dent of science and had written a number of works, some of which had been translated into German. But he was of a quarrelsome temper, and extremely unpopular among scientific men from the unsparing character of his criticisms. His inspiring passion seems to have been pity for the poor, and consequent hatred of the bourgeoisie and Royalists, which rose to a point of pitiless frenzy and made him a chief promoter of the violent deeds of the Commune. Perhaps his most marked characteristic was suspicion, and it was one which met but too well the temper of the time. His position was largely owing to his journalistic skill, as shown in the Ami du Peuple. It is remarkable that he, as well as Danton and Robespierre, took a decided stand at the outset against a foreign war.

Marat worked himself into a perfect rage on the subject of the war, and regarded it as an infamous conspiracy on the part of the bourgeois Constitutionalists and the Royalists to oppress the poor of the country. Like all men of statesmanlike mind, he clearly perceived the course events would take. He prophesied that disasters on the part of the French army would be followed by the overthrow of royalty and the destruction of those who hoped for foreign help in Paris. He also declared that an unsuccessful war - and how could it be otherwise than unsuccessful with an army in a state of disorganization? — would cause disasters, and afterwards the formation of a strong government. He echoed the cry of Mirabeau and Danton, "Strength is what we want, not a governor." And he proposed that a dictator should be appointed with supreme power for a few days, in which to destroy all traitors at home and vigorously carry on the war abroad. At this bold yet statesmanlike idea the other journalists cried out that Marat wished to make himself, or, at other times, wished to make one of his friends, Robespierre or Danton, a tyrant or a king. But Marat answered, "Men who are freely given sovereignty are not the men who become tyrants, but the men who seize sovereignty for themselves."1

Danton was a far nobler character. Born in 1759, he was but thirty-five at the time of his death. He came to Paris in 1780, married the daughter of a tax official in good circumstances, and made an affectionate husband.

1 Stephens, op. cit., Vol. II., Chap. III.

He bought, as was then the custom, a prominent legal position and gained a lucrative practice. If the moving passion of Marat was pity, that of Danton was patriotism. In April, 1791, he gave up his profession and sold his office, abandoning a certain future, at once honorable and remunerative, to devote himself to public affairs and the Revolution, which he saw involved a total renewal of the social order. Less of his speeches are preserved than of many others, because almost alone among the public men of the time he spoke extemporaneously. At first opposed to the war, he afterwards threw himself into it with energy. Far from being bloodthirsty he was of a humane disposition, but he saw that energy was the one most important thing, and that inspiring fear was the only possible way of arriving at the despotic rule which was necessary to bring the war and the Revolution to success. It was he who chiefly planned the attack on the Tuileries on the 10th of August, 1792, but it seems to be admitted that he did not encourage, though as Minister of Justice he must in a measure be held responsible for, the massacres of September. The character of the man is strongly indicated by certain passages from his speeches. "What do I care for reputation! Let France be free and my name disgraced." "Rather a hundred times be the guillotined than the guillotiner." "I would embrace my enemy for my country, to whom I would give my body to be devoured." And to those who advised him to seek safety in flight, "Fly! can one carry away his country on the soles of his shoes?"

Danton, immediately after the fall of the Girondins, had thrown himself with extraordinary energy into the work to be done. The first great task in a great city so agitated by anarchical ferment had been to set up a strong central authority. In this genuinely political task Danton was prominent. He was not a member of the Committee of Public Safety when that body was renewed in the shape that speedily made its name so redoubtable all over the world. This was

the result of a self-denying ordinance which he had imposed upon himself. It was he who proposed that the powers of the committee should be those of a dictator, and that it should have copious funds at its disposal. In order to keep himself clear of any personal suspicion he announced his resolution not to belong to the body which he had thus done his best to make supreme in the State. His position during the autumn of 1793 was that of a powerful supporter and inspirer from without of the government which he had been foremost in setting up. Danton was not a great practical administrator and contriver, like Carnot, for instance. But he had the gift of raising in all who heard him an heroic spirit of patriotism and fiery devotion, and he had a clear eye and a cool judgment in the tempestuous emergencies which arose in such appalling succession. His distinction was that he accepted the revolutionary forces instead of blindly denouncing them as the Girondins had done. After these forces had shaken down the throne and then, by driving away the Girondins, had made room for a vigorous government, Dantou perceived the expediency of making all haste to an orderly state. Energetic prosecution of the war and gradual conciliation of civil hatreds had been the two marks of his policy ever since the fall of the monarchy. The first of these objects was fulfilled abundantly, partly owing to the energy with which he called for the arming of the whole nation against its enemies. His whole mind was now given to the second of them. But the second of them, alas, was desperate.1

