harvest would be double, and the corn ripe a month before the usual time. This was therefore the moment for prostrating that republic, saved, victorious, and loaded with favours, at the feet of the Almighty. The occasion was grand and touching for those who believed. It was seasonable for those who merely complied with political ideas.

Let us remark one singular circumstance. Sectaries, for whom there existed no human convention that was respectable, who, from the extraordinary contempt in which they held all other nations and the esteem with which they were filled for themselves, dreaded no opinion, and were not afraid of wounding that of the world; who in matters of government had reduced everything to just what was absolutely necessary; who had admitted no other authority but that of a few citizens temporarily elected; who had not hesitated to abolish the most ancient and the most stubborn of all religions-such sectaries paused before two ideas, morality and faith in God. After rejecting all those from which they deemed it possible to release man, they remained under the sway of the two latter, and sacrificed a party to each of them. If some of them did not believe, they nevertheless all felt a want of order among men, and, for the support of this human order, the necessity of acknowledging in the universe a general and intelligent order. This is the first time in the history of the world that the dissolution of all the authorities left society a prey to the government of purely systematic minds-for the English believed in the Christian religion-and those minds which had outstripped all the received ideas adopted, retained, the ideas of morality and faith in God. This example is unparalleled in the history of the world: it is singular, it is grand, it is beautiful: history cannot help pausing to remark it.

Robespierre was reporter on this solemn occasion; and to him alone it belonged to be so, according to the distribution of the parts which had been made among the members of the committee. Prieur,* Robert Lindet, and Carnot, silently superintended the administrative and the war departments. Barrère made most of the reports, particularly those which related to the operations of the armies, and all those in general which it was necessary to make extempore. Collot-d'Herbois, the declaimer, was despatched to the clubs and the popular meetings, to convey to them the messages of the committee. Couthon, though paralytic, likewise went everywhere, harangued the Convention, the Jacobins, the people, and possessed the art of exciting interest by his infirmities, and by the paternal tone which he assumed in saying the most violent things. Billaud, less excitable, attended to the correspondence, and sometimes discussed questions of general policy. St. Just, young, daring, and active, went to and fro between the fields of battle and the committee; and, when he had impressed terror and energy on the armies, he returned to make murderous reports against the parties whom it was requisite to send to death. Lastly, Robespierre, the head of them all, consulted on all matters, spoke only on important occasions. For him were reserved the high moral and political questions, as more worthy of his talents and his virtue. The duty of reporter on the question which was about to be discussed belonged to him by right. None had spoken out more decidedly against atheism, none was so venerated, none had so high a reputation for purity and virtue, none, in short, was so well qualified by his ascendency and his dogmatism for this sort of pontificate.

Never had so fair an occasion offered for imitating Rousseau, whose opinions he professed and whose style he made his continual study. The talents of Robespierre had been singularly developed during the long struggles of the Revolution. That cold and heavy being began to speak extempore; and when he wrote, it was

*

"Prieur was originally a barrister at Chalons. In 1792 he was deputed to the Convention, where he voted for the King's death, and was afterwards appointed a member of the committee of public safety. In 1794, after the fall of the Mountain, he was appointed president of the Convention. Having been engaged in the insurrection of 1795, he concealed himself for some time, and was pardoned in the following year. Prieur was a humane man, but not remarkable for ability."-Biographie Moderne. E.

† In one of these "murderous reports" St. Just made use of the following atrocious remark: "The vessel of the Revolution can only arrive safely in port by ploughing its way boldly through a red sea of blood."

VOL. II.

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with purity, brilliancy, and energy. In his style was to be found somewhat of the poignant and gloomy humour of Rousseau, but he had not been able to borrow either the grand ideas or the generous and impassioned soul of the author of Emile.

