APPENDIX

ADAMS, John.

The sailor who led the mutiny on the Bounty against Lieutenant Bligh in 1789. Fearing the eventual reprisals of the British Government, he persuaded a number of his companions to leave Otaheite and seek fortune among the then unknown islands of the Southern Sea. They eventually settled at Pitcairn Island, and founded a colony.

John Adams was born in 1754 and died at Pitcairn Island, May 5, 1829, having fully earned the title by which he was known—“The Patriarch of Pitcairn.”

ANDRON.

A Greek sculptor, believed to have lived some time in the second century A.D.

BARNAVE, Antony Peter Joseph Marie.

Born at Grenoble, October 22, 1761; executed in Paris, November 30, 1793. One of the great promoters of that Revolution of which he eventually became a victim.

His father was a Procurator of Parliament and his mother the daughter of a military officer. In those days professions were hereditary, and young Barnave was therefore destined for the Bar. In early life he showed signs of talent and an impetuous disposition; he was sixteen when he fought his first duel, and he published a remarkable book at the age of twenty.

In 1783 he was chosen by the lawyers of the Grenoble Bar to pronounce the speech before the vacation at the local Parliament. He chose for his subject “The Divisions of Political Power in a State.” This discourse excited much interest, not only in Dauphiny, but all over France; the speaker was then twenty-two years of age.

His political career did not commence until he was twenty-eight, when, having been elected Deputy to the States-General, he proceeded to Versailles.

Barnave was, a few days after the opening of that Assembly, named a Commissioner by the “Tiers Etat,” and he composed the first petition, or address, that body presented to the King. During the session of the Assembly he became more and more prominent; he was still a believer in the monarchical system, and—under a constitutional form of government—a strong supporter of the throne.

On October 25, 1790, Barnave was elected President of the Assembly.

A few weeks after the death of Mirabeau, April 2, 1791, the Royal Family fled from Paris and were arrested at Varennes: Barnave was commissioned with Pêthion to bring them back to Paris. The many hours he thus spent in their company greatly influenced him in their favour, and the Queen’s charm exercised an influence over him which dominated the remainder of his short life. The question of the inviolability of Royalty arose immediately after the King’s return, and Barnave made a moving and eloquent speech on this subject. The discussion of the new Constitution commenced on August 8, 1791. On the 14th the King took the oath, and on the 30th the Assembly was dissolved.

The public career of Barnave then terminated, and his final speech was made before a different tribunal. He returned to Grenoble in January 1792, and there wrote “The Introduction to the French Revolution.” On August 15 of the same year the Deputy La Rivière denounced the author of this book from the Tribune; on the 29th of the same month Barnave was arrested. After ten months’ imprisonment at Grenoble he was removed to Paris on November 3, 1793. He appeared on December 28 before the Revolutionary Tribunal; two days later he perished.

Barnave addressed the crowd from the scaffold, his last words being, as he pointed to the fatal knife, “This is the reward for all I have done for France and for Liberty.”

BARBŒUF (surnamed “Caius Gracchus”), François Noel.

Born at St. Quintin in 1764; died May 25, 1797.

In early life he was apprenticed to an architect, and when quite a young man he wrote articles for newspapers at Amiens. He hailed with joy the principles of the Revolution.

He was tried in 1790, in Paris, owing to the violence of his writings; although acquitted, he had to undergo another trial in 1792, under an accusation of embezzlement, when he was a second time acquitted and soon after appointed administrator of a Department; he did not return to Paris until Thermidor 1794.

He created the journal Le Tribun du Peuple, and developed in its pages, under the synonym “Caius Gracchus,” the doctrine of the absolute equality of mankind. Two years later Babœuf and his followers, now a numerous body, constituted themselves into a secret society, with the object of re-establishing the régime of 1793.

This society spread its emissaries over France, and early in 1796 was prepared for a rising. With the aid of 16,000 men, soldiers belonging to the garrison of Paris, and of artillery posted at Vincennes and at the Invalides, and of certain disaffected members of Grenadiers and police, together with a large number of the labouring classes—these conspirators planned to seize the Directorate, the Legislative Assembly, and the Military Staff of the Etat Major. Their arrangements were apparently perfect, but, as is usual in such cases, traitors among the plotters revealed the whole scheme to the Directorate. The heads of this conjuration, to the number of sixty-five, were arrested, and Babœuf himself was seized just as he was dictating the manifesto which was to be issued after the rising had taken place.

The trial of the conspirators lasted three months and was held at Vendôme. After the sentence of death was pronounced, Babœuf and his friend Dârtre stabbed themselves, but were nevertheless, like Robespierre and his friends, carried in an expiring condition to the scaffold and beheaded.

Babœuf’s principles were those of the most advanced Socialism, one of his precepts for the government of the Utopia of his dreams being, “Whoever pronounces the word ‘property’ shall be imprisoned as a dangerous madman.”

BARBAROUX, Charles Jean Marie.

Born in Marseilles, 1767; guillotined at Bordeaux, June 23, 1794.

As a very young man he showed scientific aptitude, and when quite a boy was in correspondence with Franklin. He became an advocate at the Bar of Marseilles, and had already obtained much success as a pleader when the Revolution broke out.

He was made secretary to the new Commune of Marseilles, and after quelling a Royalist insurrection at Arles, was despatched to Paris as Deputy for Marseilles. He became a member of the “Jacobin Club,” and an intimate friend and ally of Roland and his wife. He took an active part in the events of August 10, 1792, and was soon after named President of the “Elective Assembly,” and, later, a member of the Convention. From the outset of his legislative career he was an opponent of the Extreme Left; he denounced Robespierre and Marat, insisting upon the punishment of the authors of the bloody massacres of September. An excellent economist, Barbaroux treated in a masterly manner the question of commercial administration.

At the trial of Louis XVI. he voted against the execution of the monarch. A movement was set on foot to drive Barbaroux from the Convention, and on May 31 he was forced to fly from Paris. He was declared a traitor to his country. At Caen he had an interview with Charlotte Corday, and it is he who is supposed to have inspired this young girl with the idea of killing Marat.

He was a man of remarkable personal beauty, and unjustly accused of having carried on a guilty intrigue with Mme. Roland. He took refuge at Bordeaux, but was discovered and arrested. Although he shot himself twice, he retained sufficient appearance of life to enable the possibility of his public execution.

BARRAS, Jean Paul François, Comte de.

Born in 1755 at Lohenpoux, Provence; died at Chaillot, near Paris, 1829.

He entered the army at the age of eighteen, went with his regiment to the Ile de France in 1775, and eventually joined the French Indian Army at Pondicherry. After the capture of that town he took service under Suffren, and spent some time at the Cape of Good Hope, returning to France with the rank of captain.

He then proceeded to lead a life of debauchery and extravagance. Many ruined rakes perceived in the Revolution a chance, as they thought, of retrieving their fallen fortunes; among such was Barras. He was present at the attack on the Bastille in 1789, and at the sack of the Tuileries three years later. He was a member of the Convention, and voted for the instant execution of Louis XVI. without appeal.

As a delegate to the South of France he assisted in those sanguinary repressions of the revolt against the Republic in Provence. At Nice he arrested Brunet and Trogoff, whom he accused of ceding Toulon to the English. He was present at the siege and capture of that town, and helped to carry out horrible massacres of supposed traitors. Nevertheless, he was an object of distrust to Robespierre, who disliked the intense immorality of his private life, and doubted the sincerity of his Republicanism. Barras therefore directed his efforts towards the overthrow of the Montagne, and was the principal instigator of the events of Thermidor, which led to the fall of Robespierre.

Later he obtained control of the home military force—and the Presidency of the Convention. He declared Paris in a state of siege, and when the mob surrounded the Assembly, shouting for bread and the Constitution of 1793, he directed the armed force which dispersed the people.

To him Bonaparte owed the command, by which the latter, in the name of Barras, suppressed the attempted Royalist revolution.

During the Directorate, Barras reigned practically alone until the advent of Sièyes. He amassed a vast fortune, although during his official reign he squandered money lavishly upon his pleasures and lived in great state.

The Revolution of the 18th Brumaire annulled his political power, and he sought and obtained permission to leave Paris.

During the rest of his life he ceased to be a man of any public importance; he was frequently exiled, and perpetually intriguing with the Bourbons. After the second Restoration he returned to Paris, and settled at Chaillot, where he died at the age of seventy-four.

BARRÈRE DE VIEUZAC, Bertrand.

Born at Tarbes, September 10, 1755; died January 15, 1841.

He studied law and was advocate to the Parliament of Toulouse. Later he returned to Tarbes, from whence he eventually went as Deputy to the States-General. Here he soon took a prominent place, defending the liberty of the press; and brought forward successfully numerous motions as to the confiscation of Crown lands and the declarations of the rights of citizens.

The National Assembly being dissolved, Barrère became a member of the Tribunal of Cassation, and in 1792 Deputy for the Department of the Upper Pyrenees. He publicly defended the September massacres on the ground of their being a necessity to save the State. He was elected President of the Convention of December 1792, his first act being to press for the immediate judgment of “Louis the Traitor,” as he termed the King, saying that “the tree of Liberty would never flourish until it had been watered by the blood of kings.” He voted the death of Louis XVI. without respite, and later in the year brought forward a project of ostracism against the Duke of Orleans and the Ministers Roland and Pache.

The triumph of the Montagne over the Girondins caused Barrère to join forces with the former. Terror for his own life made him ruthless in the destruction of the lives of others.

He became in July 1793 a member of the Committee of Public Safety, and, soon after, chief of that body, and its principal acts were carried out by his order and at his instigation. By his command the royal tombs at St. Denis were destroyed, Paoli declared a traitor, the expulsion of those English who arrived in France after July 14, 1789, decreed, as well as instant confiscation of all property belonging to the émigrés. He caused the Château de Caen to be razed to the ground, sent troops to punish Lyons, created a revolutionary army, and promulgated the decree, “Terror is the order of the day.” He also planned the speedy execution of the Queen, and proposed that every Frenchman who had not already made his declaration of adhesion to the Republic should be transported, and all persons accused of spreading false news brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He implored the Assembly to treat with the utmost severity all enemies of the nation, saying: “Have pity on them to-day and they will massacre you to-morrow. It is only the dead who cannot return.”

