Reign of Terror, so soon to follow, could be averted. The progress of
his decline was without hindrance, in spite of all that science could
devise. It is reported that, as he looked out from his sick-room, on the
day of his death, on the brilliant spring-time sun, he said: "If he is
not God, he is at least his cousin-german." Those were, it is said, his
last spoken words, although some time later when unable to articulate,
he feebly held a pen in his hand as he wrote the single word: "dormir."
And so, on April 2, 1791, he died. Thus ended the life of a wondrous
statesman; a singular career, of which Carlyle (in his "French
Revolution") says: "Strange lot! Forty years of that smouldering with
foul fire-damp and vapor enough; then victory over that;--and like a
burning mountain, he blazes heaven high; and for twenty-three
resplendent months pours out, in flame and molten fire-torrents, all
that is in him, the Pharos and the Wondersign of an amazed Europe;--and
then lies hollow, cold, forever."

[Signature of the author.]

MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE

(1758-1794)

[Illustration: Robespierre. [TN]]

Maximilien Isidore Robespierre, the leader of the most violent of those
theorizers who overthrew the French monarchy, the exponent of all that
deep-rooted hatred which the commoners of France, as the result of long
centuries of oppression, harbored against their king, nobles, and
clergy; Robespierre, who ruled the infant republic during her first bold
defiance of united Europe, yet whose name has become, even among his
countrymen, a symbol of horror, was born at Arras, in 1758. His father
was an advocate in the supreme council of Artois, and, ruined by his
dissipation, had left France long before the revolution. An orphan at
the age of nine, and without fortune, Maximilien was indebted to the
benevolent protection of the Bishop of Arras, M. de Conzie, for the
situation of bursar of the College of Louis XIV. We are assured that
from his infancy he manifested a cruel, reserved, and timid disposition,
and an ardent love of liberty and independence. After having passed
through his studies, and obtained the honor of being chosen by his
fellow-students to address Louis XVI., upon the entrance of that prince
into Paris, he returned to Arras, where, having become an advocate of
the council of Artois, he composed strictures against the magistrates of
that province. A daring enthusiast, in 1789 he was elected, on account
of his r