On the 18th of Floreal (May 7, 1794) he appeared in the tribune, with a speech which he had composed with great care. Profound attention was paid to him. "Citizens," said he, in his exordium, " it is in prosperity that nations, like individuals, should pause to reflect and listen, in the silence of the passions, to the voice of wisdom." He then developed at length the system adopted. The republic, according to him, was virtue; and all the adversaries which it had encountered were but vices of all kinds, excited against it and paid by kings. The anarchists, the corrupt men, the atheists, had been but the agents of Pitt. "The tyrants," added he," satisfied with the hardihood of their emissaries, had been anxious to exhibit to the view of their subjects the extravagances which they had purchased, and, affecting to believe that they characterized the whole French nation, they seemed to say to them, What will you gain by shaking off our yoke? The republicans, you see, are no better than ourselves!"" Brissot, Danton, Hebert, figured by turns in Robespierre's speech; and, while he was launching out into declamations of hatred against the pretended enemies of virtue-declamations already extremely trite-he excited but little enthusiasm. Presently, relinquishing this portion of the subject, he rose to ideas truly grand and moral, and expressed with talent. He then obtained universal acclamations. He justly observed that it was not as the authors of systems that the representatives of the nation ought to discourage atheism and to proclaim deism, but as legislators seeking what principles are most suitable to man in a state of society. " What signify to you, O legislators!" he exclaims-" what signify to you the various hypotheses by which certain philosophers explain the phenomena of Nature? You can leave all these subjects to their everlasting disputes. Neither is it as metaphysicians nor as theologians that you ought to view them. In the eyes of the legislator, all that is beneficial to the world and good in practice is truth. The idea of the Supreme Being and of the immortality of the soul is a continual recall to justice; it is therefore social and republican. Who then," exclaims Robespierre, hath given thee the mission to proclaim to the people that the Deity hath no existence? O thou who art in love with this steril doctrine, and wast never in love with thy country, what advantage dost thou find in persuading man that a blind power presides over his destinies and strikes at random guilt and virtue? That his spirit is but a breath which is extinguished at the threshold of the tomb? Will the idea of his annihilation inspire purer and more exalted sentiments than that of his immortality? Will it inspire him with more respect for his fellow-creatures and for himself, more devotedness to his country, more courage to defy tyranny, more contempt of death and of sensual pleasure? Ye, who mourn a virtuous friend, who love to think that the better part of him has escaped death-ye who weep over the coffin of a son, or a wife-are ye consoled by him who tells you that nothing but vile dust is left of either? Unfortunate mortal, who expirest by the steel of the assassin, thy last sigh is an appeal to eternal justice! Innocence on the scaffold makes the tyrant turn pale in his car of triumph. Would it possess this ascendency, if the grave equalled the oppressor and the oppressed?"*

Robespierre, still confining himself to the political side of the question, adds these remarkable observations. "Let us," said he, "here take a lesson from history. Take notice, I beseech you, how the men who have exercised an influence on the destinies of states have been led into one or the other of two opposite systems by their personal character and by the very nature of their political views. Observe with what profound art Cæsar, pleading in the Roman senate in behalf of the accomplices of Catiline, deviates into a digression against the dogma

* At the time when Robespierre was indulging in all this specious declamation, he was making every effort to bring to maturity a sanguinary despotism unparalleled in the annals of the world. Not less than thirty innocent individuals were daily led to the scaffold, at the very period when this canting demagogue was solemnly and sentimentally proclaiming the last sigh of the murdered victim to be "an appeal to eternal justice!" Е.

of the immortality of the soul, so well calculated do these ideas appear to him, to extinguish in the hearts of the judges the energy of virtue, so intimately does the cause of crime seem to be connected with that of atheism. Cicero, on the contrary, invoked the sword of the law and the thunderbolts of the gods against the traitors. Leonidas, at Thermopylæ, supping with his companions in arms, the moment before executing the most heroic design that human virtue ever conceived, invited them for the next day to another banquet in a new life. Cato did not hesitate between Epicurus and Zeno. Brutus and the illustrious conspirators who shared his dangers and his glory, belonged also to that sublime sect of the stoics, which had such lofty ideas of the dignity of man, which carried the enthusiasm of virtue to such a height, and which was extravagant in heroism only. Stoicism brought forth rivals of Brutus and of Cato, even in those frightful ages which succeeded the loss of Roman liberty. Stoicism saved the honour of human nature, degraded by the vices of the successors of Cæsar, and still more by the patience of the people."

On the subject of atheism, Robespierre expresses himself in a singular manner concerning the Encyclopedists: "In political matters," said he, "that sect always remained below the rights of the people; in point of morality it went far beyond the destruction of religious prejudices: its leaders sometimes declaimed against despotism, and they were pensioned by despots; sometimes they wrote books against the court, at others dedications to kings, speeches for courtiers, and madrigals for courtezans. They were proud in their works, and cringing in the antechambers. This sect propagated with great zeal the opinion of materialism, which prevailed among the great and among the beaux esprits; to it we owe in part that kind of practical philosophy, which, reducing selfishness to a system, considers human society as a warfare of trickery, success as the rule of right and wrong, integrity as a matter of taste or decorum, the world as the patrimony of clever scoundrels.

