y
destiny. It would seem as though we read in the verses of this young man
that through his tears he contemplated his faults, his expiation, and
his scaffold.

VI.

After Mirabeau's election, and the agitations which followed, Barbaroux
was named secretary of the municipality of Marseilles. At the troubles
of Aries he took arms, and marched at the head of the young Marseillais
against the rulers of the Comtal. His martial figure, his gestures, his
ardour, his voice, made him conspicuous everywhere: he fascinated all.
Being deputed to Paris in order to give an account of the events of the
south to the National Assembly, the Girondists, Vergniaud and Guadet,
who were desirous of obtaining an amnesty for the crimes of Avignon, did
all in their power to attach this young man to their party. Barbaroux,
impetuous as he was, did not justify the butchers of Avignon; but
detested the victims. He was a man requisite to the Girondists. Struck
by his eloquence and his enthusiasm, they presented him to Madame
Roland: no woman was more formed to seduce, no man more formed to be
seduced. Madame Roland--in all the freshness of her youth, in all the
brilliancy of her beauty, and also in all the fulness of sensibility,
which all the purity of her life could not stifle in her unoccupied
heart--speaks thus tenderly of Barbaroux: "I had read," she says, "in
the cabinet of my husband, the letters of Barbaroux, full of sense and
premature wisdom. When I saw him I was astonished at his youth. He
attached himself to my husband. We saw more of him after we left the
ministry; and it was then, that reasoning on the miserable state of
things, and the fear of a triumph of despotism in the north of France,
we formed the plan of a republic in the south. This will be our _pis
aller_, said Barbaroux, with a smile; but the Marseillais army here will
dispense with our attempting it."

VII.

Roland then lived in a gloomy house of the Rue St. Jaques, almost in the
garrets: it was a philosopher's retreat, and his wife illumined it.
Present at all the conversations of Roland, she witnessed the
conferences between her husband and the young Marseillais. Barbaroux
thus relates the interview in which the first idea of a republic was
mooted: "That astonishing woman was there," said he. "Roland asked me
what I thought the best means of saving France. I opened my heart to
him: my confidence called for his. 'Liberty is gone,' he replied, 'if we
do not speed