ings of the various personages of his narra- "History of the Girondins." The charactive in imaginary speeches, which he puts ters and fortunes of the particular body of into their mouths. In some instances an men known by that appellation in no resordinary acquaintance with the history of pect form the sole or even principal subject the Revolution exposes inaccuracies which of the work. No especial pains are devoted are not to be attributed to any bias or mis- to the elucidation of their policy and posiconception, but to sheer carelessness. But tion. Instead of being brought into a more even with these very serious defects, this prominent position from that which they work remains a most valuable contribution have occupied in previous histories, or being to our knowledge of the Revolution. Im-invested with any peculiar interest, they are perfect as a history, it is a striking and thrown rather more into the back-ground, instructive historical study. It brings be- and, if anything, deprived of their real imfore us that most stirring and important portance and consideration. The existence period with a clearness and vividness that of their party does not even mark the chroall previous descriptions, except some of nological limits of the work. The narrative Carlyle's, have failed to realize: it presents commences before their rise, and is conus on the same page with distinct, highly- tinued long after their disappearance. It finished sketches of the principal actors, might with much more propriety be called and with a careful and deliberate judgment a History of Robespierre than of the Gironon the causes, the nature, and consequences dins; but it would most accurately be of the events. These are the objects at described as the "History of the Rise of the which the author has evidently aimed; and French Republic." It comprises the pehe has, in our opinion, attained them with riod commencing with the establishment of greater success than any other writer on the the Constitution of 1791; continuing Revolution. Skill and power in the repre- through the various occurrences that led to sentation of remarkable scenes and incidents the downfall of that Constitution, the was an excellence which M. de Lamartine's foundation of a Republic in its place, the descriptive powers gave us reason to anti- struggles of factions in the Convention, the cipate and, he has combined this excel- gradual consolidation of power in the hands lence with more discrimination and justice of the Committee of Public Safety; and in his estimate of characters and events than we were prepared for. Though occasionally too apt to judge one man somewhat too harshly, or to elevate another into a species of imaginary hero-though often bewildered by the vastness of the subject, or misled by his own ardent temperament M. de Lamartine seems to us on the whole to have brought to the consideration of the Revolution a more candid spirit and more wholesome sympathies, than any preceding writer. It is a great and rare merit in a Frenchman writing on that subject in the present day, to be able on the one hand to appreciate the grandeur and justice of the Revolution without silencing the suggestions of human feeling and the simple dictates of morality: and on the other to give full scope to pity and justice towards individuals without allowing those sentiments to abate the ardor of his sympathy with that succession of efforts by which, at an immense cost of personal suffering and wrong, the safety and happiness of a great people were secured. The period comprised in these eight volumes is the most eventful period of the Revolution. The author selected an incorrect designation when he called his work a closing with the fall of Robespierre. After this begins the second period: which may properly be designated as that of the Decline and Fall of the Republic. The narrative of this period is prefaced by a review of the state of affairs at its commencement, and an account of some events which immediately preceded the adoption of the Constitution of 1791, and determined its fate, even before it came into being. The death of Mirabeau in the April of that year deprived France of the only statesman who possessed the capacity to guide his country through the Revolution, and enjoyed the amount of public confidence, which is an equally necessary condition for success. We cannot concur with M. de Lamartine, that the energies and utility of Mirabeau were exhausted: and that his efforts to give stability to the new institutions of his country must have failed. Whatever may be said of popular fickleness and of the ephemeral nature of revolutionary reputations, the first want of the public is a leader: and, when a man of Mirabeau's genius had actually been accepted by the people as its habitual leader, a moral power had been created which might, perhaps, have arrested or diverted even the movement of the French Revolu- | to the end of his career, one constant purtion. His death left the Assembly in a pose, the resolution of realizing the ideas state of disorganization, which continued of social and political change, which that during the remaining months of its exist- daring speculator had shadowed forth. To ence. Among the various subordinate this the ultimate limit of the Revolution, orators to whom the removal of their chief and of the then thoughts of men, he steadily gave a momentary superiority, the fore-looked, and steadily advanced without ever most place fell to the amiable and pure- swerving, pausing, or faltering His chaminded Barnave, who, without any of racter was not of the kind that enabled him the qualities of a statesman, possessed the actively to propel the movement in any of merit of a clear and effective style of speak- its various stages: still, no step was taken ing. in advance, but he was seen moving yet mind to some more distant point. At the further onwards, and urging the public period of which we now speak, he was only beginning to be of importance. He and Petion, another disciple of the "Contrat Social," an unsuccessful lawyer, but vigorous, sincere, and