when he strips himself of it, and sells the little inheritance which he had got from his mother, to pay the debts of his late father. By the sacrifice of all he possesses he redeems his father's memory: he arrives in Paris almost in indigence. Boy. er-Fonfrède and Ducos of Bordeaux, his two friends receive him as a guest at their table, and under their roof. Vergniaud, careless of success, like all men who feel their own power, worked little, and trusted to the moment and to nature. His genius, unfortunately too fond of indolence, loved to slumber and give itself up to the carelessness of his age and disposition. It was necessary to shake him in order to waken him out of his which none of his features had in detail. His eloquence lit him up. The throbbing muscles of his eyebrows, temples, and lips shaped themselves according to the thought, that was in him, and made his countenance the thought itself: it was the transfiguration of genius. The time of Vergniaud was when he spoke the pedestal of his beauty was the tribune. When he had come down it vanished: the orator was no more than a mere man." (Vol. III., pp. 21-25.) The picture of the party would be incom youthful love of ease, and push him to the tri-plete without that of the beautiful, highbune or into council. With him as with the Orientals, there was no transition between idleness and heroism. Action hurried him away, but soon wearied him. He fell back into a reverie of genius. 66 Brissot, Guadet, Gensonné, dragged him to Madame Roland's. She did not find him manly or ambitious enough for her taste. His Southern habits, his literary tastes, his attraction towards a less imperious beauty, continually brought him back into the society of an actress of the Theatre Français, Madame Simon Candeille. He had mière.' written for her, under another name, some scenes of the drama then in vogue, of La Belle FerThis young woman, at once a poetess, writer, actress, displayed in this drama all the fascinations of her feelings, her talent, and her beauty. Vergniaud intoxicated himself with this life of art, of music, of declamation, and of pleasure he was eager to enjoy his youth, as if he had a foreboding that it would be soon cut short. His habits were meditative and idle. He rose in the middle of the day: wrote little, and on loose sheets with his paper on his knee, like a man in a hurry who makes the most of his time: he composed his speeches slowly in his reveries, and kept them in his memory by the help of notes: he polished his eloquence at leisure, as the soldier polishes his weapon when at rest. He wished his blows to be not only mortal, but brilliant he was as curious about their merits in point of art, as of their political efficiency. The stone launched, he left the recoil to fate, and gave him self up anew to indolence. He was not the man for every hour: he was a man for great days." Vergniaud was of middle size, and of a strong and vigorous make; his lips were somewhat thick, his eyes black and flashing, his forehead broad and open; and his long brown hair waved, like that of Mirabeau, with the motions of his head. His complexion was pale, and his face marked with the small-pox. "In a state of repose no one would have noticed this man in the crowd. He would have passed with the common herd, without offending or arresting the gaze. But when his soul beamed forth in his features like light on a bust, his countenance as a whole gained by its expression that ideal splendor and beauty minded, and accomplished woman, who was the social centre of the party, who inspired its most generous resolutions, who was its noblest martyr, whose pen has made it known and honored, and whose life and writings are the truest type of the state of mind in which the party had its origin. We shall not extract any portion of M. de Lamartine's narrative of a life, which the Memoirs of Mde. Roland have made familiar to every reader. We think that in some respects M. de Lamartine does her less than justice. He appears to have some disposition to attribute her republican vehemence to recollections of the mortifications which she had experienced, when insulted by aristocratic condescension, or contemplating from the attic, in which she visited her friend, the splendor of the Court of Versailles. The tone of Madame Roland's writings does not justify this harsh suspicion. She had the opinions and passions of her times and with the ardor of her character and her sex exaggerated her republican hopes, and her resentment against the imaginary crimes of kings. Such were the leading persons in the party of the Girondins,--a party destined to play a brief and brilliant part in the drama of the Revolution, to exhibit much of its greatness, to be involved in many of its most grievous errors, and in some of its crimes, to perish by an unjust death, and to suffer after death from the injustice of posterity. The modern historians of the Revolution, under the influence of a kind of superstitious veneration for its energy and vastness, have had a tendency more or less openly to extol those of the actors in it, who seem to have most entered into its spirit and propelled its progress, and who followed its course to its ultimate development with the most unfaltering constancy. The purity of the motives which actuated the Girondins in their struggle against anarchy, their generous sacrifice of power and life to the cause of their country and humanity, are acknowledged and praised, but at the expense of their intellect and vigor their unsuccessful efforts are treated as indicating feebleness of will and shallowness of thought; and we are taught to look on them with no less contempt than pity, as a host of declaimers, who were found wholly wanting in capacity to deal with the realities of political life. The general impression produced by M. de Lamartine's history is not at all calculated to raise the Girondins from this unjust depression. For unjust we must consider it. That they failed in the great endeavor to guide the Revolution, that they failed through great and culpable mistakes, their story clearly proves. They have no pretension to belong to that higher class of statesmen, who can comprehend the mind of a people when