he became president of the Convention and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. His efforts were primarily directed to the prevention of any recrudescence of the tyranny exercised by the Jacobin Club, the commune of Paris, and the revolutionary tribunal. He persuaded the Committee of Safety to take upon itself the closing of the Jacobin Club, on the ground that it was an administrative rather than a legislative measure. He recommended the readmission of the survivors of the Girondin party to the Convention, and drew up a law limiting the right of insurrection; he had also a considerable share in the foreign policy of the victorious republic. With Cambacérès he had been commissioned in April 1794 to report on the civil and criminal legislation of France, with the result that after eighteen months’ work he produced his Rapport et projet de code des délits et des peines (10 Vendémiaire, an. IV.). Merlin’s code abolished confiscation, branding and imprisonment for life, and was based chiefly on the penal code drawn up in September 1791. He was made minister of justice (Oct. 30, 1795) under the Directory, and showed excessive rigour against the emigrants. After the coup d’état of the 18th Fructidor he became (Sept. 5, 1797) one of the five directors, and was accused of the various failures of the government. He retired into private life (June 18, 1799), and had no share in the revolution of the 18th Brumaire. Under the consulate he accepted a modest place in the court of cassation, where he soon became procurer-général. Although he had no share in drawing up the Napoleonic code, he did more than any other lawyer to fix its interpretation. He became a member of the council of state, count of the empire, and grand officer of the Legion of Honour; but having resumed his functions during the Hundred Days, he was one of those banished on the second restoration. The years of his exile were devoted to his Répertoire de jurisprudence (5th ed., 18 vols., Paris, 1827–1828) and to his Recueil alphabétique des questions de droit (4th ed., 8 vols., Paris, 1827–1828). At the revolution of 1830 he was able to return to France, when he re-entered the Institute of France, of which he had been an original member, being admitted to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He died in Paris on the 26th of December 1838.
His son, Antoine François Eugène Merlin (1778–1854), was a well-known general in the French army, and served through most of Napoleon’s campaigns.
See M. Mignet, Portraits et notices historiques (1852), vol. i.
MERLIN (Welsh, Myrddhin), the famous bard of Welsh
tradition, and enchanter of Arthurian romance. His history
as related in this latter may be summarized as follows. The
infernal powers, aghast at the blow to their influence dealt
by the Incarnation, determine to counteract it, if possible,
by the birth of an Antichrist, the offspring of a woman and
a devil. As in the book of Job, a special family is singled out
as subjects of the diabolic experiment, their property is destroyed,
one after the other perishes miserably, till one daughter, who
has placed herself under the special protection of the Church,
is left alone. The demon takes advantage of an unguarded
moment of despair, and Merlin is engendered. Thanks, however,
to the prompt action of the mother’s confessor, Blayse, in at
once baptizing the child of this abnormal birth, the mother
truly protesting that she has had intercourse with no man,
Merlin is claimed for Christianity, but remains dowered with
demoniac powers of insight and prophecy. An infant in arms,
he saves his mother’s life and confounds her accusers by his
knowledge of their family secrets. Meanwhile Vortigern,
king of the Britons, is in despair at the failure of his efforts
to build a tower in a certain spot; however high it may be
reared in a day, it falls again during the night. He consults
his diviners, who tell him that the foundations must be watered
with the blood of a child who has never had a father; the king
accordingly sends messengers through the land in search of
such a prodigy. They come to the city where Merlin and his
mother dwell at the moment when the boy is cast out from
the companionship of the other lads on the ground that he has
had no father. The messengers take him to the king, and
on the way he astonishes them by certain prophecies which
are fulfilled to their knowledge. Arrived in Vortigern’s presence,
he at once announces that he is aware alike of the fate destined
for him and of the reason, hidden from the magicians, of the
fall of the tower. It is built over a lake, and beneath the waters
of the lake in a subterranean cavern lie two dragons, a white
and a red; when they turn over the tower falls. The lake is
drained, the correctness of the statement proved, and Merlin’s
position as court prophet assured. Henceforward he acts as
adviser to Vortigern’s successors, the princes Ambrosius and
Uther (subsequently Uther-Pendragon). As a monument to
the Britons fallen on Salisbury Plain he brings from Ireland,
by magic means, the stones now forming Stonehenge. He
aids Uther in his passion for Yguerne, wife to the duke of
Cornwall, by Merlin’s spells Uther assumes the form of the
husband, and on the night of the duke’s death Arthur is engendered.
At his birth the child is committed to Merlin’s
care, and by him given to Antor, who brings him up as his own
son. On Arthur’s successful achievement of the test of the
sword in the “perron,” Merlin reveals the truth of his parentage
and the fact that he is by hereditary right, as well as by divine
selection, king of the Britons. During the earlier part of
Arthur’s reign Merlin acts as counsellor; then he disappears
mysteriously from the scene. According to one account he
is betrayed by a maiden, Nimue or Niniane (a king’s daughter,
or a water-fairy, both figure in different versions), of whom he
is enamoured, and who having beguiled from him a knowledge
of magic spells, casts him into a slumber and imprisons him
living in a rocky tomb. This version, with the great cry, or
Brait, which the magician uttered before his death, appears
to have been the most popular. Another represents his prison
as one of air; he is invisible to all, but can see and hear, and
occasionally speak to passers by; thus he holds converse with
Gawain. In the prose Perceval he retires voluntarily to an
“Esplumeor” erected by himself, and is seen no more of man.
The curious personality of Merlin is now generally recognized as being very largely due to the prolific invention of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Nennius, upon whose Historia Geoffrey enlarged and “improved,” gives indeed the story of Vortigern and the tower, but the boy’s name is Ambrosius. Geoffrey calls him Merlin-Ambrosius, a clear proof that he was adapting Nennius’ story. He represents the sage in his rôle of court diviner, his “Prophecies” being incorporated in later manuscripts of the Historia. Subsequently Geoffrey enlarged on the theme, composing a Vita Merlini in which we find the magician in the rôle of a “possessed” wood-abider, fleeing the haunts of men, and consorting with beasts. This gave rise to the idea that there had originally been two Merlins, Merlin-Ambrosius and Merlin-Sylvester, a view now discarded by the leading scholars. The Vita was so successful that Geoffrey obtained as reward the bishopric of St Asaph.
Welsh vernacular literature has preserved a small but interesting group of poems, strongly national and patriotic in character, which are attributed to Merlin (Myrddhin).
A few years after Geoffrey’s death Merlin’s adventures were amplified into a romance, the first draft of which is attributed to Robert de Borron, and which eventually took the form of a lengthy introduction to the prose Lancelot and cyclic redaction of the Arthurian legend.
The romantic, as distinguished from legendary or historical Merlin, exists in the following forms: (a) a fragmentary poem preserved in a unique manuscript of the Bibl. nat. (this gives no more than the introduction to the story); (b) a prose rendering of the above, of which a fair number of copies exist, generally found, as in the original poem, coupled with a version of the early history of the Grail, known as Joseph of Arimathea, and in two cases followed by a Perceval and Mort Artus, thus forming a small cycle; (c) the Ordinary or Vulgate Merlin, a very lengthy romance, of which numerous copies exist (see Dr Sommer’s edition); (d) and (e) two continuations to the above, each represented by a single manuscript—(d) the “Huth” Merlin, which was utilized by Malory for his translation, and also formed a part of the compilation used by the Spanish and Portuguese translators, and (e) a very curious manuscript, 337, Bibl. nat. (fonds Français), which Paulin Paris calls the Livre Artus, containing much matter not found elsewhere.
M. La Villemarqué’s “critical study” (Myrdhinn, ou l’enchanteur