of a handsome exterior, and fitted to play the part of a popular leader, were at the head of a small extreme politicians: though without influence in the Assembly, they were already in possession of considerable strength from their credit with the Jacobins and the mob. "Still in the shade and in the rear of the leaders of the National Assembly, a man almost unknown began to bestir himself, moved by unquiet thoughts that seemed to forbid him silence and repose on every occasion he tried to speak, and attacked every speaker indifferently, even Mirabeau. Hurled from the tribune, he mounted it again the next day : humbled by sarcasms, stifled by murmurs, disavowed by all parties, lost to sight amid the great athletes who fixed the public attention, he was ever beaten, never wearied. You might have said that some secret and prophetic genius revealed to him beforehand the vanity of all these talents, the omnipotence of will and patience, and that a voice heard by him alone whispered to him in his soul, These men who despise thee are thine; all the windings of this Revolution, which does not choose to look at thee, will end in thee; for thou art placed in its path as the inevitable extreme in which every impulse ends.' That man was Robespierre." group of The flight of the Royal Family to Varennes followed the death of Mirabeau, and was probably occasioned, or at any rate accelerated by it. The various details of this interesting story are narrated with exciting circumstantiality: and the attention of the reader is not unwisely riveted on an incident second in importance to none of the Nothing in Robespierre's exterior gave strange events by which it is surrounded. any indication of the superiority which he The flight to Varennes exercised the most was destined to command; there was direct and serious influence on the subsenothing even to attract the attention of the quent course of the Revolution. The atobserver. His appearance is described as tempt, its failure, and the mistaken course that of a short, slight, ill-made man, with adopted with respect to it by the Assembly, awkward and affected gestures,-a harsh, were fatal alike to constitutional momouthing, monotonous tone of voice,-anarchy, and to the peaceful establishment small, rather handsome forehead, swelling of republican institutions. As regarded out above the temples, as if pressed out by the King personally, the whole transaction force of eager thought,-deep-set blue eyes, was justly destructive of all further trust in of a somewhat gentle but unsteady expres- him. How far the precariousness of the sion, half hidden under his eyelids,-a position, in which his family were placed, small nose and open nostrils, a large excuses the step on private grounds, it is mouth, with thin contracted lips, and an unnecessary to inquire. These were not unhealthy yellow complexion. The ex- points which the people of France could pression of his face was mild, with some-appreciate. They saw the King, in the thing of a serious calmness, and a sarcastic midst of professions of attachment to the smile. But the predominant characteristic of his countenance was the constant eager tension of his features, as if all the energies of his whole soul and frame were always vehemently bent on some one object. And this was the fact. For, passionately devoted to the system of Rousseau, Robespierre had ever before him, from the outset new order of things, suddenly quit his capital, and endeavor to place himself at the head of that portion of his army which was least well-affected to the Revolution, and in the position in which he could most easily avail himself of the support of the foreign powers and emigrants. In all this they naturally saw proofs of his irreconcile able repugnance to the changes which were and proceeded to provide for the vacancy taking place, and a readiness to resist of the throne. They might, as M. de Lathem, even at the cost of civil war and martine thinks they should have done, have foreign intervention. Thenceforth the established the Republic at once: avenues to public confidence were closed on him and he became by inevitable conse-blished by the Assembly acting in the exercise of "The Republic, had it then been legally estaquence incapable of retaining to any useful its rights, and in full possession of power, would end the position of a constitutional mo- have been quite other than the Republic which narch. nine months afterwards was the perfidious and atrocious conquest of the insurrection of the 10th of August. It would have been exposed, no doubt, to the agitation inseparable from the birth escaped the disasters natural to a country in its of a new order of things. It would not have first movements, when frenzied by the very magnitude of its dangers. But it would have been the child of law, instead of sedition of right, instead of violence; of deliberation instead of insurrection. This alone would have changed the untoward have been stirring; but it might have remained conditions of its existence and its future. It must pure. "See what an entire change would have been made by the one fact of its having been legally and deliberately proclaimed. There would have been no 10th of August: the fraud and tyranny of the commune of Paris, the massacre of the guards, the attack on the palace, the king's flight to the loaded, and lastly, his imprisonment in the TemAssembly, the outrages with which he was there Happy had it been for both King and people, had the former accomplished his purpose, and succeeded in reaching the camp of Bouillé. The spirit of the French army at that period negatives the supposition that the King could have detached any considerable portion of it from the national cause, or maintained his ground in any part of France. He would have been compelled to quit his dominions; and when once a fugitive, the forfeiture of his crown would have been admitted by all the world to be a matter of obvious necessity; the Duke of Brunswick's army, instead of deriving strength from his presence, would have had in his weakness merely an additional element