Until the fall of Robespierre, Barrère was his lieutenant and obedient servant; but after the coup d’état against Robespierre, Barrère was violent and condemnatory against the “conspirator whose projects had up to then been veiled in mystery.” Nevertheless, Barrère did not succeed in escaping; he was arrested, with Callot, D’Herbois and Billaud, on March 2, 1795. He and they were condemned to transportation, but later on Barrère obtained a re-trial of his case, and was removed to another prison, from which he succeeded in making his escape. He evaded re-arrest until the law of amnesty for political prisoners was passed. He remained in obscurity till 1815, when, during “the hundred days,” he was elected a Deputy.

After the second Restoration he was banished as a regicide, and retired to Brussels, where he resided until 1830, when he returned to France and there remained until his death, at the age of eighty-six years, in 1841.

BLANCHARD DE DA MUSSE, François Gabriel Ursin.

Born at Nantes, 1752; died at Rennes in 1836.

A pupil and friend of Delisle de Salés. He was called to the Bar at Rennes, capital of Brittany, and became Councillor of the Parliament of that town. He was one of those arrested suspects saved by the Revolution of Thermidor, 1794.

After the 18th Brumaire his well-known honesty and amiability of character caused his nomination as a judge of the High Court at Trèves and later Nantes. In 1815 he was, as a Liberal, deprived of his functions, but reinstated the following year.

He wrote much poetry and several philosophical treatises.

BRISSOT DE WARVILLE, Jean Pierre.

Born at Chartres, January 1754; executed in Paris, October 1793.

The thirteenth child of a wealthy innkeeper, Brissot early showed signs of talent, and his first book, Théories des Lois criminelles, evoked a complimentary letter from the aged Voltaire, to whom the work was dedicated.

In Paris, Brissot entered a lawyer’s office, where Robespierre was his fellow clerk. But he soon abandoned law for journalism, and became a well-known pamphleteer. He visited England, and his book upon English literature was at one time considered a classic.

On his return from England he was falsely accused of being the author of a lampoon upon the Queen of France, and imprisoned in the Bastille. Here he remained four months, but was released by the influence of Mdme. de Genlis and the Duke of Orleans. He was advised to take refuge in London. He joined the Abolition of Slavery League, and resolved to establish a similar League in France under the title of Les Amis des Noirs. He went to America to study the question of slavery.

On his return from America he devoted all his talents and his efforts to add to the impetus of the French Revolution.

Brissot was elected one of the members for Paris in the National Assembly. An honest man and a true patriot, he fought against anarchy. He was an opponent of the massacres of September, and of the King’s trial.

Constantly attacked by the Robespierre faction, he was arrested at Moulins; incarcerated in the Abbaye at Paris; condemned to death with twenty-one of his friends on October 12, 1793, and executed on the following day.

Brissot was one of the writers who exercised great influence in those various publications which aided the advance of the French Revolution, and accelerated that movement. His books on law and legislature, his innumerable pamphlets, his speeches at the Assembly and Convention, attest his earnest devotion to the Revolutionary cause in its infancy.

BOURDON DE L’OISE, François Louis.

Born at Rémy, near Campièges; died in 1797 at Simamari in Guiana.

He commenced his career as a lawyer, became Procureur of the Parliament of Paris, and eventually embraced the Revolutionary cause in 1789, taking part in the attack on the Tuileries, August 10, 1792.

He became a member of the Convention by a trick. Another François Louis Bourdon, to whom he was in no way related, was elected both by the Department of l’Oise and also that of the Loiret as a Member of the Convention. This Bourdon chose to represent the Loiret; and his namesake, whom the electors had never seen, profiting by the similarity of names, presented himself to the Convention, took his seat without any difficulty, and held it without question.

He first distinguished himself by the ferocity of his utterances. He voted for the death of Louis XVI. without an appeal to the people, and denounced all the more moderate Deputies, such as Brissot, as being Royalists at heart. He defended the Reign of Terror, violently attacking the Abbé Grégoire for his desire to Christianise the Revolution.

As he later showed signs of pity towards the Royal insurgents in La Vendée, Robespierre and Hébert accused him of moderation, and caused him to be excluded from the Jacobin Club. Bourdon, alarmed, threw his influence in the scale against Robespierre in the Thermidor contra-Revolution, and went so far as to suggest that every Deputy who resisted the decree for Robespierre’s arrest should be shot upon the spot. He was one of the escort that accompanied Robespierre and his partisans to the scaffold.

From this time Bourdon declared himself the enemy of the Revolutionary system, and the protector of priests and nobles. Nevertheless, when sent to Chârtres to discover traces of those who were supposed to have plotted against the Convention, Bourdon showed excessive and merciless cruelty. He eventually became a Member of the Council of the Five Hundred, and realised a large fortune by dealing in assignats and in the national property.

The Directorate contained many of his mortal enemies, who inscribed his name upon the list of those to be transported to Cayenne, and he was arrested and deported; shortly after his arrival at Simamari Bourdon expired, broken down by impotent rage, remorse and despair.

BITANBÉ, Paul Jeremie.

Born at Kœnigsburg in Prussia, 1732; died in Paris, 1808.

Descended from a Huguenot family, banished from France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was a learned student, and a voluminous writer.

His translation of the Iliad, published in Berlin in 1762, brought him the patronage of Frederick the Great, who allowed him to settle in France, in order that he might perfect his knowledge of the French language. He published various translations from the Greek in Paris, and was naturalised as a French citizen.

He was arrested during the Terror, and, together with his wife, suffered a lengthy imprisonment; the 9th Thermidor brought his release.

He was one of the principal members of the new Institut, and there represented literature and the fine arts. His writings are somewhat marred by the fact that they were composed by a man who had not thoroughly grasped the intricacies of the French language.

LE BON, Josephe.

Born at Arras, September 25, 1765; executed at Amiens, 1795.

He made his first studies at an Oratorian College, and eventually became a member of that congregation. At the age of eighteen, he was already a teacher of rhetoric in the College of Béaune in Burgundy, and enjoyed a great reputation for piety and learning. His sympathy with the Revolution caused him to become a “Constitutional” parish priest at Vernois, and a year later he was appointed to a cure of souls near Arras.

Robespierre, St. Just, and Le Bas were his intimate friends: at their persuasion he abandoned Christianity, married, and adopted a political career. He was appointed Mayor of Arras and Syndic for the whole Department of Pas de Calais, and, at first, showed much judgment and great moderation.

In 1793 he was despatched on a mission to the Pas du Calais, and was at first so indulgent, that Suffray, his neighbour and enemy, denounced him to the Committee of Public Safety as a protector of the aristocrats and a persecutor of patriots. He was recalled to Paris, but under Robespierre’s guarantee and his own promise to redeem the past, was sent back to the Pas de Calais with unlimited powers, and the order to crush the anti-revolutionary movement in the towns of this Department. He carried out these orders without mercy. Terrified by these responsibilities and by the fact that the Austrian army occupied the neighbouring frontier, he imagined enemies of the Republic on every side, and wherever he went blood flowed freely. So great, however, were his cruelties that he was again accused. But Barrère declared that Le Bon had saved Cambrai by his energy, and for a time the accusation lapsed; his severities, however, made his enemies thirst for revenge. In May 1795, a committee was appointed to inquire into his conduct, and the report they returned was:

1. That he had been guilty of public assassination.

2. Of oppressing citizens.

3. Exercising personal vengeance in his summary executions of accused persons.

He was then tried and found guilty of an “unlimited abuse of the guillotine.”

Le Bon exclaimed, as they dressed him in the red garment reserved for murderers upon their road to the scaffold; “It is not I who should wear this garment, but those whose orders I obeyed.” He showed pitiable cowardice at his execution, and his cries and groans rent the air.

Lamartine says of Le Bon:

He decimated the Departments of Le Nord and Pas du Calais. This man is a striking example of the kind of vertigo by which men of weak mind are affected in great political crises. Certain periods of history excite criminality. Blood is in the air. Revolutionary fever has its delirium. Le Bon during his short life of thirty years experienced all the phases of this mental disease. In ordinary times he would have left behind him the reputation of a worthy, respectable, and religious man. In those sinister days he became a pitiless proscriptor.

BEAUHARNAIS, Eugène, Duke de Leuchtenberg, Prince of Eichstadt, Viceroy of Italy.

Born in Paris, 1781, died February 22, 1824.

His father was executed by order of the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1794, and his mother would have shared the same fate but for the fall of Robespierre. At the age of fourteen he was taken by General Hoche, who had been his father’s friend, to join the army in Brittany. His mother’s marriage to Napoleon in 1796 changed the course of his existence. In 1797 he was created sub-lieutenant, and from that time was the constant companion of his stepfather; and for the future that stepfather’s fortunes were his own.

He was only twenty-four when he became ruler of Italy, and showed extraordinary intelligence and moderation during his Vice-Royalty. After the signature of the Treaty of Pressburg, he married in 1806 Princess Louisa of Bavaria, and Napoleon bestowed upon him the titles of “Prince of the Empire, adopted son and heir-presumptive to the crown of Italy.”

After the fall of Napoleon, Prince Eugène retired with his wife and family to Bavaria, and was created Duke de Leuchtenberg by the King, his father-in-law. He spent a few years in seclusion, devoting himself to the education of his children. He died suddenly from an accident when only forty-three years of age.

His sons and daughters made brilliant alliances, his eldest son marrying Donna Maria della Gloria, Queen Regnant of Portugal; his younger son, Olga, daughter of the Emperor Nicholas. Of his daughters, the eldest became Queen of Sweden, the second Princess Hohenzollern, and the third Empress of Brazil.