"Among those who, at the time of which I am speaking, distinguished themselves in the career of letters and philosophy, one man, by the loftiness of his character, proved himself worthy of the office of preceptor of mankind. He attacked tyranny with frankness; he spoke with enthusiasm of the Deity; his manly and straightforward eloquence described, in words that burn, the charms of virtue; and defended those consolatory dogmas which reason furnishes for the support of the human heart. The purity of his doctrine derived from nature and from a profound hatred of vice, as well as his invincible contempt for the intriguing sophists who usurped the name of philosophers, drew upon him the enmity and the persecution of his rivals and of his false friends. Ah! if he had witnessed this Revolution of which he was the forerunner, who can doubt that his generous soul would have embraced with transport the cause of liberty and equality !"*

Robespierre then strove to counteract the idea that, in proclaiming the worship of the Supreme Being, the government was labouring for the benefit of the priests. "What is there in common between the priests and God? The priests are to morality what quacks are to medicine. How different is the God of Nature from the God of the priests! I know nothing that so nearly resembles atheism as the religions which they have framed. By grossly misrepresenting the Supreme Being, they have annihilated belief in him as far as lay in their power. They made him at one time a globe of fire, at another an ox, sometimes a tree, sometimes a man, sometimes a king. The priests have created a God after their own image; they have made him jealous, capricious, greedy, cruel, and implacable; they have treated him as the mayors of the palace formerly treated the descendants of Clovis, in order to reign in his name and to put themselves in his place; they have confined him in heaven as in a palace, and have called him to earth only to demand of him for their own interest tithes, wealth, honours, pleasures, and power. The real temple of the Supreme Being is the universe; his worship, virtue; his festivals, the joy of a great nation, assembled in his presence to knit closer the bonds of universal fraternity, and to pay him the homage of intelligent and pure hearts."

* Robespierre here alludes to Rousseau, of whose sickly philosophy he was throughout life an ardent admirer. E.

Robespierre then said that the people needed festivals. "Man," he observed, "is the grandest object that exists in nature, and the most magnificent of all sights is that of a great people assembled together." In consequence, he proposed plans for public meetings on all the Decadis. He finished his report amidst the warmest applause; and proposed the following decree, which was adopted by acclamation:

"Art. 1. The French people acknowledges the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul.

"Art. 2. It acknowledges that the worship most worthy of the Supreme Being is the practice of the duties of man."

Other articles purported that festivals should be instituted, in order to remind man of the Deity and of the dignity of his own nature. They were to borrow their names from the events of the Revolution, or from the virtues most beneficial to man. Besides the festivals of the 14th of July, the 10th of August, the 21st of January, and the 31st of May, the Republic was to celebrate on all the Decadis the following festivals: to the Supreme Being-to the human race--to the French people--to the benefactors of mankind to the martyrs of liberty--to liberty and equality to the republic-to the liberty of the world-to the love of country-to hatred of tyrants and traitors-to truth to justice-to modesty-to glory-to friendship to frugality to courage to good faith-to heroism-to disinterestedness-to stoicism-to love to conjugal fidelity-to paternal affection-to filial piety-to infancy-to youth-to manhood-to old age-to misfortune-to agriculture-to industry-to our ancestors-to posterity-to happiness.

A solemn festival was ordered for the 20th of Prairial, and the plan of it was committed to David. It is proper to add that, in this decree, freedom of religion was anew proclaimed.

No sooner was this report finished, than it was sent to be printed. On the same day, the commune and the Jacobins, demanding that it should be read, received it with applause, and deliberated upon going in a body to the Convention to present their thanks for the sublime decree which it had just passed. It had been remarked that the Jacobins had been silent after the immolation of the two parties, and had not gone to congratulate the committee and the Convention. A member had noticed this, and said that it was a fit occasion for proving the union of the Jacobins with a government which displayed such admirable conduct. An address was accordingly drawn up and presented to the Convention by a deputation of the Jacobins. That address concluded thus: "The Jacobins come this day to thank you for the solemn decree that you have just issued; they will come and join you in the celebration of that great day on which the festival of the Supreme Being shall assemble the virtuous citizens throughout all France to sing the hymn of virtue." The president made a pompous reply to the deputation. "It is worthy," said he, "of a society which fills the world with its renown, which enjoys so great an influence upon the public opinion, which has associated at all times with all the most courageous of the defenders of the rights of man, to come to the temple of the laws to pay homage to the Supreme Being."