of confusion in councils, not very vigorous at their best; while the new executive go-ple, would all have been avoided. The Republic vernment of France would have been re- would not have killed a king, a queen, an innolieved from all trammels and all suspicions. cent child, and a virtuous princess. It would have The jealousies and conflicts of the follow- had no massacres of September, that St. Bartholoing year would, in this case, have had no mew of the people, which for ever stains the robe existence. The populace would never have of liberty. It would not have been baptized with the blood of 300,000 victims. It would not have been unloosed and organized for success-placed the people's axe in the hands of a revoluful revolt. At any rate, its barbarous tionary tribunal, to be used by it to immolate an vengeance would not have been infuriated entire generation in order to make room for an idea. by the blood of royal victims, and France would have been spared all the disgrace and all the disorder that flowed from the fountain of that useless crime. The Girondins, coming pure into power, would have had much more strength to combat the demagogues. The Republic, calmly established, would have awed Europe in a very different manner from War might have been avoided; or, if inevitable, a riot, authorized by murder and assassination. would have been more unanimous and triumphant. Our generals would not have been massacred by their soldiers amid cries of treachery. The popular spirit would everywhere have fought on our side, and the horror excited by our days of August, September, and January, would not have to them by our doctrines: and thus would a single repelled from our standards the nations attracted change in the origin of the Republic have changed the fate of the Revolution."—(Vol. I., p. 320.) Unfortunately, the adverse fates-the unlucky blunders of the Duc de Choiseul, and the perverse acuteness and energy of Drouet, frustrated these desirable results. All might have been well if the royal carriage had completed two more stages in security. Indeed the Constituent Assembly, had it then been equal to the crisis, would have deliberately secured the results which had been missed by chance. Instead of bringing back the King to Paris, and disguising the real character of his flight, Undoubtedly, if the experiment of a by pretending to consider it as an abduc- republic were a matter of necessity, it tion, they should have preferred the fiction, would have been far better that it should which was consecrated by the example of have been tried under the circumstances the English Revolution on the absconding desired by M. de Lamartine. But it seems of James the Second-they should have to us that the Assembly, by boldly declartreated the flight as an abdication-com-ing the throne vacant on the occasion of the pelled the royal family to leave the country King's flight to Varennes, might have given stances, the Constituent Assembly separated; and the Legislative Assembly, composed of an entirely fresh set of men, utterly inexperienced in public affairs, entered, in conjunction with this incapable, discredited, and alienated king, on the management of affairs, and the government of France. the Constitution of 1791 a fair chance of stability. If the young dauphin had been placed on the throne, the popular leaders might have wielded the executive power under the name of a regency, and have gradually fashioned the monarchy to work harmoniously under the new constitution. Or, the crown might have been transferred to the younger branch of the royal family; and in this case the undoubted popular sympathies of the Duke of Orleans would probably have rendered his exercise of the constitutional powers of the monarchy endurable to the people, because compatible with the maintenance of the changes effect-young lawyers from the city of Bordeaux, ed by the Revolution. which its commercial wealth, the legal body Among the new characters who now appeared on the political stage, there was one particular body of men, which had been preceded by a great, though vague reputation, for ability. These were the deputies of the Department of the Gironde, chiefly lar opinions, and were eagerly sought out by the public men who aspired to consideration. Buzot, Petion, Brissot, and other ardent advocates of republican doctrines, already constituted a circle, which three or four times in every week collected round Roland and his distinguished wife. To this society the deputies of the Gironde attached themselves; and similarity of opinions and social communication speedily formed out of these materials the nucleus of a political party, to which the eminence of these deputies gave the name of Girondins. Of this party Brissot was the statesman who directed its general policy; while Petion, who had now attained the influential office of Mayor of Paris, was its man of action and practical experience. Which of these courses would have com-attached to its parliament, and the influmanded the public assent can now only be ence of its successive eminent writers, had matter of speculation. We agree with M. combined to render the centre of considerade Lamartine, that the course taken by the ble refinement, intelligence, and activity. Assembly was the very worst of all that On arriving at Paris, they naturally formed lay before it. To confer the royal preroga-the acquaintance of other deputies of simitive on a king who had just declared, by his words and acts, his entire alienation from his people, and his disaffection to free institutions, was simply to render monarchy and the new constitution impossible. The step, though dictated by some surviving respect and regard for Louis, was, in truth, the most cruel act that could have been done towards him. "It crowned him," says our author, "with suspicion and insult-it nailed him to the throne, and made that throne the instrument of his torture, and finally of his death." On the other hand, at this period the King might yet have saved himself. "On his return from Varennes, he should have abdicated. The Revolution would