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from his hands. At that time Robes
pierre frequently appeared at the bar
of the legislature, to congratulate or
terrify them, in the name of his party.
Always timid and hypocritical, al-
ways dexterous in profiting by the
energy and the labours of his accom-
'plices, he took but a secondary part
in the commotions of the 20th of
June and 10th of August; did not
appear in person at the head of any of
these revolts, but became on the 10th,
member of the municipality which
then reigned in the capital; was after-
wards president of the tribunal charged
with trying the victims of that day,
and lastly, member of the council of
justice, which co-operated with the
minister Danton. He, however,
refused the presidentship of the tribu-
nal of the 10th of August, because
he had long, he said, denounced and
accused the conspirators whom this
tribunal was appointed to try. On
the 12th of August he demanded, in
the Jacobin club, the trial and execu-
tion of Custines within twenty-four
hours. As to the massacres of Sep-
tember, he appears to have contented
himself, according to his usual custom,
with reaping the profit of them,
without personally participating in
them he privately helped to fill the
prisons, and to exasperate the people,
whom he then allowed to act under
the direction of Danton and others;
but he had a conversation with Man-
dar on the subject of these massacres,
which describes him better than the
longest dissertation. (See Mandar.)
He had been for some time connected
with Marat and Danton; he made
use of the impetuosity of the first,
without fearing to find a rival in him;
and though he dreaded the ascendant
of the second, he supported himself
by his character and his revolutionary
forma, as long as he had other enemies
to combat. With the help of such
auxiliaries, he already exercised great
authority over the Jacobins, and by
them over the capital, which in its

:

turn influenced the legislature and the provinces. But this very power early made him enemies; and having been nominated deputy of Paris to the na tional convention, he saw himself, in the fifth meeting (25th of September) denounced by Rabecqui and by several other Girondins, as wanting to raise himself to the dictatorship. He coldly ascended the tribune, and, after 1 very long relation of all his labours since 1789, a relation which was often interrupted by the Girondins, he defeuded himself by denouncing those who accused him, and the assembly passed to the order of the day. He was again attacked on the 29th of October, by the minister Rolaud, by Rebecqui, and especially by Louvet, who pronounced against him a very eloquent discourse, which madame Roland called the Robespierride. He immediately strove to justify himself, assisted by his brother and Danton, who were, as well as himself, very unfavourably heard; but the 5th of November became the day of his triumph: he employed the whole time of the meeting in repelling Lou. vet's denunciation; he prevailed over the Girondins, and then went to es joy his victory at the Jacobin club, where Merlin de Thionville assured him that he was an eagle, and that Barbaroux was a reptile. Manuel and Collot also congratulated him in the same style. From this time be did not cease to seek the death of Louis XVI. with incredible animo. sity and perseverance. On the S0th of November he demanded that "the last twrant of France should be tried without delay, and that the punish ment due to his crimes should be adjudged to him." On the 24 cf December he maintained, in a long speech, that "the business was not the judgment of Louis, but an act of national providence, to be exercised in declaring that prince a traitor to the French nation and to humanity; and in condemning him to give a great es

ample

Memoirs of Robespierre.

ample the world, in the very place where, on the 10th of August, the martyrs to liberty had perished." He also wished to send the queen and madame Elizabeth before the tribunals, and to keep the dauphin in the On the 3d of Temple till a peace. December he was refused permission to speak on the same subject, but on the 4th he spoke, notwithstanding violent opposition, and proposed that Louis should be immediately condemned to death for an insurrection." In short, till the very day of the king's execution, he was continually in the tribune, uttering (according to the expression of one of his colleagues,) the vociferations of a cannibal, and atrocious pre-judgments; it is useless to add, that he voted for death on the On the day of the nominal appeal. 27th of March, 1793, he again persecuted the remainder of the house of Bourbon; and, confounding their cause with that of the Girondins, against whom he had long maintained a painful struggle, he demauded, on the 10th of April, that the queen, the duke of Orleans, Sillery, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, and Brissot, should be sent before the revolutionary tribunal. In the midst of this contest, which was several times near becoming fatal to him, he continued to enjoy great power in the capital, and to propose, from time to time, decrees more worthy of the member of a faction than a statesman: but at last, the events of the 31st of May, and the 1st and 2d of June, which were effected by the Dantonists, and especially by the commune, much more than by him, rendered him completely master of the convention, and laid the foundation of that tyrannical power, His which ceased but with his life. most dangerous enemies among the Girondins were outlawed, the others arrested; and from that time every thing trembled before him, and before that revolutionary government, which was confided to the committee of