The present Russian semi-Imperial family of Leuchtenberg is descended from Prince Eugène.

BARLOW, Joel.

Born at Reading in Connecticut, 1755; died in December 1812, in Russian Poland.

He served as chaplain to a regiment during the American War of Independence, and attained some celebrity by the patriotic songs he composed.

In 1788 he abandoned the clerical profession and sailed for Europe as agent of the Ohio Company. He settled in Paris, where he identified himself with the Revolutionary party, and was intimate with the leaders of the Girondins.

In 1791 he published several pamphlets and poems in favour of the Revolution, and in 1792 he addressed “A letter to the National Convention” begging them to abolish royalty, and presented in person an address to that Assembly from English Republicans. When the Abbé Gregoire went to Savoy on a special mission from the Convention, Barlow accompanied him and made many speeches at Chambéry against the King of Savoy.

On his return to Paris he was appointed American Consul at Tripoli; in 1805, after another long stay in Paris, he returned to America; in 1811 he was sent as American Minister to Paris. The following year he started to join the Duke de Bassano in Russia, which the French had just invaded, but falling ill on his way to Wilna he expired in a miserable village near Cracow.

CAMBACÈRES and Prince of Parma, Jean Jaques Régis, Duc de.

Born at Montpellier, 1753; died at Paris, 1824.

He belonged to an ancient family of the Long Robe, and many of his ancestors and family connections had been distinguished lawyers and churchmen. He was intended for the magistrature, and made law his chief study. In 1789 he proceeded to Paris and became a popular leader during the first years of the Revolution. He was elected a member of the Convention in 1792. Through the next two stormy years Cambacères, by the exercise of extreme prudence, kept himself free from suspicion, although he was never identified with the extreme party, and opposed the execution of Louis XVI. He was President of the Assembly in 1794, and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He was Minister of Justice during the Directory, and when Napoleon Bonaparte assumed the head of affairs after the eighteenth Brumaire he appointed Cambacères as Second Consul, with power to act for the First Consul during the latter’s absence.

When Napoleon assumed the title of Emperor Cambacères was created Arch-Chancellor, with perpetual Presidency of the Senate. He held this position during the whole of the reign of Napoleon I. None of his councillors were esteemed more highly by the Emperor than Cambacères; his advice was usually moderate and sensible. He opposed the Austrian marriage and the Russian campaign. It was he who in 1814 conducted Marie Louise and her child to Blois and delivered them over to the Austrian commissioners. Her flight from Paris was contrary to his advice.

During “the hundred days” he resumed his position as Chancellor. The Second Restoration banished him from France as a regicide. In 1818 the decree of his banishment was reversed, and he returned to Paris, where he died six years later at the age of seventy-one.

CARNOT, Lazare Nicholas Marguerite.

Born at Noisy, Burgundy, 1753; died at Magdeburg, in Prussia, 1827.

Educated in Paris at a military school he joined the army with the grade of lieutenant in 1773. He was soon distinguished by his scientific attainments as well as his literary talents.

When the Revolution broke out Carnot addressed many memorials to the Assembly on the subject of financial reform. Had his proposals been then carried out national bankruptcy might have been prevented.

He became a Deputy in 1791, and after the events of August 10, 1792, Carnot was despatched to the Republican army of the Rhine. During the next two years he commanded armies on the frontier, and gained many brilliant victories. He took no part in the atrocities of the Terror, but has been unjustly accused both by his contemporaries and by posterity of having approved the massacres at Avignon and the executions at Lyons. As a member of the Committee of Public Safety his name is attached to the decrees ordering these cruel punishments, but he was at this time fighting on the banks of the Rhine. He hated Robespierre and Robespierre detested him, often saying, “We need Carnot now for the war, but as soon as the war is over his head shall fall.”

Carnot became one of the five Directors, and in that capacity gave Napoleon Bonaparte command of the army of Italy. During that campaign the other four Directors opposed Carnot; he was stripped of his office and even of his seat in the Institut, a body he had virtually founded, was impeached and forced to fly for his life to Switzerland. He remained in exile until the events of the 18th Brumaire, when he was recalled and appointed Minister of War and Tribune. He was opposed to the creation of a life consulate, and later on to that of an Empire.

From 1807 to 1813 he retired into private life, employing his leisure in scientific studies and the education of his children. The disasters of 1813 brought him out of his retreat, and he again offered his services to the Emperor.

Napoleon appointed him Governor of Antwerp on January 24, 1814, which place he defended with so much ability that it was still in the possession of the French at the conclusion of the war. He again retired into private life, but when Napoleon returned from Elba he made Carnot Minister of the Interior. He held his appointment for less than three months, but during that short period brought about many educational reforms which are still in use.

After Waterloo, Carnot was a member of the Provisional Government, but as soon as the Bourbons returned he was banished and outlawed. The Emperor Alexander gave him a passport to Poland. He eventually fixed his residence with his family at Magdeburg in Prussia, where he died at the age of seventy.

CHAPTAL, Comte de Chanteloup, Jean Antoine.

Born June 4, 1756; died 1832.

A celebrated chemist. His uncle, a rich physician at Montpellier, gave him his first education. He studied chemistry at the University of Montpellier, received the title of Doctor in 1777, and went to Paris. In 1781 he returned to his native town a celebrated man.

The State of Languedoc founded in his honour a Professorship of Chemistry at the School of Medicine. Chaptal had adopted the theories of Lavoisier. The young professor considered chemistry, then in its infancy, likely to become the most useful and practical of sciences. By his uncle’s death he inherited a large fortune, and he devoted the whole of it to constructing various laboratories, where experiments could be carried out, and large establishments in which scientific productions might be manufactured.

By his inventive studies, and assisted by his large fortune, manufactories of alum, soda, and saltpetre were successfully established, and the Government recompensed this work by giving him a patent of nobility and the Grand Cordon of the Order of St. Michael.

Chaptal adopted all the ideas of the Revolution, although he disapproved its excesses. He was in consequence arrested; but his scientific knowledge was too important to the Government, and he was liberated and appointed Director of the Saltpetre Manufactory at Grenoble. After this he directed also the re-organisation of the School of Medicine. During the Consulate, Chaptal succeeded Lucien Bonaparte as Minister of the Interior, and in that capacity rendered great service to the State; he was appointed Treasurer of the Senat, under the title of Count Chanteloup. When Napoleon returned from Elba, Chaptal accepted the portfolio of Minister of Commerce. After the Restoration, Louis XVIII. erased his name from the list of Peers of France, but a few years later his peerage was restored. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences, and wrote several important scientific works in his old age.

Before his death, at the age of seventy-five, he had many pecuniary misfortunes, and died in comparative poverty.

CIMAROSA, Domenico.

Born 1749 at Aversa, in the Kingdom of Naples; died in Venice, 1801.

The son of a poor mason, he was but seven years of age when his father was killed by a fall from a scaffold. In her distress the boy’s mother applied to a charitable monk for help. This good man gave Cimarosa a few Latin lessons, and was so struck by the child’s intelligence that he decided to adopt him. This monk was organist of the convent, and taught his pupil music. Discovering the boy’s extraordinary aptitude for musical composition, he obtained his admission into the Conservatory at Santa Maria di Loretto.

At the age of twenty-four Cimarosa produced his first opera at Naples. His next ten years were a succession of triumphs, and he produced innumerable operas and other musical compositions. In 1787 the Empress Catherine offered him the title of Imperial Composer, with a high salary. He journeyed to Russia, was treated with great distinction, and many operas written by him in Russia were performed during his five years’ stay in that country. He returned to Naples in 1793.

In 1799 he joined the Revolutionary party in Italy, was thrown into prison, and but for the intercession of the Russian Ambassador would have been executed. Upon his release he took refuge at Venice, where he died.

He composed over a hundred operas, many of which still hold the stage.

CLOOTZ (surnamed ANACHARSIS), Jean Baptiste, Baron de.

Born in Cleves in Germany, 1755; guillotined in Paris, 1794.

He was educated in Paris, possessed considerable natural intelligence, but was led astray by the violent excitability of his nature. He had confused dreams of social regeneration, and declared that his life was to be devoted to the reformation of the world.

He inherited a vast fortune, renounced his title of baron, taking the romantic name of Anacharsis, travelled over Germany, Italy and England, preaching his extraordinary doctrines, and spending money with unbridled extravagance.

The French Revolution filled him with delirious joy; it appeared to realise all his mad projects. On June 19, 1790, he presented himself at the bar of the Assembly to read an address in which he requested that all strangers residing in Paris might be admitted to the Grand Federation which was to take place on July 14 of the same year. He called himself “the Ambassador of Humanity” to France, and gave large sums to the “nation” for the fitting out of a regiment “to fight in the holy war against tyranny.”

The events of August 10 seem to have shaken Clootz’s reason. Not content with attacking all the kings and princes of the earth, he delivered a violent tirade against the Almighty, declaring himself the personal enemy of God. He publicly abjured all religion. He complimented the Convention upon their victories near the Rhine, and requested the members to put prices upon the heads of the Duke of Brunswick and the King of Prussia. A decree of August 20, 1792, having granted him the title of citizen, he repaired to the Bar of the Assembly and delivered a long speech of thanks, and in the praise of regicide. After he became a member of the Convention he wearied his co-Deputies by long rambling speeches. He voted for the death of the King “in the name of the whole generation of mankind,” adding, “he personally condemned Frederick William of Prussia to death.”

Robespierre was his secret enemy, and by his (Robespierre’s) influence Clootz was excluded from the club of the Jacobins and arrested, the only accusation against him being that he was rich and of noble birth. Clootz was condemned to death with his supposed accomplices. He received his sentence with calmness, and passed his remaining hours preaching materialism to his fellow victims. At the scaffold he requested permission to suffer last, as he wished to make some observations while watching the heads of his companions fall.

He wrote several books, as strange in their contents as was his own character.

CONDORCET, Jean Antoine Nicolas de Carinton, Marquis de.

