March 17, 1794.

After some days of agitation and suspense, we learn that the popularity
of Robespierre is victorious, and that Hebert and his partizans are
arrested. Were the intrinsic claims of either party considered, without
regard to the circumstances of the moment, it might seem strange I should
express myself as though the result of a contest between such men could
excite a general interest: yet a people sadly skilled in the gradations
of evil, and inured to a choice only of what is bad, learn to prefer
comparatively, with no other view than that of adopting what may be least
injurious to themselves; and the merit of the object is out of the
question. Hence it is, that the public wish was in favour of
Robespierre; for, besides that his cautious character has given him an
advantage over the undisguised profligacy of Hebert, it is conjectured by
many, that the more merciful politics professed by Camille Desmoulins,
are secretly suggested, or, at least assented to, by the former.*

* This was the opinion of many.--The Convention and the Jacobins had
taken alarm at a paper called "The Old Cordelier," written by
Camille Desmoulins, apparently with a view to introduce a milder
system of government. The author had been censured at the one,
expelled the other, and defended by Robespierre, who seems not to
have abandoned him until he found the Convention resolved to persist
in the sanguinary plan they had adopted. Robespierre afterwards
sacrificed his friends to retrieve his influence; but could his
views have been answered by humane measures, as certainly as by
cruel ones, I think he would have preferred the first; for I repeat,
that the Convention at large were averse from any thing like reason
or justice, and Robespierre more than once risked his popularity by
professions of moderation.--The most eloquent speech I have seen of
his was previous to the death of Danton, and it seems evidently
intended to sound the principles of his colleagues as to a change of
system.--Camille Desmoulins has excited some interest, and has been
deemed a kind of martyr to humanity. Perhaps nothing marks the
horrors of the time more than such a partiality.--Camille
Desmoulins, under an appearance of simplicity, was an adventurer,
whose pen had been employed to mislead the people from the beginning
of the revolution. He had been ve