in a state of revolutionary ferment, can foresee the tendency of ideas and the course of events, and can by their wisdom and energy direct the great movement of mankind to the desired end. The crisis with which they had to deal was too vast for them. But we must not from that conclude, that they were puny men. Rare among the sons of men is the capacity that would have succeeded where they failed! They possessed in a high degree the qualities which give eminence and influence in free governments -an eloquence never surpassed, a soundness and largeness of views which experience would have gradually ripened into statesman-like ability, and the courage, probity, and generosity, that, by commanding respect, and inspiring confidence, raise men to be the leaders of their fellow-citizens. Though not gifted with such energy and genius as could bear them safely through the terrible crisis in which they were placed, we may confidently say, that few men in modern times have exhibited a fairer promise of the qualities which, in the ordinary course of settled government, best fit their possessors for the safe and useful conduct of affairs. The misfortune of the Girondins was, that, when they arrived in Paris, and suddenly found themselves the leading men in the legislature, which was to conduct twenty-five millions of men through a Revolution, the science of politics was practically unknown to them. What books could teach they had learned; but the institutions of their country had excluded them from all acquaintance with public business; and it unfortunately happened, that hardly one of them had, by his previous occupations, acquired any knowledge of the art of managing men. They shared that general indignation against the abuses of the old system of things which pervaded the whole heart of France; their minds, like those of most of their generation, were fraught with an enthusiastic reverence for the great men and institutions of the ancient republics; and they hoped so to direct the course of government and legislation, as, either under the newly established Constitution, or under openly republican forms, to secure to their countrymen the imagined blessings of democracy. They found no leaders to whom they could attach themselves. The prominent men of the late Assembly had almost disappeared from public life; nor were either Barnave or Lafayette, who were recognised as the founders and principal supporters of the new Constitution, competent to mould and inspire a party. The Girondins were left to their own guidance. New to public life, they had to bring new institutions into safe and steady operation, in a society torn to pieces by the violence of the changes already effected, and by the passions which the convulsion had excited. M. de Lamartine thinks that the original error of the Girondins was in not at once proclaiming the Republic on the meeting of the Legislative Assembly. It is only as the next best course to that, that he thinks they should have made a more determined and sincere effort to uphold the Constitution of 1791. The course suggested by M. de Lamartine would have been infinitely preferable to that actually taken by the Girondins. But we think that their first duty was, to make every effort to maintain the Constitution, which they found established; and that their great error was, in ever resorting to insurrectionary force to effect the subversion of the institutions to which the nation had given its assent. For we cannot think that the Constitution of 1791 was so utterly impracticable, but that prudence and vigor might have upheld it for some little time until the public mind should cool, and the amendments which experience might prove necessary could be calmly and safely applied. A single Chamber passing laws by a single vote, under the influence of any momentary influence, was not calculated to continue for any length of time the legislative institution of a great and civilized nation. While it lasted, it must have been turbu The only chance for the maintenance of the royal authority lay in placing it entirely at the disposal of the nation. The King should at once have waived the independ lent and democratic: but, the instant collision into which it was brought with the royal authority, recognised by the Constitution, might, it would seem, have been avoided, had the right use of the preroga-ent exercise of prerogatives, which he could tives vested in the Crown been understood not exert in opposition to the national will, and enforced. M. de Lamatine thinks without the downfall of the whole system. rightly that the direct cause of difficulty in He should have taken the ministers pointed the Constitution of 1791, lay not in the out by the dominant party in the Assemwant of power in the Crown, but in the bly; abstained, in conformity with the inKing's possessing an amount of authority variable practice of the English Constituincompatible with the other provisions of tion, from exercising the veto placed in his the Constitution. The legal independence hands; and laid the accounts of his civil of the other branches of the legislature, list before the Assembly. The just judgwhich is secured to the Executive by the ment of mankind would have relieved him letter of the British Constitution, would, if of all moral responsibility, for the formal asserted in fact, be fatal to the stability of acts done in pursuance of a deliberate reany mixed form of government. Since nunciation of powers, which could not be the establishment of parliamentary govern- freely exercised without compromising the ment in England, its compatibility with an public tranquillity. The whole present, as hereditary monarchy has been maintained well as future, responsibility of government by the recognition of the principle, that and legislation, would have been thrown on the ministers of the Executive must always the Assembly; and the executive authorbe taken from the party possessing the ac- ity, avowedly the prize of the conflict, and tual parliamentary majority. The power the instrument of the successful party, of the Crown is really upheld, not by its would have been removed beyond the poslegal authority of counteracting, but by all sibility of collision with