sculptors. Desiderio was for a short time a pupil of Donatello, and he seems to have worked also with Mino da Fiesole, with the delicate and refined style of whose works those of Desiderio seem to have a closer affinity than with the perhaps more masculine tone of Donatello. Vasari especially praises the works of Desiderio for their grace and simplicity which, as the critic remarks, are a gift of nature, and can be acquired by no study. He particularly extols the sculptor s treatment of the figures of women and children, and the eulogy applies equally to the genius and manner of Mino da Fiesole. It does not appear that Desiderio ever worked elsewhere than at Florence ; and it is there that those who are interested in the Italian sculpture of the Eenaissance must Beek the few but remarkable works of his chisel, which have survived the changes and chances of four centuries.
DES MOINES, formerly Fort Des Moines, a city of the United States, capital of Iowa, at the confluence of the Raccoon with the Des Moines River, which is one of the right hand tributaries of the Mississippi, and is navigable thus far for steamboats. Its public buildings include the old capitol, erected in 1856, the new capitol, founded in 1870, the post-office, with a number of other United States offices under the same roof, the Baptist college, 15 churches, and 5 high schools ; and among its industrial establishments are a paper-mill, a woollen factory, an oil-mill, besides foundries, machine-shops, flour-mills, and plough-factories. There are two public libraries in the town, one of which is maintained by the State, and numbers 15,000 volumes ; and, besides several daily and weekly newspapers, no fewer than six monthly periodicals are published. Forty acres of ground have been appropriated for a public park ; and another area of 100 acres belongs to a park-company. Coal, lime, and clay are abundant in the neighbourhood, and the town is supplied with water from the Raccoon. Des Moines, which dates from 1846, received incorporation in 1851, and was raised to the rank of a city and the capital of the State in 1857. Population in 1860, 3965; in 1873, 15,601.
DESMOULINS, LUCIE SIMPLICE CAMILLE BENOIST
(1760-1794), was born at Guise, in Picardy, on the 2d of
March 1760. His father was lieutenant-general of the
bailiwick of Guise, and was desirous that Camille his eldest
son, who from his earliest years gave signs of unusual
intelligence, should obtain as complete an education as
France could then bestow. His wishes were seconded by
a friend obtaining a " bourse " for the young Desmoulins,
who at the age of fourteen left home for Paris, and entered
the college of Louis le Grand. In this school, in which
Robespierre was also a bursar and a distinguished student,
Camille laid the solid foundation of his learning, and made
an acquaintance with the literature and history of the
classical nations so deep and extensive that it furnished
him throughout the whole of his short and chequered life
with illustrations which he applied with brilliancy and effect
to the social manners and political events of his time.
Desmoulins having been destined by his father for the
law, and having completed his legal studies, was admitted
an advocate of the Parliament of Paris in 1785. His pro
fessional success was not great ; his manner was violent,
his appearance far from attractive, and his speech was
impaired by the natural defect of a painful stammer. He
indulged and fostered, however, his love for literature, he
was closely observant of the course of public affairs, and he
was thus gradually being prepared for the main duties of
Lis life those of a political litterateur.
In March 1789 Desmoulins began his political career.
Having been nominated deputy from the bailiwick of Guise,
he appeared at Laon as one of the commissioners for the
election of deputies to the States General summoned by
royal edict of 24th January. Camille heralded its meeting
by his Ode to the States General. It is, moreover, highly
probable that he was the author of a radical pamphlet
ntitled La Philosophic a^l peuple Fran^ais. His hopes of
professional success were now scattered, and he was living
in Paris in extreme poverty and almost in squalor. He,
however, shared to the full the excitement which attended
the meeting of the States General. As appears from his
letters to his father, he watched with exultation the
procession of deputies at Versailles, and with violent
indignation the events of the latter part of June which
followed the closing of the Salle des Menus to the deputies
who had named themselves the National Assembly. It is
further evident that Desmoulins was already sympathizing,
not only with the enthusiasm, but also with the fury and
cruelty, of the Parisian crowds.
The sudden dismissal of Necker by Louis was the event
which brought Desmoulins to fame. On the 12th of July
1789 Camille, leaping upon a table in one of the cafe s of
the Palais Royal, startled a numerous crowd of listeners by
the announcement of the dismissal of their favourite.
Losing in his violent excitement the stammer which
impeded his ordinary speech, he inflamed the passions of
the mob by his burning words and his call " To arms ! "
" This dismissal," he said, " is the tocsin of the St
Bartholomew of the patriots." Drawing, at last, two
pistols from under his coat, he declared that he would not
fall alive into the hands of the police who were watching
his movements. He descended amid the embraces of the
crowd, and his cry " To arms ! " resounded on all sides.
This scene was the beginning of the actual events of the
Revolution. Following Desmoulins the crowd surged
through Paris, procuring arms by force ; and on the 13th
it was partly organized as the Parisian militia which was
afterwards to be the National Guard. On the 14th the
Bastille was taken.
Desmoulins may be said to have begun on the following
day that public literary career which lasted till his death.
In May and June 1789 he had written La France libre,
which, to his chagrin, his publisher refused to print. The
taking of the Bastille, however, and the events by which
it was preceded, were a sign that the times had changed ;
and on the 15th of July Desmoulins s work was issued. It
attracted immediate attention. By its erudite, brilliant,
and courageous examination of the rights of king, of nobles,
of clergy, arid of people, it attained a wide and sudden
popularity; it secured for the author the friendship and
protection of Mirabeau, and the studied abuse of numerous
royalist pamphleteers. Shortly afterwards, with his vanity
and love of popularity inflamed, he pandered to the passions
of the lower orders by the publication of his Discours de la
lanterne aux Parisiens, which with an almost fiendish
reference to the excesses of the mob he headed by a quota
tion from St John, Qui male aait odit lucem. Camille
was dubbed " Procureur-gdne ral de la lanterne."
In November 1789 Desmoulins began his career as a
journalist by the issue of the first number of a weekly
publication Revolutions de France et de Brabant. He con
ducted this alone till July 1790, and thereafter with the
assistance of Stanislas Freron till July 1792, when the
publication ceased. Success attended the Revolutions from
its first to its last number, Camille was everywhere famous,
and his poverty was relieved. These numbers are valuable
as an exhibition not so much of events as of the feelings
of the Parisian people during the most stormy period of
their history ; they are adorned, moreover, by the erudi
tion, the wit, and the genius of the author, but they are
disfigured, not only by the most biting personalities and
the defence and even advocacy of the excesses of the
mob, but by the entire absence of the forgiveness and
