for 1909, Tit. xiv., de vestitu et habitu, pp. 327–312) have not been revised lately, and some of 'them are a dead letter.
Doctors of both universities have three sets of robes: firstly, the full-dress gown of scarlet cloth; secondly, the congregation habit and hood of scarlet (now at Cambridge a cope, at Oxford the so-called “cope”); thirdly, the black gown. The first is worn by all doctors except the doctor of music, and is accompanied by the round cap of velvet. The Oxford D.D. also wears a cassock, sash and scarf. The scarlet gown is of a different and older shape than the M.A. and B.A. gowns. As now worn, it is faced with silk of the same colour as the hood of the faculty. The second, or cope, has now gone almost out of use, but is still worn when presenting for degrees, &c. It is sometimes worn over the black gown. There are several types of black gown, but the tufted gown of Loggan’s day has now gone out of use. The M.D. and Mus.D. black gowns at Cambridge are now made after the pattern of the LL.D. gown, with wing-like sleeve and flap collar, trimmed with black lace, but the D.D., D.Sc. and Litt. D. wear the M.A. gown, the former with the scarf, the two latter with lace on the sleeve, placed horizontally for D.Sc. and vertically for Litt. D. Some doctors of divinity wear the full-sleeved gown with scarf. The head-dress of a D.D. is the square cap, that of the lay doctors' the velvet bonnet with gold cord. At Oxford, too, some doctors wear the M.A. gown, others the doctor’s laced gown. The M.A. and B.A. gowns are two varieties of the civilian gown of the 15th and 16th century. The B.A. loose-sleeved gown is no longer worn with the sleeve tucked up round the elbow.
The Oxford sleeveless commoner’s gown, though still by statute talaris, now reaches little below the waist, the full-sleeved scholar’s gown to the knees. The tufted silk gown, of the gentleman-commoner and the nobleman's gold laced gown as not yet abolished by statute, but have fallen into disuse. Vice-Chancellors have no official costume, but wear the habit of their degree. The Chancellors of the older universities wear a black damask robe with gold lace, and a black velvet square cap with gold tassel or a doctor’s velvet bonnet with gold cord; those of the newer universities have robes “created” by the robe-makers, who are nowadays to a large extent the arbiters of academic dress.
For the colours of the hoods of the various university degrees see Universities ad fin. (C. B. P.)
ROBESPIERRE, MAXIMILIEN FRANÇOIS MARIE ISIDORE
DE (1758–1794), French revolutionist, was born at Arras on
the 6th of May 1758. His family, according to tradition, was
of Irish descent, having emigrated from Ireland at the time of
the Reformation on account of religion, and his direct ancestors
in the male line had been notaries at the little village of Carvin
near Arras from the beginning of the 17th century. His
grandfather, being more ambitious, established himself at Arras
as an advocate; and his father followed the same profession,
marrying Jacqueline Marguerite Carraut, daughter of a brewer
in the same city, in 1757. Of this marriage four children were
born, two sons, and two daughters, of whom Maximilien was
the eldest; but in 1767 Madame Derobespierre, as the name
was then spelt, died, and the disconsolate widower at once
left Arras and wandered about Europe until his death at Munich
in 1769. The children were taken charge of by their maternal
grandfather and aunts, and Maximilien was sent to the college
of Arras, whence he was nominated in 1770 through the bishop
of his native town to a bursarship at the college of Louis-le-Grand
at Paris. Here he had for fellow-pupils Camille Desmoulins
and Stanislas Fréron.
Completing his law studies with distinction, and having been admitted an advocate in 1781, Robespierre returned to his native city to seek for practice, and to struggle against poverty. His reputation had already preceded him, and the bishop of Arras, M. de Conzié, appointed him criminal judge in the diocese of Arras in March 1782. This appointment, which he soon resigned, to avoid pronouncing a sentence of death, did not prevent his practising at the bar, and he speedily became a successful advocate. He now turned to literature and society, and came to be esteemed as one of the best writers and most popular dandies of Arras. In December 1783 he was elected a member of the academy of Arras, the meetings of which he attended regularly; and, like all other young Frenchmen with literary proclivities, he began to compete for the prizes offered by various provincial academies. In 1784 he obtained a medal from the academy of Metz for his essay on the question whether the relatives of a condemned criminal should share his disgrace, the prize being divided between him and Pierre Louis Lacretelle, an advocate and journalist in Paris. An éloge on J. B. L. Gresset (1709–1777), the author of Vert-Vert and Le Méchant, written for the academy of Amiens in 1785, was not more successful; but Robespierre was compensated for these failures by his great popularity in the little literary and musical society at Arras known as the “Rosati,” of which Carnot was also a member. There the sympathetic quality of Robespierre's voice, which afterwards did him such good service in the Jacobin Club, always caused his indifferent verses to be loudly applauded by his friends.
In 1788 he took part in the discussion as to the way in which the states-general should be elected, showing clearly and forcibly in his Adresse à la nation artésienne that, if the former mode of election by the members of the provincial estates were again adopted, the new states-general would not represent the people of France. Necker also perceived this, and therefore determined to make the old royal bailliages and sénéchaussées the units of election, which thus took place on the basis of almost universal suffrage. Under this plan the city of Arras was to return twenty-four members to the assembly of the bailliage of Artois, which was to elect the deputies. The corporation claimed the right to a preponderating influence in these city elections, and Robespierre headed the opposition, making himself very conspicuous and drawing up the cahier, or table of complaints and grievances, for the gild of the cobblers. Although the leading members of the corporation were elected, their chief opponent succeeded in getting elected with them. In the assembly of the bailliage rivalry ran still higher, but Robespierre had already made his mark in politics; by the Avis aux habitants de Campagne (Arras, 1789), which is almost certainly by him, he secured the support of the country electors, and, though but thirty years of age, poor and without influence, he was elected fifth deputy of the tiers état of Artois to the states-general.
When the states-general met at Versailles on 5th May 1789, the young deputy of Artois already possessed the one faculty which was to lead him to supremacy: he was a fanatic. As Mirabeau is reported to have said: “That young man believes what he says: he will go far.” Without the courage and wide tolerance which make a statesman, without the greatest qualities of an orator, without the belief in himself which marks a great man, nervous, timid and suspicious, Robespierre yet believed in the doctrines of Rousseau with all his heart, and would have gone to death for them; and in the belief that they would eventually succeed and regenerate France and mankind, he was ready to work with unwearied patience. While the Constituent Assembly occupied itself in drawing up a constitution, Robespierre turned from the assembly of provincial lawyers and wealthy bourgeois to the people of Paris. However, he spoke frequently in the Constituent Assembly, and often with great success, and was eventually recognized as second only to Pétion de Villeneuve—if second to him—as a leader of the small body of the extreme left,—the thirty voices, as Mirabeau contemptuously called them. It is hardly necessary to examine minutely Robespierre’s speeches and behaviour before 1791, when the death of Mirabeau left the way clear for the influence of his party; but what is noteworthy, as proving the religious cast of his mind and his belief in the necessity of a religion, is that he spoke several times in favour of the lower clergy and laboured to get their pensions increased. When he instinctively felt that his doctrines would have no success in the Assembly, he turned to the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, known