Born at Ribemont, in Picardy, 1743.

A member of a very ancient and noble family: being her only surviving son, his mother devoted him to the Virgin, making him wear girl’s clothes until the age of eleven.

He became one of the most illustrious mathematicians and philosophers of France. He was not quite twenty-two when he presented his celebrated essay, “Sur le calcul intégral” before the Academy. He was elected member of the Academy of Science after composing an eulogy on the death of La Fontaine in 1771.

During the next fifteen years he published many books of historical and philosophical interest.

Turgot inspired Condorcet with a taste for political economy.

In 1789, notwithstanding his great position in the world of literature and politics, Condorcet was not elected a member of the States-General. But in 1791 he was a Deputy for Paris in the second Assembly. He voted against the execution of Louis XVI.

Condorcet was shortly after denounced as an Academician, a conspirator, and an enemy of the people. He was also accused of having attacked the “sublime efforts of the Committee of Public Safety,” and on October 3 the Convention ordered his arrest. For a time various friends concealed the illustrious refugee in their houses, but he was obliged to fly on April 6, 1794, from his last hiding-place. Hunger drove him into a baker’s shop to buy bread, where the whiteness of his hands, the fineness of his linen, and the fact that he was carrying a volume of Horace excited suspicion, and he was arrested. He committed suicide the same night in prison, swallowing poison contained in a ring. He was fifty years of age.

Condorcet was one of the most illustrious of Frenchmen, a true friend of liberty, a gentleman, an honest man, an elegant speaker, a brilliant writer, and a distinguished geometrician; he fell a victim, with many others almost equally distinguished, to the fury of those revolutionary demagogues who deprived France of most of the benefits she might have received from the Revolution of 1789.

CONDÉ, Prince Louis Joseph de Bourbon.

Born at Chantilly, 1736; died in Paris, 1818.

The son of that Duke de Bourbon (afterwards Prince de Condé) who succeeded the Regent Duke of Orleans as Prime Minister to Louis XV. This Prince died in 1739, when his only son was three years of age.

From his earliest childhood the young Prince de Condé was devoted to military studies. His guardian, the Count de Charolais, gave him an excellent general education. The Prince made a good classical scholar, and through life was fond of making quotations of Greek and Latin authors. He wrote an admirable history of the life of his ancestor, the great Condé.

During the Seven Years War he showed military genius and personal courage, and the victory of Johannesburg was principally due to his efforts (1762). He married at the age of seventeen Mlle. de Soubise, by whom he had a son and a daughter. She died when her husband was twenty-seven and she but twenty-five years old.

His disposition was noble and generous, and his political views distinctly liberal. He violently opposed the suggestions of Count St. Germain (the War Minister) that Russian discipline, including the caning of soldiers, should be introduced into the French army. Deserving officers, not of noble birth, found in him a friend and protector, as he used his influence to assist their promotion.

The Prince de Condé spent twenty years of his life in embellishing and improving his magnificent residence at Chantilly and the surrounding domain. Here he entertained the German Emperor, Joseph II., the Emperor Paul, when Grand Duke Cesarovitch, Gustavus, King of Sweden, the Duke of Brunswick, and many other potentates. He was a generous landlord and a public benefactor during the famine (1775); he bought up, at any and every price, all the grain he could possibly obtain, this corn being re-sold to the people at the usual price given in prosperous years for wheat.

Governor of Burgundy, that province owed to his efforts new roads and bridges, the encouragement of local art, and the foundation of useful and literary institutions. In 1787, as President of the Assembly of Notables, his discourses were in favour of order, economy and reform. Nevertheless, he was one of the first objects of attack by the Revolutionary party, and menaced on every side. Very shortly after the destruction of the Bastille he departed with his family from France. He went first to Austrian Flanders, and later to Turin, where he helped to combine the movement which brought about the counter revolution in Lyons and Southern France. He was chosen to command the body of French noblemen and gentlemen known as L’armée du Rhin or Des Emigrés.

A decree of the Assembly, 1791, deprived him of an annuity of £24,000 a year (granted by the State to the House of Condé in exchange for the territory of Clemontain). His property at Chantilly was confiscated, and, as he was without resources, he sold all his plate, diamonds and jewels.

When the civil war began he commanded a body of five thousand men. At the close of the first campaign he possessed no funds beyond a sum of money the Empress Catherine sent him as a present. Shortly after this he entered regularly into the service of the Emperor of Austria and received the pay of an ordinary general.

In the campaign of 1793 the Prince de Condé performed many brilliant feats of strategy, entering Alsace and occupying Berstein; the enemy drove his troops to Hagenau, and he marched on foot at the head of his regiment and retook Berstein by a bayonet charge. During the two following campaigns, Condé’s army was occupied only in guarding the Rhine. He suffered from the jealousy and malevolence of the Austrian commanders, and was supplied with bad provisions and spoilt flour; but the Prince ordered his table to be served with similar bread to that of the soldiers.

During the whole of this time (in 1795) Condé was negotiating with Pichegru, who commanded the Republican army on the opposite bank of the Rhine. They agreed that Condé should pass over the Rhine with his army and join Pichegru; they were to march jointly on Paris and restore the monarchy. The Prince, being subordinate to the Austrian Commander-in-Chief, Werhmer, considered it a point of honour to communicate this scheme to his superior officer. The Cabinet of Vienna refused to assent to Condé’s arrangement with the Republican general, unless Strasburg and the other Alsatian fortresses were occupied by the Imperial troops. The Prince refused his consent, and Pichegru, whose first condition had been “no Austrian soldier shall set his foot on French soil,” naturally refused to entertain the proposal for an instant. The project was, therefore, abandoned.

The forces of Condé, consisting of 10,000 men, were now an integral part of the regular Austrian army. The passage of Moreau over the Rhine caused the retreat of the Austrians, and although Condé and his troops invariably distinguished themselves, and at the battle of Biberach saved the Austrian army from a crushing defeat, the advance of Moreau was never seriously checked.

After the peace of Campo-Formio in the following year, Condé and his remaining followers took service under Paul I. of Russia. In 1799 Paul abandoned the Austrian alliance, and made peace with France; the army of the Emigrés then passed over to the English. Condé fought in Bavaria and defended the passage of the Inn. But after the battle of Hohenlinden the whole of his remaining forces were disbanded. In 1801 the Prince joined his son, the Duke de Bourbon, in England, the British Government providing them with a small allowance.

Condé settled in the ancient abbey of Malmesbury, where he found a devoted companion in his second wife, the Dowager Princess of Monaco. In 1804 the news reached him of the assassination of his grandson, the Duke d’Enghien, the last male heir of his race. In 1813 he lost his wife, at the very moment when his long and cruel exile was about to terminate.

He landed at Calais with Louis XVIII. in May 1814. Notwithstanding his great age (he was nearly eighty) he was the only member of the royal family who did not instantly attempt flight from Paris on the return of Napoleon from Elba.

“We should fight,” he cried, as the carriage in which he had been forcibly seated was bearing him away towards the frontier.

On his return after Waterloo he spent the remaining five years of his life at the Palais Bourbon (now the Chamber of the French Legislature) and at a small château at Chantilly, the last relic of its ancient splendour.

He died in Paris, aged eighty two, and was, by order of Louis XVIII., buried at St. Denis, in the vault of the Kings of France.

DANTON, George Jacques.

Born October 28, 1759; executed April 6, 1794.

At the time of the outbreak of the Revolution he was a needy lawyer. The immorality of his private life caused him to be greatly discredited by members of his profession, and he seldom obtained employment. He therefore hailed with joy the social changes, and threw himself with all the energy of his temperament into the Revolutionary movement. He made the acquaintance of Mirabeau, who found him a man whose actions and unscrupulousness were likely to be of great use to his political plans. Mignet, in his “History of the Revolution,” says:

Danton was a revolutionary giant. He saw nothing condemnable in any action which could serve his purpose. His theory was that with audacity one could achieve anything and everything.

Danton, who had been surnamed “the Mirabeau of the populace,” possessed the following characteristics in common with the great Tribune. Strongly marked features, a loud voice, an imperious mien, a bold eloquence, and a dominating presence. Their vices were similar, with this difference, that in all his debaucheries Mirabeau remained a patrician, and Danton never ceased to be a democrat.

President of the Cordeliers, Danton took for his satellites Marât and Camille Desmoulins. Danton became the orator of the people, and was ready to speak anywhere and everywhere either in a public hall or in the street, from an open window or in the Tribune of the Assembly.

The political rôle and public life of Danton did not attain real importance until the return of the Royal Family from Varennes. For a time he sold himself to the Court party, and as he was under an order of arrest for debts he gladly accepted the terms offered him by the anti-revolutionists. He received altogether £12,000 sterling, but as soon as supplies ceased he rejoined his former friends and was a more implacable revolutionist than before. When the “Federals” arrived from Marseilles, Pétion, the Mayor of Paris, placed them under Danton’s orders. He plied them with wine and led them himself, with that personal courage which never deserted him, to the attack on the Tuileries on August 10. During the whole of that eventful day Marât and Robespierre were hiding in a cellar.

After August 10, Danton was appointed, as a reward for his services, Minister of Justice. He began his ministry by ordering domiciliary visits in every part of Paris, by arresting the clergy and all suspected Royalists. He then assembled the General Committee of National Defence, and in a speech to that body on September 1, 1792, said: “My advice is that it is necessary to terrify all Royalists.”

The following day he appeared in the Legislative Assembly at the head of the authorities, and in a voice of thunder shouted to the trembling Deputies:

It is at this moment, gentlemen, you can decree that Paris is worthy of France. The cannon you are about to hear sound, is not the cannon of alarm, it is the first step taken to destroy our enemies. What is required to vanquish them? Audacity! still more audacity!! and ever increasing audacity!!!

A few hours afterwards the massacres of September commenced. They lasted four days, and to the assassinations of defenceless prisoners in Paris succeeded those of the equally defenceless prisoners at Orleans on the ninth of the same month; a day or two later, a similar scene of slaughter occurred at Versailles.

