pular by that combination of careless
frankness and eloquent energy which endears their heroes to the herd.
The glaive of the guillotine had turned against THEMSELVES. They had
yelled and shouted, and sung and danced, when the venerable age, or the
gallant youth, of aristocracy or letters, passed by their streets in
the dismal tumbrils; but they shut up their shops, and murmured to each
other, when their own order was invaded, and tailors and cobblers, and
journeymen and labourers, were huddled off to the embraces of the "Holy
Mother Guillotine," with as little ceremony as if they had been the
Montmorencies or the La Tremouilles, the Malesherbes or the Lavoisiers.
"At this time," said Couthon, justly, "Les ombres de Danton, d'Hebert,
de Chaumette, se promenent parmi nous!" (The shades of Danton, Hebert,
and Chaumette walk amongst us.)

Among those who had shared the doctrines, and who now dreaded the
fate of the atheist Hebert, was the painter, Jean Nicot. Mortified and
enraged to find that, by the death of his patron, his career was closed;
and that, in the zenith of the Revolution for which he had laboured,
he was lurking in caves and cellars, more poor, more obscure, more
despicable than he had been at the commencement,--not daring to exercise
even his art, and fearful every hour that his name would swell the lists
of the condemned,--he was naturally one of the bitterest enemies of
Robespierre and his government. He held secret meetings with Collot
d'Herbois, who was animated by the same spirit; and with the creeping
and furtive craft that characterised his abilities, he contrived,
undetected, to disseminate tracts and invectives against the Dictator,
and to prepare, amidst "the poor and virtuous people," the train for
the grand explosion. But still so firm to the eyes, even of profounder
politicians than Jean Nicot, appeared the sullen power of the
incorruptible Maximilien; so timorous was the movement against
him,--that Nicot, in common with many others, placed his hopes rather in
the dagger of the assassin than the revolt of the multitude. But Nicot,
though not actually a coward, shrunk himself from braving the fate of
the martyr; he had sense enough to see that, though all parties might
rejoice in the assassination, all parties would probably concur in
beheading the assassin. He had not the virtue to become a Brutus.
His object was to inspire a proxy-Brutus; and in the centre of that
inflammable population this w