rible bonne foi." " From these circumstances," oIh serves Nodier, " I should consider Robespierre to be the true personification of tfye Revolution — his rare dis- interestedness, his horrible honesty, and his appetite for blood!" What a jumble is here. Before I saw this profound criticism I was not aware that there was any thing horrible in honesty, much less did I imagine there was any natural connexion between blood-spilling* and disinterestedness ; but historians are rare discoverers. If we believe the Abbe de Montgaillard, or the Conjuration de Robespierre (by Mountjoye), or Fantin Desodoardl Robespierre was a compound of all the inferior qualities, not only of human nature, but of brute and reptile na- tures also. He was " ignorant, ugly, grim, sombre, ma- lignant, vulgar, lascivious, brutal, envious, a hater of journalists, a second Omar against literature, a barbarous proscriber of the arts and sciences, a murderer of his enemies, an assassin of his friends, a bachelor only ber cause the chastity of marriage did not suit his taste for libertinism, a seducer of his host's daughter, and, to complete the picture, a filthy beast that finished his daily orgies of lust and the guillotine by a nocturnal debauch amongst common prostitutes ! ! !" Such is the character given by history of one of the noblest spirits that ever adorned human nature.
Historyhas been defined to be, " PhilosophyJsaciing hy p-f^p jesr^ ^ju^Ldefi m fe^ t Q true h istory; but howmelancholy to think that the youth of a nation should have its opinions formed by such " philosophy 1 * as that just quoted — a " philosophy" that has falsehood for its means, and slavery for its end ! But what, you may ask, is the secret of this ferocity — of these unheard of calumnies against an individual ? Read Buonarroti, my friends, and you will know. BuonanQti will show^ou^iat^^bespierre was a tniejriend of huma- nity; tha Lhe was the oppr-ggfrd 5anS^consolatiQR---apd the oppressor's scourg e ; that he dev oted himself-to the emancipatio n of hn fo ll ow rrrTy ens with a zeal and* a degree of success never witnessed before^in the wqrld ; that "he na xr a yagt yhui of f e^ rjerati^^ for France, byjghjc h_ the poo? would beJbjLjyyer de- liver ed from the rjchTand the reign of morals, .of frater-