Elected one of the Paris Deputies to the Convention, Danton resigned his Ministerial post. He was a violent promoter of the trial of Louis XVI., and to a friend who suggested the Convention was not by right of law a court of justice, he replied: “You are right; and we will not judge him, we shall kill him.”

Bertrand de Molleville, ex-Minister of Marine, who had taken refuge in London, informed Danton he possessed a letter written by him (Danton) at the time he was in the pay of the Royalists. This he threatened to publish if Danton used his influence to condemn Louis XVI. Danton left Paris in consequence and did not return until the last day of the King’s trial. Immediately after the King’s execution, Danton and Lacroix repaired to Belgium, which Dumouriez had just invaded. They received 4,000,000 of francs (£600,000) to be used in promoting a Revolution in Flanders and the Netherlands.

They were accused of having appropriated the greater part of this enormous sum, and there is every reason to believe this accusation was a just one. In order to avert suspicion, Danton replaced himself at the head of the most extreme revolutionists. He proposed and carried a motion for the levying of an army of 300,000 men, and also suggested the devastation of France in case of invasion. On March 10 he decreed the establishment of the famous Revolutionary Tribunal, which a year later sent him to the scaffold.

The Committee of Public Safety was formed and became the real governing power of France. Danton was its foremost member, and now reached the apogee of his career. But he was menaced on two sides; by the party of the Girondins, who clamoured for the punishment of those who had by murder soiled the cause of Liberty, and by the “Purists” of the Montagne, who accused him of the embezzlement of funds in Belgium. As, according to his own cynical remark, “authority in a Revolution should always belong to rogues,” he joined Robespierre and Pache and brought about the trial and execution of the Girondins. Soon afterwards the influence of Danton began to wane, he was now reproached with too much moderation, and of being desirous to coerce the actions of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He had denounced the Saturnalia of the Feast of Reason.

Robespierre decided Danton should fall, and many of his (Danton’s) friends advised him to fly while there was yet time. He replied: “They would not dare!” and remained, lulled by this false security, until he was arrested in his own house on the night of March 30, 1794. Many members of the Convention tried to save him, and an effort was made to give him an opportunity of appearing before the Assembly and publicly attesting his patriotism; but this was vetoed by Robespierre, who with feigned indignation said: “We shall see whether the Convention will be able to break a rotten idol, or will allow that idol to destroy in its fall not only the Convention but the people of France.”

St. Just ascended the Tribune, and poured forth a violent impeachment of his former ally, whom he accused of every possible form of treachery to the Republic. “Terror was voted as the order of the day,” and Danton’s fate was sealed.

After he and his companions had undergone a mock trial, devoid of every semblance of justice, they were sentenced to death. Danton’s answer to the sentence was: “We are being immolated by a few cowardly brigands; but they will not long enjoy the fruits of their victory. Robespierre, that infamous coward, will soon follow me.”

Danton was executed on April 5 with Camille Desmoulins, Lacroix, Fabre d’Eglantine, Hermit, Le Sechelle, Philippeaux, Declannoy de Angers, Chalet and Bazire (all of these men were Deputies of the Convention) the famous Abbé d’Espagne, General Westerman, a Spaniard, a Dane, and two Austrians. His last words were: Montrez ma tête au Peuple, elle en vaut la peine.

He was thirty-five years of age when he perished. Robespierre enjoyed the sight of the execution of his rival from a neighbouring window, and after the fall of the knife retired into the Tuileries gardens to take his daily walk, rubbing his hands with satisfaction.

DAVID, Jacques Louis.

Born in Paris, 1748; died in Brussels, 1824.

Left an orphan at an early age, his grandfather, an architect, adopted him. When a boy at school he met with an accident which deformed his face for life. A stone struck him in the mouth, broke several teeth, and a growth eventually formed upon his upper lip which gave him a savage and ferocious expression. In early childhood he showed promise of artistic talent. His uncle intended the boy to follow his profession of an architect, but when the youth begged to be allowed to study painting he yielded to his entreaties.

The famous painter, Boucher, then a very old man, saw some sketches made by young David, and offered to take him into his studio as a pupil. After Boucher, the painter Vien became David’s master, and the student competed for the “Grand Prix de Rome”; he was unsuccessful four times, but finally carrying off the prize started for Italy in 1776. He devoted himself to the study of the antique, and adopted that severe classical style by which his work is distinguished. While at Rome he painted “The Pests of Saint Roch” for the Lazaretto at Marseilles. In 1780 he returned to Paris and produced “Belisarius” and “The Death of Hector,” after which he was elected to the Academy, given an appointment in the Louvre, and opened a school for young painters.

He married Mademoiselle Pecconi, a beautiful Italian girl, on the occasion of his second visit to Rome in 1784. He exhibited the “Horaces” in Paris, and was proclaimed “The Regenerator of Art.” Louis XVI. patronised the painter, and commissioned him to paint “Brutus,” which picture was finished early in 1789.

The Revolution changed David’s life and ideas; in 1790 the National Assembly commissioned him to paint “The Oath in the Tennis Court.” In 1792 the artist was elected Deputy for Paris in the Convention. This position seemed to affect his intellect and excite his brain.

The painter of “Brutus” considered himself another Brutus, and imagined Louis XVI. deserved death because, being a king he must necessarily be a tyrant.

During the early months of the Republic David organised those fêtes which were intended to imitate the ancient popular feasts of Greece and Rome.

He painted, amongst other numerous pictures, “The Assassination of Michel le Pelletier” and that of “Marat by Charlotte Corday.” These pictures were exhibited to the public in the courtyard of the Louvre.

He became the most violent among the violent Terrorists. His speeches in the Convention invariably contained cries for more bloodshed. He was the intimate friend and ally of Robespierre. After the fall of the latter, David was twice arrested, and remained first four, and then three, months in prison.

Bonaparte, after his first campaign in Italy, and when the peace of Campo-Formio was concluded, sent for the painter, with whom he had an interview. The General desiring he should paint his portrait David said, “I will paint you sword in hand in the midst of a battle.” Bonaparte replied, “Battles are not now gained with swords. Paint me seated on a fiery charger.” This idea was realised in that well-known picture, “The Return from Marengo.” Napoleon, after assuming the imperial title, appointed David his painter-in-ordinary, and commissioned him to paint four immense pictures to cover the walls of the throne room in the Tuileries. “The Coronation” and “The Distribution of Eagles in the Champ de Maers” were the only two executed. “The Coronation” occupied the artist during three years of incessant work. Until 1814 David remained in Paris, an imperial favourite and a fashionable portrait-painter, enjoying the reputation of being the greatest artist of his day. On the return of the Bourbons, of whom he had been in a certain sense a personal enemy, he was not allowed to exhibit his great picture, “The Thermophyles,” in public.

After the Second Restoration he was banished from France, to which country he never returned. Before his departure he cut his two great works, “The Coronation” and “The Distribution of the Eagles,” to pieces with his own hands. By the order of Louis XVIII. the fragments were re-united, and the pictures may now be seen in the museum at Versailles.

During his twenty years exile David continued to paint with industry and vigour, dying at Brussels in 1824.

D’ESTAING, General.

The General mentioned by Yorke was a member of a very ancient family, whose archives date back to the tenth century. A Count D’Estaing saved the life of Philippe Augustus in battle. As a reward the D’Estaing family were granted the privilege by that King of quartering the Royal arms of France upon their escutcheon. An Admiral D’Estaing, uncle of General D’Estaing, was one of the most distinguished French naval officers of the eighteenth century; his opinions were liberal, and he at first favoured the Revolutionary changes. He was, nevertheless, a devoted friend of Marie Antoinette, and when she was tried in October 1793, made an effort to assist in her defence. He fell in consequence under the suspicion of the Committee of Public Safety, and was condemned and executed. When sentence of death was pronounced upon him, he exclaimed: “You had better send my head to the English; they will pay you highly for it.”

FITZ JAMES, Edouard, Duke De.

Born at Versailles, 1776; died in Paris, 1838.

His family emigrated in the early days of the Revolution, and settled in Italy.

After the formation of Condé’s army, young Fitz James joined its ranks, became aide-de-camp to Marshal Castries, showing on many occasions great personal bravery. After the forcible dispersion of the French Emigré Regiment, Fitz James visited England and Scotland, and married in London a Mdlle. Latouche.

During the Consulate he applied for, and received, permission to reside in France.

He refused to accept any place or dignity at the hands of Napoleon, and took no part in public affairs until December 1813 (when the fall of the Empire appeared imminent). He then entered the National Guard as a non-commissioned officer, with the object of obtaining a secret influence over the men. In this he was successful, for his arguments and actions practically caused the refusal on the part of the National Guard to attack the Allied Army then marching upon Paris.

After the capitulation of that city, Fitz James organised and headed a vast demonstration in favour of the restoration of the Bourbons. Thousands of young men rushed through the streets of Paris, waving white flags and shouting Vive le Roi! This popular manifestation greatly affected the Emperor Alexander, and caused his final decision in favour of the Restoration of the ancient monarchy.

When Louis XVIII. assumed the sovereignty of France, Fitz James was created a Peer, Colonel of the National Cavalry, and Chamberlain to Count d’Artois. During the second Restoration Fitz James was one of the principal instigators of the severe reprisals on the Royalist side, known as the “White Terror.” Marshal Ney’s execution was caused by the efforts of Fitz James.

He unsuccessfully endeavoured to bring about the condemnation to death of General Bertrand, although the latter was his own brother-in-law.

A wild fanaticism seemed at this period to have affected his mind. He opposed every constitutional concession on the part of the Government, and showed himself so hostile to Ministerial and even Royalist projects, that he was finally forbidden to appear at Court.

After the Revolution of 1830, Fitz James, as a Peer of France, took the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe. But in secret he was still loyal to the exiled King.