The

of

public safety, of which he took the
direction, and to twelve committees
which succeeded the ministers.
multiplicity of denunciations and exe
cutions awoke in all minds a suspicion,
a terror, which soon gave to Paris and
to all France the air of a desert;
scarcely durst people speak to each
other, and every man thought he saw
a denunciator in the aan whom he
met. Robespierre, occupied in the
committees with his accomplices, ap-
peared from that time less frequently
in the convention, and spoke there
only to be applauded. The wife and
the sister of Louis XVI. perished on
the scaffold; Lyons, Toulon, Arras,
Bedoin, the Vendee, the federalized
departments, became more particularly
the victims of the orders issued by his
committees, and executed by his pro-
consuls, All the men, however, who
had appeared his friends, all those
who had kept in the same line, or, to
speak more properly, who had pre-
pared his power, soon grew weary
obeying a man who had no other
talent than that of appropriating to
himself their success.
observed, that immediately after the
21st of May, he declared his final
views, by declaring himself the pro-
tector of the 73 deputies excluded
from the convention, and opposing
the passing a decree of accusation
against them. On the 7th of Febru
ary, 1794, he again defended in the
Jacobin club the remainder of that
party called the Marais of the conven-
tion; said that these deputies, formerly
led astray by perfidious chiefs, were
at that time taking a part in the saly-
tary decisions of the assembly; and
caused the person who had attacked
A short time after, he
them to be expelled from the society
of Jacobins.
voted that persons ennobled by the
possession of offices should be exempt
circumstances give
from the general measures of police.
Several other
reason to suppose that, if he had
2, (27th
triumphed on the 9th Thermidor, year

2 C 2

It must also be

2, (27th of July, 1794,) he would have acted like the retributive party, and sacrificed the Jacobins to his power, while he invoked justice, humanity, moderation, &c. We shall also mention, in support of this remark, that he one day carried, against the sentiments of the Montagne, a decree, in which he had interested that inert portion of the convention, called the Ventre, or the Marais; and that, proud of his triumph, he let slip a part of his secret, by addressing to the Montagnards these remarkable words ::-"I shall reach you that it is by the majority that laws are made." These different causes acted by turns to remove from him his friends and his enemies. The faction of the commune, or the Hebertists, which had contributed more than any other to rid him of the Girondins, was the first to separate from the committees, and consequently from Robespierre. Proud of the vic

tories which it had till that time made

the Montagne gain, it thought itself able to reign alone, and to dictate laws to the convention; but the good fortune, or the address of Robespierre, found means to bring against it at once the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, (it had just separated itself from the latter faction,) and it sunk, in March, 1794, under their united efforts. Danton, Desmoulins, and other Cordeliers, laboured more at its ruin than Robesbierre; but he, according to his custom, contrived to reap all the benefit of it. It was after this very victory, however, that he had a still more terrible eneiny to contend with. "That Danton, whose energy had been so useful to him, and in whose shadow he had so often walked, while he detested him, had helped to sweep away the other factions before him; the two parties, of which they were the head, then alone remained, and it was necessary that one or the other should sink. But it was to be expected that the inconsiderate boldness

of Danton would yield to the cunning of his enemy, who had taken care to place all his creatures in the govern ment beforehand, and to remove the Cordeliers from it by degrees, in order to deprive them of all means of acting. Indeed, after having in a manner shared his power with him, he had taken care to begin depriving him of his popularity, by sending him to enrich himself in Holland; and after wards a week was sufficient for him to have Danton accused, arrested, and sent to the scaffold with Desmoulins, Lacroix, Fabre, &c. In the course of the same month (April) he also delivered over to the revolutionary tribunal the remainder of the party of the commune, and of that of the Cordeliers, whom he termed atheists ; and, from that time till his fall, his power found no more rivals. In August, 1793. he had condescended to preside in the convention, which he himself called his machine of decrees; but it was always in the Jacobin club and in the committees that he prepared the execution of his projects; and the words, "it is necessary,'

it must be so," '« I will have it," at last became his daily expressions,— Though he spoke little in the assembly, he often occupied the tribune in the Jacobin club, signified his orders there with the greatest despotism, and on the 11th of February, 1794, even caused two members to be expelled for having presumed to oppose his opinion. What is worthy of remark is, that France, groaning under the contests of the different parties, rejoiced for a short time in the blows which Robes. pierre gave them, hoping yet to be less unhappy under a single tyrant. The royalists, besides, thanked him for having dragged the most violent revolutionists to the scaffold, and almost forgot the laws of blood in which he had a part; among others, that shocking decree passed against the English and Hanoverian prisoners, which the armies constantly refused

to

to execute.

It was in the beginning to shew some suspicion of the commit-
tee of public safety, which occasioned
on the 11th a debate, in which Robes-
pierre spoke with despotism, and his
confidents Barere, and Billaud-Varen-
nes (who were to be his accusers a
month afterwards) put Tallien to
silence when he undertook the defence
of Bourdon; the two last and their
friends saw that they were irretrievably
ruined, and from that time they re
doubled their efforts to overthrow
Robespierre. Of this he was not