the people. Free the influences which enable it to modify, the from reproach for all the ills that might will of parliament. Of that will, result- result from the mistakes or violence of facing from the conflict of all the various in- tions, the King might have preserved the fluences that determine its character, the existence of the monarchy; and when all executive government is and must be the parties had ultimately weakened and dispassive instrument. The democratic ele- credited each other, or any one of them ments of the Constitution of 1791 would had succeeded in establishing itself in have allowed the Crown to exercise but lit-power, might, in either event, have availed tle influence in the legislature; and the executive authority would necessarily have been the instrument of a very democratic government. But it would have been better that such should be the case than that anarchy should be inevitably produced by the conflict between the two independent wills of the Executive and the Legislature. The powers which the Constitution of 1791 vested in the King were quite sufficient to prove formidable obstacles to the power of the legislature. He possessed a suspensive veto on all its acts, which in the emergencies of a revolution and a war, was quite as effectual as a more complete authority. He was entrusted with the uncontrolled nomination of all the ministers, and of every officer of the civil and military service of the kingdom. He enjoyed He enjoyed a civil list of a million sterling, of which the disposal rested wholly in his pleasure. It was impossible that a free people and a sovereign legislature could long leave such powers in hostile, or even suspected hands. himself of the exhaustion of the nation, or of the restoration of order, to re-assert the rights and consolidate the power of the Crown. Unfortunately, the disposition of the Court induced the deposed monarch rather to avail himself of any fragment left him out of the wreck of his former authority, than, by wise concessions, to prepare for a future recovery of the whole. The picture which M. de Lamartine gives of the character, and his narrative of the conduct of this unhappy prince, leave such an impression of his extraordinary weakness, that, fearful as were the necessary perils of the Revolution, we cannot but feel that their fatal result was mainly to be ascribed to the incapacity of Louis. Meaning well, without a thought of vengeance or triumph, and sincerely desirous of the public good, his mere weakness produced the appearance, and even the actual effect, of the worst designs, and the deepest perfidy. With no notion of the state of affairs-no conception aided and precipitated the catastrophe. It is not too much to say, that they formed one long treason against the Constitution to which the King had sworn. Throughout, the King had two ministries, the one avowed and responsible to the nation; the other consisting of such men as Calonne and the Baron de Breteuil, who were organizing, under the King's auspices, the invasion of France by the emigrants and foreign powers, and thus fomenting the two main causes of the destruction of the mo of the course which he ought to adopt-he depended entirely on the suggestions of others. He took every body's advice: the worst parasites, the most open opponents, were in turn resorted to by him. Unable to discriminate between good and bad counsels, he followed one man's advice today, and held language in conformity with it; and the next day took the directly opposite course, and used language which gave a character of falsehood to the words which he had uttered the day before. No one could trust, no one could fix, and, conse-narchy. The emigration was the master quently, no one could effectually guide or serve him. Among all those who principally directed him, there was not, as M. de Lamartine says, one man who could understand, much less one who was capable of resisting, the Revolution. He was chiefly under the influence of the Queen; and he could hardly have been under worse. M. de Lamartine's pity for the sufferings of Marie Antoinette-his admiration of her beauty and courage, do not blind him to her faults. She had the tact that could conciliate individuals, and the intrepidity which bore her nobly through personal emergencies; but she had none of the political knowledge or genius-none of the patient courage, which would have enabled her to give a wise direction to the feeble mind of her husband. Personal resentments and predilections for ever outweighed the dictates of policy; and the vehemence and quickness of her impulses rendered her energy as fickle as the King's weakness. "Measures of vigor, corruption of the Assembly, sincere adoption of the Constitution, attempts at resistance, an attitude of royal dignity, repentance, weakness, terror, and flight, all were conceived, tried, prepared, determined upon, abandoned the same day. Women, so sublime in their self-devotion, are rarely capable of the steadiness of purpose and the coolness necessary to a plan of policy. Their policy is in their heart; their feelings act too closely on their reason. Of all the royal virtues, they have none but courage: they rise often to heroes, never to statesmen. The Queen was an additional example of this. She did the King much mischief gifted with more ability, more soul, more character, her superiority served only to inspire him with confidence in fatal counsels. She was at once the charm of his misfortunes, and the genius of his ruin. She led him step by step to the scaffold, but she mounted it with him." Every act of the Court during the year that passed between the acceptance of the Constitution and the 10th of August, 1792, evil; it stripped France of the very class, whose presence in their own country would have been the most effectual support to the throne. A small portion even of the 20,000 emigrants, whom our author states to have been at one time in arms on the frontier, might have baffled any of the decisive movements of the Revolution. The course pursued by the emigrants, coupled with the hostile preparations of the foreign powers, excited to the utmost pitch the alarm and anger of the French people. The Court, though