Danton fell a victim to the rivalries of the Commune, the Committees, and the Convention largely because he failed to exert in his own behalf that energy which he had so lavishly put forth in the cause of his country.

Robespierre, like Danton, of whom he was the senior by a year, was bred to the law and achieved success by his own efforts. In early life he had resigned a position as judge rather than pronounce a sentence of death. In the elections of 1789 he took the lead in drawing up the cahier, or table of grievances, of the province of Artois, secured the support of the country electors, and, though just past thirty years of age, poor and without influence, he was elected fifth deputy for the province of Artois to the States-General. If the moving passion of Marat was pity,

1 Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Danton."

and that of Danton patriotism, that of Robespierre was in the social theories of Rousseau. Mirabeau said of him, "That young man will go far. He believes what he says."

Without the courage and wide tolerance which make a statesman, without the greatest qualities of an orator, without the belief in himself which marks a great man, nervous, timid, and suspicious, Robespierre yet believed in the doctrines of Rousseau with all his heart, and would have gone to death for them; and in the belief that they would eventually succeed and regenerate France and mankind, he was ready to work with unwearied patience.1

His personal qualities gained for him success at the Jacobin club.

His fanaticism won for him supporters; his singularly sweet and sympathetic voice gained him hearers, and his upright life attracted the admiration of all. His private life was always respectable; he was always emphatically a gentleman and man of culture, and even a little bit of a dandy. In 1792 he had indignantly thrown from his head a red cap which one of his admirers had placed upon it; he had never pandered to the depraved tastes of the mob by using their language, and to the last day of his life he wore knee breeches and silk stockings, and had his hair powdered. Scrupulously honest, truthful, and charitable in his habits and manner of life, he was simple and laborious. He was not a man gifted with flashes of genius, but one who had to think much before he came to a decision, and he worked hard all his life.2

It should be added that he was distinctly of a religious temperament, and set his face against the atheistic tendencies of the time. The effect of this appeared in his "Feast of the Supreme Being," which furnished the element of ridicule that contributed to his fall. It has a deep significance that such a man as this should have held the foremost place in the Paris Commune and the Jacobin club, and have outlived all his leading competitors for power. It is difficult to understand how his audience of fifteen hundred at the Jacobins' could have 2 Ibid.

1 Ibid., article "Robespierre."

sat through his long and elaborate harangues, which, though not without literary merit, are prosy, smelling of the lamp, and stuffed with classical allusions. The secret probably was that he was putting into logical form what these fifteen hundred felt and believed. One is reminded of the Scotch Covenanters listening for hours to the sermons of their divines, based on the fierce theology of the Old Testament.

Although Robespierre was elected a member of the Committee of Public Safety, yet the majority, who were men of action, despised more than they feared him, as did Danton, and were entirely free from his influence. It is necessary to dwell upon the fact that Robespierre was always in a minority in the great committee in order to absolve him from the blame of being the inventor of the enormities of the Terror, as well as to deprive him of the glory of the gallant stand made against European arms. The Terror was the embodiment of the idea of Danton, that it was necessary to resort to extreme measures to keep France united and strong at home in order to meet successfully her enemies upon the frontier. The idea was systematized by the Committee of Public Safety without much consideration as to who were to be the victims. With the actual organization of the Terror Robespierre had little or nothing to do; its two great engines, the revolutionary tribunal, and the absolute power in the provinces of the representatives on mission, were in existence before he joined the committee. The reason why he is almost universally regarded as its creator, and the dominant spirit of the Committee of Public Safety, is not hard to discover. The active members were not conspicuous speakers in the Convention, nor were they the idols of any section of the populace, but Robespierre had a fanatical following among the Jacobins, and was admittedly the most popular orator in the Convention. His panegyrics