of May that he announced, by Barere,
the usual organ of his commands, his
new plan of religion, which gained
him yet more applause, but which
must have proved to every thinking
man, that the tyrant thought himself
at length master of the government,
since he who had till that time at-
tempted only to destroy, thought of
rebuilding. In June he presided, for
the second time, in the convention,
and this is the period when the reign
of terror was carried to its height,
and (to say the truth) that also when
he was least present, either at the
convention, or at the committees. In
silence, however, was then gathering
a storm, which was soon to overthrow
him: nevertheless it is certain that if,
content with having destroyed all the
first men of the convention, and with
every day decimating all France, he
had spared only his colleagues, among
whom there was no longer any one
who ventured to pretend to the first
rank, his power would probably still
have been of some duration : but
cowardly, timid, and suspicious, feel-
ing his weakness, and thinking to mask
it with barbarity, or rather seeking to
create himself a support in the mode-
rate party, by sacrificing to opinion,
with which he wished to prop himself,
the principal agents of the revolution-
ary government, and particularly the
greatest part of the deputies who had
been intrusted with missions, he an-
nounced the design of punishing the
crimes and wasteful expenses of his
colleagues, and of loading them with
the crimes which, when conquerors,
they re-charged on him; and he thus
forced to resistance men who would,
perhaps, have desired nothing more
than to serve and command under him;
the sight of the danger re-animated
their courage, and certain of their des-
truction, they resolved to try at least
to save themselves by a bold stroke.
On the 10th of June, Ruamps, and
especially Bourdon de l'Oise, ventured

ignorant; but forgetting the system of attack which had always succeeded with him, and remaining deaf to the advice of St. Just, who united intrepidity to coolness, he temporized and ruined himself. After having passed several days in retirement, employed in projecting, while he ought to have been acting; after having cooled, rather than warmed his partisans, by indecisive speeches made in the Jacobin club, he appeared again on the 26th of July, 1794, in the convention, and ascended the tribune to extol his own virtue. He endeavoured to gain over the Plaine, by reminding it that he had always defended it, and especially that he had opposed the accusation of the 73. He then declaimed against the committees, of which several members (Billaud-Varennes among others) were leaving him; some because they saw the storm gathering over his head; others, because they had learnt that their names were in their turn placed on the lists of proscription. Bourdon again ventured to begin the attack first, by demanding that Robespierre's speech should be referred to the examination of the committees before it was sent to be printed, under pretence that errors might have got into it. Errors! into a speech of Robespierre's. This expression struck all ears; the party was firmly connected, it was thought time to act, and Vadier, Cambon, Charlier, Billaud, Panis, Amar, Bentabolle, Thirion, and Breard, spoke successively

against

against the despot, but with a half. boldness which shewed the terror that he inspired. Barere alone, still uncertain, pronounced only insignificant phrases, incapable of compromising him with either of the two parties. In the mean time Robespierre perceived all the danger that threatened him; he saw that the greatest part of the members of the government were abandoning him, either through hatred, or that they might not fail with him; and on the night between the 26th and 27th he assembled his intimate friends. St. Just pressed him to act immediately; he delayed it for twenty-four hours, and that delay was his sentence of death. In vain St. Just wished to speak the next day in the convention; his voice was drowned: Tallien began the contest again, Billaud-Varennes finished the tearing of the veil, and Robespierre having rushed into the tribune, cries of Down with the tyrant !" immediately drove him from it. Then the people vied with each other in declaiming against the overthrown idol, and in giving him the fast blows. However, threatened on all sides, he shewed more courage than he was suspected of possessing; he still presumed to threaten the convention, and to say with an air of superiority to Tallien, who demanded permission to speak in order to bring back the debate to its real subject, "I shall be able to bring it back."

(To be continued.)

Of the Reformation,
By COUNSELLOR SAMPSON.

IN order to understand the new hardships which the Irish were now to endure, it is good to take a short view of the state of Religion in England. We shall hear no more now of mere Irish and degenerate English. For, from this time, their persecutions assume a new form, and are carried on in the name of God! Inexplicable pa.

radox! How the mildest religion on the earth should be, as it has always been, called in aid to sanction the most atrocious crimes; and how men have dared in profanely invoking it, to make laws so repugnant to it that they never could be obeyed until the laws of God were broken. I cannot better describe the state of religion amongst the English, than by a short history of the Apostle of the reformation.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF

HENRY VIII.

He was born in 1491, and began to reign in 1509. He raised his favorites, the instruments of his crimes, from the depth of obscurity to the pinnacle of grandeur, and after setting them up as tyrants, put them to death like slaves. He was pre-eminent in religion: first quarrelling with Luther, whose doctrines he thought too republican, he became defender of the Catholic faith; and then quarrelling with the Pope, who stood in the way of his murders, he was twice excommunicated. He made creeds and articles, and made it treason not to swear to them; he made others quite opposed to them, and made it treason not to swear to them; and he burned his opponents with slow fire. He burned an hyste rical girl, the maid of Kent, for her opinions. He disputed with a foolish school-master on the Real Presence. and burned him to convince him. He beheaded Bishop Fisher and Sir Tho mas Moore, for not swearing that his own children were bastards. He robbed the churches, and gave the revenue of a convent to an old woman for a pudding. He burned a lovely young woman (Anne Ascue) for jabbering of the real presence.

He was in love as in religion, delicate and tender. He first married his sister-in-law, and because her childrea died, divorced her; married her maid of honour, and made parliament and clergy declare he had done well. He

beheaded

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