The president proceeded, and, after a very long harangue on the same subject, called upon Couthon to speak. The latter made a violent speech against atheists and corrupt men, and pronounced a pompous eulogy on the society. He proposed on that solemn day of joy and gratitude to do the Jacobins a justice which had long been due to them, namely, to declare that, ever since the commencement of the Revolution, they had not ceased to deserve well of the country. This suggestion was adopted amidst thunders of applause. The assembly broke up in transports of joy, nay, indeed, in a sort of intoxication.

If the Convention had received numerous addresses after the death of the Hebertists and the Dantonists, it received many more after the decree proclaiming the belief in the Supreme Being. The contagion of ideas and words spread with extraordinary rapidity among the French. Among a prompt and communicative people the idea that engages some few minds soon engages the attention of the public generally; the word that is in some mouths is soon in all. Addresses poured in from all parts, congratulating the Convention on its sublime decrees, thanking it for having established virtue, proclaimed the worship of the Supreme Being, and restored hope to man. All the sections came, one after another, to express similar sentiments. The section of Marat, appearing at the bar, addressed the Mountain in these words: "O beneficent Mountain! protecting Sinai! accept also our expressions of gratitude and congratulation for all the sublime decrees which thou art daily issuing for the happiness of mankind. From thy boiling bosom darted the salutary thunderbolt, which, in crushing atheism, gives us genuine republicans the consolatory idea of living free, in the sight of the Supreme Being, and in expectation of the immortality of the soul. The Convention forever! The Republic forever! the Mountain forever!" All the addresses besought the Convention anew to retain the supreme power. There was one even which called upon it to sit till the reign of virtue should be established in the republic upon imperishable foundations.

From that day, the words Virtue and Supreme Being were in every mouth. Instead of the inscription, To REASON, placed upon the fronts of the churches, there was now inscribed, TO THE SUPREME BEING. The remains of Rousseau were removed to the Pantheon. His widow was presented to the Convention, and a pension settled upon her.

Thus the committee of public welfare, triumphant over all the different parties, invested with all the powers, placed at the head of an enthusiastic and victorious nation, proclaiming the reign of virtue and the worship of the Supreme Being, was at the height of its authority, and at the last term of its systems.

THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.

STATE OF EUROPE AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1794 (YEAR II)-GENERAL PREPARATIONS FOR WAR-PLANS OF THE ALLIES AND OF THE FRENCHOPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN-OCCUPATION OF THE PYRENEES AND OF THE ALPS - OPERATIONS IN THE NETHERLANDS; ACTIONS ON THE SAMBRE AND THE LYS; BATTLE OF TURCOING-OCCURRENCES IN THE COLONIES-SEA-FIGHT.

In Europe and in France the winter had been spent in making preparations for a new campaign. England was still the soul of the coalition, and urged the continental powers to advance and to destroy on the banks of the Seine a revolution that alarmed her, and a rival who was hateful to her, The implacable son of Chatham had this year made immense efforts to crush France. It was, however, not without opposition that he had obtained from the English parliament means proportionate to his vast projects. - Lord Stanhope in the Upper House, Fox and Sheridan* in the Lower, were still hostile to the war. They refused all sacrifices demanded by the ministers. They were for granting only just what was necessary for the defence of the coast, and above all they would not suffer this war to be termed just and necessary: it was, in their opinion, unjust, ruinous, and punished with just reverses. The pretended motives deduced from the opening of the Scheldt, the dangers of Holland, and the necessity of defending the British constitution, were false. Holland had not been endangered by the opening of the Scheldt, and

* Fox and Sheridan observed that "the conduct of government since the war commenced had been a total departure from the principles of moderation on which they had so much prided themselves before it broke out. They then used language which breathed only the strictest neutrality, and this continued even after the King had been dethroned, and many of the worst atrocities of the Revolution had been perpetrated; but now, even though they did not altogether reject negotiation, they issued declarations evidently calculated to render it impossible, and shake all faith in the national integrity."-Parliamentary History. E.