At the time of the rising in La Vendée excited by the Duchess de Berry, Fitz James was arrested, but released owing to lack of evidence against him.

He became Deputy for Toulouse in 1834, and until his death four years later was a prominent member of the Right in the French Parliament, and took a considerable part in the debates.

FOUCHÉ, Duke of Otranto, Joseph.

Born at Nantes, 1763; died at Trieste, 1820.

He was intended by his father, a sea captain, for the merchant service, but owing to his delicate health this project was abandoned. He was sent to the Oratorian College in Nantes, and later to an establishment of the same Order in Paris. He received the tonsure and became an abbé; at the time of the Revolution he was a professor in the Nantes University. He quitted the cassock, married, and proceeded to Paris.

In 1792 he was elected member of the Convention, and became intimate with Robespierre. The King’s trial gave him his first opportunity of publicly expressing his extreme views. He said in a speech from the Tribune: “I demand the execution of the tyrant, for it would almost appear as if we regretted our courage in abolishing Royalty, were we to tremble before its wretched shadow.”

In March 1793, Fouché was despatched to his native town (Nantes), armed with full powers to crush a rebellion against the Republic in the West of France. He opened the campaign by a violent attack on every form of Christianity, confiscated all ecclesiastical buildings, arrested and imprisoned the priests, commanded the destruction of all religious emblems, and ordered this inscription to be placed on the gates of the cemeteries: “Death is an Eternal Sleep.”

He affected a disdain for wealth, writing to the Assembly, “Let us abolish gold and silver and fling away all such idols of Monarchy!”

These deeds and sentiments caused his rapid promotion, and he was sent to Lyons in company with Herbois, with orders to chastise with fire and sword that recalcitrant city. The two commissioners inaugurated their mission by celebrating a “Feast of Reason,” which, like that of Paris, was a licentious and impious orgie. One of its principal features was a procession headed by an ass, upon whose head was fixed a mitre, while to his tail were fastened the Books of the Old and New Testaments. An altar was erected, at which a mock Mass was celebrated, and the ass given food and drink from consecrated vessels. A bonfire fed with religious emblems and sacred books was extinguished by a violent storm of rain and wind, which finally broke up the “Feast.” Upon the next day the massacres of Lyons began. The tribunal decided that the guillotine was too slow a form of execution. They therefore decreed the condemned should be mowed down in batches by cannon shot. As many as fifty-nine persons were on one occasion blown to pieces at the same instant. During their four months’ reign in Lyons, over 1700 persons are known to have been destroyed by order of the commissioners.

On the retaking of Toulouse by the Republican forces Fouché wrote to Callot, who was charged with the administration of “justice” to the rebels: “Annihilate all traitors. Take Nature’s example, strike and scorch as one does with lightning and thunderbolts, so that the very ashes of the enemies of the Republic may disappear from the soil of Liberty. Tears of joy flow from my eyes and inundate my soul. We celebrate your victory to-day by sending 213 rebels to be destroyed by the thunder of our guns!”

During his residence at Lyons, Fouché was denounced by Hébert at the Jacobin Club; it was with satisfaction, therefore, that he saw the former fall with Danton. When, in April 1794, Fouché returned to Paris, after an absence of eight months, he found Robespierre at the zenith of his power. When rendering an account of his services, Fouché ended his speech with these words: “Criminal blood fertilises the soil of Liberty and establishes justice upon secure and immovable foundations.” He was almost immediately afterwards selected as President by the Jacobin Club.

On the occasion of the celebrated Fête de l’Etre Suprême, Fouché had the imprudence publicly to mock Robespierre’s devotion to the new Deity, saying Tu nous embêtes avec ton être suprême. Robespierre impeached him before the Jacobin Society, and caused Fouché’s expulsion from the Club of which he was President, but the 10th Thermidor was not far off; and the execution of Robespierre saved the life of Fouché.

For a time the latter retired into private life. Two years later he ostensibly joined the party of Baboeuf, the Socialist, but when he had thoroughly mastered the details of Baboeuf’s plot he revealed the whole of the affair to the Directorate.

After the execution of Baboeuf, Fouché obtained, as the price of his services, an army contractorship, and later was created ambassador to the Cisalpine Republic. After remaining some time in this capacity at Milan he returned to Paris in January 1799. In July of the same year he was nominated Minister of Police. Notwithstanding the opposition of Siezès, Fouché retained this appointment until the establishment of the Consular Government. Napoleon, who thoroughly appreciated the abilities and understood the astuteness of Fouché’s character, made use of him as his most confidential Minister until 1810.

The remarkable system of secret police which distinguished the Consular and Imperial Governments was originated and carried out by Fouché. It was he who discovered the plot of Georges; who prevented the assassination of the First Consul by an infernal machine in 1810; and upon his head, more than upon his master’s, that the guilt of the murderous execution of the Duke d’Enghien rests.

Fouché was too wise and far-seeing to approve of the divorce and re-marriage of Napoleon, and he particularly opposed the Austrian Alliance; for this the Emperor never forgave him, and when he discovered that his union with Marie Louise did not induce the British Government to recognise his sovereignty, he dismissed Fouché, and in 1810 gave the portfolio of Police to Savary. Fouché was not, at first, openly disgraced, but appointed Governor of Rome. Before his intended departure, however, Napoleon ordered him to give up all political documents in his possession. Fouché sent some insignificant papers, declaring he had destroyed the remainder. Napoleon was furious, and the ex-Minister was obliged to fly from France.

A compromise was arranged, and two years later Fouché returned. In 1813 he was appointed Governor of Illyria. In the following April, after the first abdication of the Emperor, he returned to Paris, headed the deputation which received the Comte d’Artois, and shortly afterwards Louis XVIII. took him into his confidence and consulted him on many points. He did not, as he desired, become Police Minister.

Upon the return of Napoleon and the flight of the Royal Family, Fouché accepted his old post, but during the whole of the hundred days he secretly intrigued with the exiled Princes.

After the Second Restoration, he was immediately summoned to the Tuileries and re-appointed Police Minister, but he only retained office three months; he had too many enemies in the Royal entourage, and found foes among Liberals and reactionaries alike. He was made Ambassador to the Court of Saxony, but the law of 1815—which banished all regicides—deprived him of this position and drove him again into exile. He became a naturalised Austrian, and died four years later at Trieste, on Christmas Day, 1820. He was but fifty-seven years old, but a life of excitement and mental overwork had given him the appearance of extreme old age. He left a fortune of £560,000, amassed, it is supposed, by subtle and dishonest means during his occupation of the Ministry of Police.

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE, Quentin Antoine.

Born at Hérouet in 1747; guillotined in Paris May 8, 1795.

He was a son of a wealthy farmer, and after studying law in Paris bought a charge of procureur at the Châtelet. Although active and intelligent, his well-known immorality prevented his achieving success in his profession, and he was forced to sell his charge to avoid bankruptcy.

Reduced to any and every expedient to earn a livelihood, he addressed some flattering verses to Louis XVI., which, by the efforts of the Abbé Delille, obtained for their author an appointment in the bureau of police.

On the outbreak of the Revolution, Fouquier-Tinville, became an extremist, and was made commissionary over the district in Paris where he resided.

He passed the evening of August 9 in the Commune, pronouncing the most sanguinary discourses, and took a prominent part in the attack upon the Tuileries the following day.

Robespierre and Danton appointed him a member of the jury of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

His legal knowledge, his calm determined manner, and his gift of eloquence led very shortly afterwards to his nomination to the post of “Public Accuser.” From this moment he considered that he was “Minister of Political Justice,” the Committee of Public Safety being his sovereign, and the jury and executioners his servants. He interrogated the accused as a judicial formality, but he made no inquiry as to the innocence or guilt of the prisoner. Every evening at ten o’clock he repaired to the Committee of Public Safety, to give an account of his doings during the day. His lodgings were in the Palace of Justice, and he never left them, except to go in the daytime to the Tribunal, and in the evening to the Committee.

It was before him that Marat appeared on April 24, 1793, accused by the National Assembly. Fouquier facilitated his acquittal; this was the only instance in which he ever showed mercy. Before him passed in vast procession during the next fifteen months the victims of the Revolution.

He accused and delivered to death Danton, Hébert and the whole Commune of Paris, as mercilessly as he prosecuted the last Queen of France. When Robespierre and his companions were dragged before the Tribunal, Fouquier said to the jury, who were in doubt as to the course they should pursue: “We are dispensers of justice, and justice must be executed upon all who come before us.”

After the 12th Thermidor, Barrère was desirous of retaining Fouquier-Tinville in his sanguinary functions. But a universal outcry prevented this. Fréron, who had himself an odious reputation for cruelty, denounced Fouquier, saying: “It is time Fouquier-Tinville were sent to hell to expiate his bloody deeds.”

The Assembly decreed his trial, and five days later he appeared at the bar of the Convention. He attempted to throw all the blame for his acts upon Robespierre, but he was arrested and imprisoned. His trial lasted forty-one days, over two hundred witnesses, who gave lengthy evidence, being interrogated

He was found guilty of

having caused the death of innumerable innocent persons of both sexes under pretence of being conspirators; of having on one occasion sent during the space of three hours eighty persons to the scaffold without respecting legal formalities; of having crowded upon carts (prepared in readiness before their trial), victims who had not had any semblance of justice and whose condemnations were never signed; of having ordered the execution of a number of pregnant women.

Fouquier’s defence was as follows:

The Convention having declared Terror to be the Order of the day, in the same breath ordered the extermination of all rebels. The prisoners were merely sent before me in order that I might carry out certain legal formalities. It was therefore your orders, citizen representatives, that I obeyed. Which of you ever gave me a word of blame? Blood was the perpetual cry upon the lips of your orators. If I am guilty, then you are all guilty. I was but the weapon of the Convention; do you punish the executioner’s axe?