their safety depended on the removal of all causes of excitement, could not abstain from encouraging the invaders. They did it unsteadily, it is true. A favorable vote, or any mark of confidence on the part of the Assembly, or any demonstration of popular favor, would at any time raise the King's hopes, and make him write off to his agents at Coblentz to discontinue their hostile preparations. The next day came some encroachment by the Assembly, or some insult from the mob around his palace, and he had no hope but in the success of the invasion. His acts too constantly justified the suspicions of the people. The ministers of his choice were enemies of the Revolution; and those whom the popular feeling for awhile forced on him, were speedily dismissed from his councils. The strong measures to which the Assembly had recourse for what we cannot but regard as justifiable purposes of self-defence, were obstructed by his unwise exercise of his reto. His large revenue was undoubtedly applied to purposes inconsistent with good faith and the public interest; and the mystery in which the expenditure of the civil list was kept, of course led to suspicions which went far beyond the truth. It would, no doubt, have been a task of great difficulty for the leaders of a popular party to uphold the Constitution in despite of the public excitement, and of the impulse given to it by the suicidal conduct of the Court. But the Girondins cannot be relieved from the charge of having aggravated the intrinsic difficulties of the state of affairs by their own errors. They commenced the session of the Assembly by petty encroachments on the royal dignity, which lowered the authority, and irritated the feelings of the King. They then committed the far graver fault of encouraging the warlike feeling of the country, and of forcing on the war with Austria, which prudence might have averted, or, at any rate, postponed. To avoid or postpone it was the obvious interest, not merely of their party, but of their principles. They looked, however, only to their immediate object-the coercion of the court; and by bringing on a war for that purpose, they swelled and prolonged an excitement, which was sure to frustrate all their ulterior schemes of tranquil government. The bright period of Robespierre's history is that of his determined opposition to this war. His popularity, and his exertions in the Jacobin Club, for a month counterbalanced the public feeling, the efforts of the Girondins, and the violence of the popular agitators. It was in the long and angry discussion of this subject, that he was for the first time brought into violent collision with the Girondins, especially with Brissot; and it is a remarkable proof of his extraordinary ability, that while asserting the unpopular cause, he greatly augmented his own popularity, and weakened that of his rivals, who were lending themselves to the passions of the people. But the capital error of the Girondins was their rupture with Dumouriez. The only chance of maintaining the Constitution lay in strengthening a popular minister, and enabling him to keep the executive in harmony with the Assembly. Narbonne was the first of the ministers of Louis who thought of establishing his ministry on the confidence of the Assembly. His ill-success resulted not so much from his own acts, as from his inability to disarm the suspicions excited against him by his aristocratic birth, and from the unpopularity of the party to which he was supposed to owe his elevation. Unsupported by the Assembly, he was dismissed by the King, who, in his turn, distrusted him on account of his popular professions. Dumouriez sought to attain the same object as Narbonne, under more favorable circumstances, and with far greater qualifications. Elevated to office by the influence of the Girondins, he had the sagacity to take the only course that would have enabled them to consolidate their power; and their misfortune was, that in the man whom they had taken as an instrument, they did not discern, or would not recognise the qualities that they wanted in a leader. Dumouriez had described the true policy to be pursued by the King, in a phrase which he used a short time before his accession to office. "If I were king of France, I would baffle all these parties by putting myself at the head of the Revolution." And on this principle he acted for a time most successfully, winning the confidence of the King and Queen in spite of their strong prepossessions against him; humoring the Jacobins by going at once to their sittings, and, with the cap of liberty on his head, explaining to them the principles on which he intended to govern; taking, in all his measures, a strong popular and national line; executing his plans with energy and skill; and using his influence with the King and Queen to obtain the withdrawal of the veto from decrees which had passed the Assembly. No policy could have been better adapted to promote the interests of the Girondins, as well as those of the country. Personal differences seem to have occasioned the breach between them and Dumouriez. Madame Roland detected his ambition, and inspired suspicions of him, which Dumouriez unfortunately confirmed by manners and morality savoring so much of the old régime as to shock the republican puritanism of the Girondins. His commanding tone and superior abilities gave umbrage to his colleagues; while he, on the other hand, grew impatient of their narrow views and want of practical skill. In the vehement dissensions which at this time broke out between the Girondins and the yet more extreme section of the Revolutionists, he thought he saw the means of obtaining support for his policy in the event of a rupture with his old supporters. He accordingly entered into close communication with Danton, in whom he found a sagacity and vigor congenial to his own. Emboldened by the prospect of assistance from the Jacobins, he encouraged the King to dismiss the three Girondin ministers, Roland, Clavières, and Servan; and was prepared, by giving effect to a thoroughly popular policy, to defy the anger of the majority who supported the dismissed ministers. In this attempt he was baffled by the King's refusal to sanction the |