have adopted his son, and brought him up in its own likeness. He did not abdicate-he submitted to receive a pardon from his people-he swore to execute a constitution from which he had run away—he was a pardoned king. Europe looked on him thenceforth only as a fugitive from the throne brought back to his punishment, the nation as a traitor,and the Revolution as a puppet." M. de Lamartine has evidently no great opinion of Brissot, whom he describes as a needy literary adventurer, who had not passed quite unsoiled through the necessities and intrigues of his early life. But, the vague imputations, which are thus cast on the integrity of Brissot, are repelled by the respect which was felt for him by the Brought back a prisoner, amid the exe- purest of his party, and which Madame crations of his people, the King, after some Roland expresses in her memoirs as the weeks of confinement in his palace, and an result of an intimate knowledge of him; entire abeyance of his prerogatives, was and by the steadiness and honesty of his restored to liberty, in order to enable him conduct throughout the period during which to give a free assent to the Constitution. it was most exposed to the public eye. He He gave that assent, figured in the cere- was well-informed, industrious and bold. mony of the inauguration, swore to the Nevertheless, though a respectable memConstitution, and was immediately placed ber, he was a very weak head of party. in the unrestricted exercise of all the powers His views were confused, his system illit vested in him. Under these circum-considered and incomplete, his conduct singularly unskilful, and the influence | justified by the reports of his speeches which he undoubtedly possessed in his par- that have reached us. ty was one of the first and surest presages and causes of its ill-success. Obscure, unknown, modest, without any prethree of his colleagues from the South in a little sentiment of his own greatness, he lodged with lodging of the Rue des Jeuneurs, and afterwards in a retired house in a suburb surrounded by the gardens of Tivoli. His letters to his family are filled with the humblest details of domestic man watches his least expenses with a strict economy. Another striking member of the new party was Fauchet, the constitutional Bishop of Calvados. M. de Lamartine is eloquent in his description of the true and generous character and commanding aspect of the Republican, who, in his zeal for his politi-agement. He can scarcely contrive to live. He cal creed, never swerved from his Christian faith. Isnard, one of the deputies of Provence, was one of the most brilliant of the orators of the new assembly, and certainly one of the least wise. "He had ever in his mind the ideal of a Gracchus: he had the courage of one in his heart, and the tone in his voice. Still very young, his eloquence boiled like his blood: his speech was the fire of passion, colored by the imagination of the South: his words burst out like quick throbbings of impatience. He was the ardor of the Revolution personified. The Assembly followed him out of breath, and reached his excitement before it arrived at his conclusions. His speeches were magnificent odes, which elevated discussion into poetry, and enthusiasm into convulsion; his gestures belonged rather to the tripod than the tribune: he was the Danton, as Vergniaud was the Mirabeau, of the Gironde." (Vol. I., p. 271.) "All these private communications between breathe simplicity, tenderness of heart, and home. Vergniaud, his sister, and his brother-in-law, The roots of the public man spring out of a soil of pure morality. No trace of factious feeling, of republican fanaticism, of hatred to the King, discover themselves in the innermost feelings of Vergniaud. He speaks of the Queen with tenderness, of Louis XVI. with pity. The equivocal conduct of the King,' he writes in June, 1792, increases our danger and his own. They assure me that he comes to-day to the Assembly. If he does not pronounce himself in a decisive manner he is bringing himself to some sad catastrophe. Many an effort will have to be made to plunge in oblivion so many false steps, which are looked descending from his pity for the King to his own on as so many treasons.' And a little further, domestic situation, I have no money,' he writes, my old creditors in Paris dun me; I pay them a little every month: rents are high; it is impossible for me to pay for everything.' This young man, who with a gesture crushed a throne, scarce knew where to lay his head in the empire which he was shaking." The famous triumvirate of the Gironde, as they were called, were three young advocates who had been elected deputies of Bordeaux. The least conspicuous and effective, as an orator, was Gensonné, to whose calm, just frame of mind, and patient industry, his party were in the habit of confiding the task of drawing up reports and similar documents. "An unbending logic, a bitter and cutting irony, were the two characteristics of Gensonné's talents.' A far more effective speaker was Guadet, who, at a very early age, had acquired a high position in his profession. His vehement eloquence carried away the Assembly; of all his party he was the most dreaded by the Court and the Mountain. But the He had been brought up at a Jesuit colrenown of these competitors was at once lege, at the expense of Turgot, who was eclipsed by the indisputable superiority of then Intendant of the Limousin; had been Vergniaud, whom the unanimous opinion of intended for the church, from which he his contemporaries recognised as the most shrank at the last moment, and went to brilliant of all the orators of the Revolu- Bordeaux to study the law, at the expense tion. In this respect the admiration of of his brother-in-law and the president Duthose who belonged to his party is support-paty, who became his zealous patron. His ed by the opinion of Madame de Stael, a early efforts were crowned with success. most competent judge, whose political opinions were adverse to the Girondins, and is VOL. XIII. No. II. 15 "Scarcely has he made a little by his profession |