He was condemned to death with fifteen other persons, and conducted the following day to the scaffold. The populace followed the cart which bore him to punishment with yells of execration and insult. He spoke to them cynically, and to a man who cried out, Tu n’as plus la parole aujourd’hui—the taunt he used to those of his victims who wished to defend themselves before the Tribunal—Fouquier said:

“And thou, wretched creature, go and claim thy three ounces of bread at the Section; I at least die with a full stomach and have never known want.”

GANGENELLI, POPE CLEMENT XIV., Jean Vincent Antoine.

Born, October 1705; died, September 22, 1774.

He was the son of a doctor, and became a Franciscan monk at the age of nineteen. An ardent student of philosophy and theology, he was sent to the College of St. Bonaventura at Rome to teach theology, and made a doctor of divinity. Later he became Professor of Philosophy at Ascoli. He was also a noted orator, and his reputation as a preacher was high at Bologna, Milan, Ferrara, Venice, and Florence.

In 1741 he was recalled to Rome.

He led as retired a life as practicable in Rome, though he was fond of exercise and riding on horseback. He declared it to be his most earnest wish to return to the monastery of S. Francis at Assisi, and twice refused to accept the position of General of his Order. Nevertheless his great reputation as a theologian caused his elevation to the Cardinalate in 1759 and ten years later to the Papacy. His election surprised every one, himself most of all, for Cardinal Ganganelli was not even a Bishop when nominated to the headship of the Church.

His five years’ reign was one of the most important during the history of the Papacy. At that time the Order of Jesus was assailed on all sides, and every reigning Prince of Europe desired its dissolution. Still the Society was so powerful, so numerous, and had been so staunch a supporter of the Holy See that its position was considered impregnable. Clement XIV., after due consideration and much diplomatic action, decreed in 1773 the suppression of the congregation founded by S. Ignatius Loyola.

He died the following year, and the Jesuits have frequently been accused of having poisoned him. Historical researches have proved the injustice of this statement. He was in his seventieth year, and completely worn out by mental anxiety and overwork.

He was one of the very ablest as well as one of the worthiest successors of St. Peter.

GIRARDON, François.

François Girardon, a celebrated French sculptor, born in 1628, died in 1715 (the same year as his patron and employer, Louis XIV.).

From 1652 until his retirement in extreme old age he was employed, first in conjunction with Le Brun, and afterwards singly in directing the art work undertaken in Paris and at Versailles by Louis XIV.

His greatest achievements were considered to be the Bain d’Apollon, the “Rape of Proserpine” at Versailles and the equestrian statue of Louis XIV., which, before its destruction during the Revolution, occupied the centre of the Place Vendôme.

GRÉGOIRE, Henri.

Henri Grégoire, born near Lunéville, 1750, died in Paris, 1831, was Curé of Embermesnil. Elected to the States-General as representative of the clergy of Lorraine he proceeded to Versailles, 1789.

His liberal opinions were already well known by a book he had published, entitled “Regeneration of the Jews.” This book was in 1788 crowned by the Academy of Metz.

At Versailles the Abbé Grégoire soon became intimate with the leading members of the Tiers État. He exercised an ever-increasing influence over those among the clerical members of the Assembly who, like himself, were drawn from the ranks of the people.

At the very moment when the attack upon the Bastille was proceeding, and when a large proportion of the Deputies expressed apprehension, fear and alarm, Grégoire delivered a vehement oration in the Assembly in favour of the Revolution.

His influence in the Constitutional Assembly was invariably directed towards the advancement of those reforms by which he hoped the enfranchisement of the people might be accelerated. He took an active part in the abolition of the privileges possessed by the nobility and clergy, voted against the law of primogeniture, and demanded that Jews and negroes should have equal civil rights with Christians and white men.

When the Clerical Constitution was promulgated, Grégoire was the first priest who took the oath; and he accepted the Bishopric of Blois under the new régime. He represented the Department Loir et Cher (in which his episcopal see is situated) in the Convention, and on September 22 brought forward a motion in favour of the total abolition of Royalty and the proclamation of a Republic; his favourite axiom being, “The history of kings is the martyrology of the people.”

He was not present at the trial of Louis XVI., but wrote from Chambery to the Convention, declaring his opposition to a death sentence upon the King.

Grégoire became a prominent member of the Committee of Public Instruction, and by his efforts the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers was established.

He persuaded the Assembly to vote for the political and civil emancipation of the Hebrew race in France, and to pass a law abolishing negro slavery in the French colonies.

Grégoire continued to be an earnest and ardent Christian throughout the bitter religious persecutions of “the Terror,” and constantly proclaimed the sincerity of his religious beliefs. He had, indeed, been first attracted towards the Revolution because he imagined it would bring the adoption of Gospel principles into ordinary life. Bourdon de l’Oise accused him in the Jacobin Club of a design to Christianise the Revolution. Grégoire, in reply, declared this his earnest desire.

After the closing of the Convention, Grégoire joined the Council of the five hundred; in 1798 he became a Member of the Corps Législatif to the Presidency, of which he was soon after elected. He did not hold this post many weeks. His intense Republicanism was distasteful to the new Government, while his faith in Christianity aroused against him the animosity of the Radical party.

Grégoire became a senator in 1801, and retained his senatorship during Napoleon’s reign. He was opposed to the Imperial policy, protesting against the occupation of the Papal States and the divorce and re-marriage of Napoleon. After the Restoration Grégoire suffered considerable persecution. The Government deprived him of his pension as a Senator and of his membership in the Academy and Institute. He was reduced to such a depth of poverty as to be compelled to sell his library in order to support existence.

The next fifteen years of his life were spent in complete retirement; he carried out during this period a vast amount of literary work, and kept up a very extensive correspondence with eminent and learned men belonging to various European countries.

His situation was not improved by the Revolution of 1830. Louis Philippe obliged him to resign his commandership of the Legion of Honour, and when, a few months later, he was upon his death bed, the last sacraments were refused him, by the express order of the Archbishop of Paris. A courageous priest, the Abbé Gallon, did, however, administer the viaticum to the dying ex-bishop.

HAMILTON, William Richard.

William Richard Hamilton was born in London in 1777. In 1799 he accompanied Lord Elgin to Constantinople as private secretary, and was employed by that nobleman (British Ambassador to the Porte) to bring from Rome those artists who assisted him in his selection of certain statues and friezes, known as the Elgin Marbles, which are now in the British Museum. These marbles were placed on the Mentor, this ship being wrecked in September 1803, near the Island of Cos. Hamilton, who was on board, saved most of these priceless relics of antiquity by his presence of mind and intelligence.

He travelled shortly afterwards in Egypt, and published in 1809 a book, “Egyptian Monuments,” which was the first work of any importance on that subject since the days of Herodotus.

Mr. Hamilton was permanent Under Secretary at the English Foreign Office from 1809 to 1822; British Minister to the Court of Naples from 1822 to 1829, and President of the Geographical Society in London from 1837 to 1841.

HAUTERIVE, Count Blanc de Lanautte (Alexandre Maurice).

Born in 1754 at Aspres, in Dauphiné; died in Paris, 1830.

He was the thirteenth child of noble born but poor parents.

One of his uncles, a priest, adopted him, and he was intended for the Church, and educated at an Oratorian College. He refused to take orders, and became a lay professor in the University of Tours.

When the Duke de Choiseul visited this College, young Hauterive composed and delivered the discourse of welcome. The great nobleman was so well satisfied that he invited the youthful professor to Chanteloup. Here he found the Count de Choiseul de Gauffier, who was about to depart as Ambassador to Constantinople. Hauterive was offered and accepted the post of private secretary to this Minister, whom he accompanied to the Levant in 1784.

When he reached Constantinople he was appointed French secretary to the Hospodar of Moldavia, an important and highly paid situation.

Four years later he returned to Paris and married a rich and handsome widow. When the Revolution broke out he refused to emigrate, and remained in France a faithful servant to the house of Choiseul. He was in consequence totally ruined.

In 1792 he was given the French Consulship at New York, but he soon lost this appointment on account of his anti-Republican views. He was at last reduced to great poverty, and worked for a time as a day labourer. While in America he was joined by Talleyrand, who, however, soon returned to France. In 1798 Hauterive ventured back to Paris, and obtained a clerkship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

After the Revolution of the 18th Brumaire (November 1799) Bonaparte, who required an intelligent individual capable of composing a general manifesto to the nations of Europe, was recommended by Talleyrand to employ Hauterive.

In six weeks the work appeared under the title of “The Condition of France at the End of the Year VIII.” Napoleon was greatly pleased, and Hauterive became one of his most trusted councillors. He was the principal factor in the diplomatic work of France during the Consulate. The most important of his achievements was the Concordat. His ancient theological studies among the Oratorians fitted him well for his task, and, as he had never taken holy orders, he was not, like Talleyrand, under the stigma of being a renegade priest. All through the Empire Hauterive continued to act as diplomatic adviser and agent for Napoleon all over Europe; he was also the guardian of the archives of France. In 1809 he received the title of Count of the Empire.

In 1814 he retired into private life. During “the Hundred Days” he refused to join the Ministry, and only solicited the restitution of his position as “Director and Guardian of the Archives of France.”

When the Bourbons returned, Hauterive was restored in this position by the Duke of Richelieu, the Prime Minister.

Hauterive exercised great influence during the reign of Louis XVIII., who had an immense respect for him. His literary work during the fifteen years of the Restoration was colossal. He died in 1830, aged seventy-six.

HOUDON, Jean Antoine.

Born at Versailles, 1740; died, July 16, 1828.

He gained at the age of nineteen the “Grand Prix” of Sculpture, and immediately departed for Rome. He was in Italy when Herculaneum and Pompeii were discovered. He remained for ten years in the Italian Peninsula, and executed the colossal statue of St. Bruno, founder of the Cistercian order, which still stands in the Portico of Santa Maria dei Angeli in Rome.

After his return to France he attained great celebrity, and “L’Ecorché,” the well-known study of a man’s body after the skin has been removed, showing all the sinews and muscles, was his work. This model is still used in all Art Academies.

