joined, after having remained a month at Paris. During this month's stay, I beheld everything on the bright side. French society, restored to ideas of true liberty and public order, appeared to me the more admirable, when I compared them with the convulsions of jacobinism, and with the reaction of the royalism of the south, of which I had nearly become the victim. I assisted frequently at the sittings of the councils, which made me take a disgust to the functions that I had hitherto been happy to obtain. I would willingly have renounced them all not to have been distant from the public tribunes; but I was obliged to depart for Munich, Brussels, and Holland, where I went in turn during the course of the year 1796, to execute an employment, ill or well, in which I occupied myself with less ardour than in reading the political journals and pamphlets. Until that period my sentiments had not kept pace with the prevailing opinion; but I then found it accorded with my own. last, I said to myself, is a republic! The division of power is a guarantee of our liberty. At the general quarters of the armies, I was very fond of making speeches, and frequently got into quarrels with the jacobins or the royalists. Soon the glory of Napoléon, who had just terminated in a few days his first campaign of Italy-that wonderful glory covered me with its brilliancy; my chief paid me a great deal of attention, and they excused both my indolence in my administration, and my eternal discussions. I obtained the friendship of the general-in-chief, Tilly, who commanded at Brussels, and that of the excellent General Eble, commandant of the artillery at Malines, with whom I remained above a year. The last, above all, was an honest and sincere republican, and agreed perfectly with me in my sentiments; we were strictly united in friendship. We thought the republic was established by the new constitution; the hatred with which it inspired the two extreme factions was its highest commendation.

Here at

"These impressions of my youth may have left me some prejudices; I owe to them, perhaps, an erroneous opinion upon the directorial régime; but I still wish to think that the régime was not so bad, and that, if the different factions would have yielded to it, the great republic was founded upon a solid basis. As I have nothing to say of myself that merits public attention, having been, until 1798, out of all political employment, I may be permitted to speak of my opinions. Those opinions of 1796 and 1797, have been confirmed by succeeding events; and, notwithstanding all the ill that has been said of the directorial constitution, I think now, as I did then, that a good Frenchman, and a reasonable

man, might be a sincere partisan of a republic founded upon so good a legislative basis. If, notwithstanding these bases, the constitution could not resist the internal convulsions and military reverses, it is only to the relative weakness of an executive power, too moveable, to which it must be attributed; and also with a small portion of good fortune in 1798, and less violence among the parties, the directorial régime might have completed the revolution, and perfected it by gradual and pacific ameliorations. This assertion will, without doubt, appear difficult to reconcile with the 18th Brumaire. Yet, notwithstanding, the 18th Brumaire, properly considered, fully confirms it. It is what I hope to develope in the course of these Memoirs.

"The directorial republican constitution offered more guarantees for public order than the monarchy of 1791. Let us compare the bases of the two codes. As for the code of 1793, which separates them, it was but a senseless democracy, inapplicable to a great nation.

"In 1791 the sovereign or legislative power was concentrated in a single body, which was to be renewed every two years.

"In 1795 the sovereign power was divided into two bodies, of which the fifth part was to be renewed every year.

"Now the concentration of the sovereign power in one individual or in a body,-what is it, then, but despotism?

"The frequent and complete renewal of the individual or of the body, in which the sovereign power is deposited,-what else is it but anarchy ?

"The constitution of 1791 was a confessed medley of the principles of despotism and anarchy. It only displaced despotism or legislative unity. It exchanged an hereditary master for a biennial master. The new master was more absolute than the old; for there were no longer either parliament, or noblesse, or clergy, or provincial states to oppose him. On the other side, the biennial renewal of this absolute Sovereign incessantly brought the whole in question. Every two years, we might pass from a republic to a monarchy, and from a monarchy to a republic; there only needed for this a sudden transport of enthusiasm, or a decree wrested by fear. What a state of society! The assembly, called the Constituent, had not then constituted anything. It had worthily proclaimed the principles of liberty, of civil equality, and universal toleration, noble and holy inheritance that we owe to it; but it had erred completely in the application. It was an assembly of philosophers rather than an assembly of legislators. And was it to be wondered at? How, at the first step, could it attain its end, in that arduous career, where the history of the world only signalizes five or six names for the admiration of posterity? For the task which that assembly had given itself (forgetting the limits of its mandates) was absolute: Entirely to renew a social order!... Solon and Lycurgus were very far from having so great a task to fulfil. And they had passed a long life in meditating upon what we were expected to perform at once. The constituent assembly had for antecedents only the theories of Rousseau, of Montesquieu, and of other great writers, the example of England, and that more recent one of America. But its work answered only those antecedents in its immortal preface, the declaration of rights: as for the book itself, its deplorable influence was and must remain in an inverse sense to the intention of its authors.

"The executive power, formed by the constituent assembly, had the wisdom to retain, even after the flight of Louis XVI. to Varennes, the unity of that power and its succession; but it had overturned, in its impetuous course, all the defenders of royalty. It placed then a throne without a basis and without support, before a sovereign all-powerful, and changing continually. It left to that shadow of a king neither the pro