" The rjjghts.of man. 99
" But did you intend to overthrow the present Con- " stitution ?"
" Yes ! and till I cease to live I will ener conspire " against tyrants. Was it worthwhile to shed the Wood " of two millions of citizens, in order to restore slavery " again ? Was it worth while to crush the ci-devant, in " order to bow to the ci-après ?"
"But are you not a foreigner ?"
" No man is an alien to die cause of human nature." . it. will be seen ftom the sequel that only two of the conspirators were, condemned to death — Darthe and Babeuf; tb# former, most probably, because he was the intimate friend ,«rf .Robespierre ; and Babeuf, I should sjuppose, in conscience .of the inflexible perseverance with which he preached and .advoc&ed in hk journal a " community of property/! This doctrine was particularly unpalatable to. the. then rulers of France, who were all upr start adventurers, enriched by public plunder, and reeking with the blood and sjttils of the Revolution. The rest of the conspirators, including Buonarroti, were only sen- tenced to transportation ; but this apparent clemency to parties equally cujpablcas Babeuf and Darthe, is easily accounted for. The Quarterly Review explains it well.
- i TJie.y who were then in authority," observes that pe-»
nodical, " had good reason for this. The appetite of the Revolution % for blood, which during a long and dreadful time had * grown by what it fed on/ had gained their ends in the Revolution, and, therefore, wished it to stop where it was ; and they were conscious, moreover, that against them Babeuf and his associates had but too strong a case."
" Buonarroti's sentence, it appears, was never carried into effect, owing, it is supposed, to the reiterated inter- cession of the Court of Tuscany. Incarceration was sub- stituted for transportation, and he was confined first at Cherbourg, then at some place in the Maritime Alps, where he was as late as 1806, and lastly in some other remote extremity of France, the name of which is not stated. The last account I heard of Buonarroti was shortly after the Revolution of 1830, when it seems he was arrested by some of Louis Philippe's agents. The