The United States having decreed that a statue of Washington should be erected, Houdon was invited to America that he might undertake the commission. He accompanied Franklin to Philadelphia on the return of the latter from his embassy in France. Washington gave him many sittings, and the statue in question is now in the City Hall of Richmond, Virginia.

Many of his later works are well known, particularly the seated figure of Voltaire in the foyer of the Théâtre Français.

KOSCIUZKO (Thaddeus of Warsaw).

Born in Poland, February 12, 1746; died in Switzerland, in 1817.

A member of an ancient and noble family belonging to Lithuanian Poland. Being disappointed in love, he left his native country in 1775, for America, offering his services to Washington as a volunteer. During the War of Independence he became the intimate friend of Lafayette. He served with great distinction throughout the long campaign, and, on the conclusion of peace in 1783, was awarded a considerable share in those pecuniary gifts decreed by Congress for those who aided the cause of Freedom; he received the rank of Brigadier-General, and the order of Cincinnatus. He returned to Poland, and proceeded to take a considerable and active part in the politics of his native country.

When, after the first treaty of partition, the Russians occupied Poland under various pretexts, Kosciuzko acted successfully as General-in-Chief of the Polish Army and repulsed the enemy; but the pusillanimous King Stanislaus commanded his troops to lay down their arms. The Russians entered Warsaw in 1792, and from that moment the independence of Poland virtually terminated.

Kosciuzko headed an insurrection against the Russians in 1794, and after many successes was defeated, seriously wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Maciejovice, while Warsaw and Praga were brutally sacked by Suwaroff. The patriot Pole was thrown into a dungeon, where he remained until the death of Catherine II. in 1796.

Paul I. reversed his mother’s policy and released Kosciuzko, who proceeded first to France and then to England. In both countries he was received with the greatest honour and respect; the former granted him the title of Citoyen Français. Napoleon, as First Consul, favoured the Polish general, and employed him in hopes of obtaining redress for his country’s wrong; the latter was ready to serve and did serve either Napoleon or Alexander I., but his hopes were always frustrated, and after the peace of 1815, when the Duchy of Warsaw was finally united to the Russian Empire, he retired into voluntary exile and died at Solenme in Switzerland in 1817. His body was eventually removed to Cracow in Austrian Poland, and his coffin placed in the cathedral of that city between those of John Sobieski and Joseph Poniotowski.

LAFAYETTE, Marie Paul Motier, Marquis de.

Born, 1757; died, May 19, 1834.

Lafayette’s father fell at Minden a few months before his son’s birth, his mother died when he was an infant. Lafayette inherited a large fortune, and at the age of seventeen married an heiress, Mdlle. de Novilles.

Refusing brilliant offers to Court appointments, and regardless of the entreaties of his young wife and other relatives, he insisted, when but twenty years of age, in fitting out a ship at his own expense and offered his sword to Washington in aid of American independence. He fought for two years in the War of Secession, was wounded at the battle of Brandy-Wine, and assisted in the retreat of Barren Hill, where he showed much courage and tactical skill.

On hearing there was a likelihood of war breaking out between England and France, he returned to Europe. He succeeded in persuading Louis XVI. to send out 4000 troops under the joint command of Count Rochambeau and himself to assist Washington, and this reinforcement was mainly instrumental in obtaining the American final successes.

Lafayette defended Virginia against Lord Cornwallis, and it was he who was the principal means of causing that commander to capitulate at York Town.

Lafayette returned to France in 1785 with a glorious reputation.

When the States-General assembled, Lafayette was member for Auvergne. He was elected Vice-President of the Assembly; was in Paris during the taking of the Bastille, and used every effort in his power to produce moderation in the Revolutionary party, of which he was a member. When the mob attacked Versailles his presence of mind and influence over the crowd were the means of saving the lives of the Queen and the whole Royal Family. During their terrible drive to Paris, Lafayette rode the whole way by the side of their carriage, and saved them from as much outrage as possible.

His popularity declined after the flight to Varennes, which he was suspected to have assisted. He was given the command of the army on the frontier, and succeeded in putting these irregular troops into some kind of order and discipline. He fell into disgrace and was deprived of his command, owing to the fact that he dared to report unfavourably of the Jacobin Club; forced to fly from France, arrested in Austria, and imprisoned for five years at Olmutz.

His wife and daughters having escaped after fifteen months’ captivity in the dungeons of Robespierre, joined him in his exile.

When at last released the Directorate forbade his return to France, which he did not re-enter until after the events of 18 Brumaire. Napoleon received him with favour, made him a Counsellor, and offered him a Senatorship. He voted against the Life Consulate and the Empire, and retired from public life until the end of the Napoleonic régime.

After Waterloo he took part in the Provisionary Government which held the reins of power until the Allies re-entered Paris. He met with little favour from the Government of the Restoration, his opinions were too liberal, and he was suspected of Republicanism.

In 1824 he returned to the United States, where he was received with unbounded enthusiasm. In recognition of his services that Government voted him in land and money a sum equivalent to £30,000.

He took a leading part in the Revolution of 1830, and greatly assisted Louis Philippe in obtaining the sovereignty of France; for in his opinion a constitutional monarchy was the best of republics.

He died in 1834 at the age of seventy-seven.

LARCHER, Pierre Henri.

Born, 1726; died, 1812.

One of the greatest Greek scholars of modern times. He translated Herodotus and innumerable Greek plays and poems. His writings are very numerous.

During the Revolution, although his religious convictions were well known, he escaped persecution and was allotted a pension of 3000 francs a year by the Directory. He was one of the founders of the Institut, and was nominated Professor of Greek when aged eighty-four. Notwithstanding his great age he carried out his duties in this capacity satisfactorily until his death three years later.

L’ASNE, Michel.

Born in Paris, 1594; died, 1667.

He was a celebrated draughtsman and engraver. His engravings after Rubens and Paul Veronese are now of great value. He also drew and engraved the portraits of great and distinguished men.

LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent.

Born in Paris, 1743; guillotined, May 8, 1794.

The founder of modern chemistry. His father, a wealthy merchant, gave him an excellent education, but from his early youth he showed a precocious taste for science, and when only twenty-one he received the prize that the Academy of Science had offered “for discovering the best manner of lighting the streets of great towns.” In 1768 he was elected Academician. Turgot, in 1776, gave to this great chemist the direction of the manufacture of gunpowder and saltpetre. In the course of the next ten years Lavoisier made innumerable useful scientific discoveries.

Elected Deputy to the National Assembly in 1789; in 1791 he was named Commissionary of the Treasury, and propounded a scheme which, had it been carried out, would have been of immense economical service to France. He took an active part in the construction of the new system of weights and measures, and constructed in the gardens of the arsenal apparatus for experiments to aid this purpose.

In 1793 he measured the base of the new meridian; as Treasurer of the Academy he put in order the whole of the accounts of that body; and was able to discover funds which no one was aware the Academy possessed. In 1769 he had received a post as Fermier-Général from the Crown; and although such offices had long ceased to exist Robespierre caused his arrest in 1794, and, on the sole plea that it was the will of the people that no Fermier-Général’s life should be spared, the head of this great citizen fell upon the scaffold: four other former Fermier-Généraux, including his father-in-law, M. Poulze, perished the same day.

LE BRUN, Duc de Plaisance, Charles François.

Born, March 19, 1739; died, June 16, 1824.

In early life he showed an extraordinary disposition for learning languages, and he resolved to perfect this talent by travelling in foreign countries. He went to England, where he spent some time. He was delighted with the country, its inhabitants and its liberty, notwithstanding its aristocracy and monarchy.

After his return to France he became a lawyer. In 1768 he was appointed Inspector-General of the Crown Lands. He was Chief Secretary to Maupeau, the Chancellor, whose speeches he composed. In 1774, after the accession to the throne of Louis XVI., when Maupeau shared the fate of all the favourites of Louis XV., and had to deliver up his seals of office, le Brun lost his place too; he continued to practise his profession till the outbreak of the Revolution; he was Deputy to the States-General, and spoke in that assembly in favour of the reform of all abuses. In the Constitutional Assembly he opposed the issue of paper money and the creation of public lotteries.

He was the editor and reporter of the new financial laws. Le Brun was named President of the Directorate of Seine and Oise. In 1792, riots having occurred in his Department, he put them down by energetic measures.

After August 10 he threw up all his employments and retired into private life; he was shortly afterwards arrested and imprisoned at Versailles, but, under the surveillance of a gaoler, he was allowed to visit his friends and relatives. When Robespierre attained supreme power, le Brun’s captivity became severe; but for the events of the 9th Thermidor he would certainly have perished upon the scaffold.

Le Brun re-entered public life in 1795. In December 1799, Bonaparte appointed him Third Consul, with control of the Finance Department, and, after the establishment of the Empire, Arch-Treasurer of France.

Notwithstanding le Brun’s objection to hereditary titles, the Emperor insisted on creating him Duc de Plaisance.

To le Brun France owes the establishment of the Cour des Comptes.

In 1805 the Republic of Genoa was annexed to France. Napoleon despatched le Brun as Governor-General. He remained a year in Genoa, and showed both ability and moderation there. On his return to Paris he had the courage to remonstrate with the Emperor upon the proposed abolition of the “Tribunal,” and resigning his Arch-Treasurership, retired into private life.

In 1810 Napoleon, who respected his honesty and valued his intellectual powers, commanded le Brun to undertake the Governorship of Holland, the throne of that country being vacant owing to the abdication of Louis Bonaparte. Le Brun was now seventy-one years of age, yet he undertook this arduous task with the vigour of a young man, and in fifteen months completely reorganised the little kingdom. He was called “the good Stadtholder” by the Dutch.

In the disastrous Russian retreat the second son of le Brun perished, and after the battle of Leipzig the Cossacks invaded Holland. The Dutch, anxious to regain their independence, rose against the French. Their respect for the Viceroy was, however, so great that they conducted him to the frontier with an honourable escort and every possible courtesy.