ions are generally acute and accurate; he
was brave, kindly and generous.

Full materials for his life are found in his _Memoirs_, written by himself
(translated into English by Leyden and Erskine (London, 1826); abridged in
Caldecott, _Life of Baber_ (London, 1844). See also Lane-Poole, _Baber_
(Rulers of India Series), 1899.

[v.03 p.0093] BABEUF, FRANCOIS NOEL (1760-1797), known as GRACCHUS BABEUF,
French political agitator and journalist, was born at Saint Quentin on the
23rd of November 1760. His father, Claude Babeuf, had deserted the French
army in 1738 and taken service under Maria Theresa, rising, it is said, to
the rank of major. Amnestied in 1755 he returned to France, but soon sank
into dire poverty, being forced to earn a pittance for his wife and family
as a day labourer. The hardships endured by Babeuf during early years do
much to explain his later opinions. He had received from his father the
smatterings of a liberal education, but until the outbreak of the
Revolution he was a domestic servant, and from 1785 occupied the invidious
office of _commissaire a terrier_, his function being to assist the nobles
and priests in the assertion of their feudal rights as against the
unfortunate peasants. On the eve of the Revolution Babeuf was in the employ
of a land surveyor at Roye. His father had died in 1780, and he was now the
sole support, not only of his wife and two children, but of his mother,
brothers and sisters. In the circumstances it is not surprising that he was
the life and soul of the malcontents of the place. He was an indefatigable
writer, and the first germ of his future socialism is contained in a letter
of the 21st of March 1787, one of a series--mainly on literature--addressed
to the secretary of the Academy of Arras. In 1789 he drew up the first
article of the _cahier_ of the electors of the _bailliage_ of Roye,
demanding the abolition of feudal rights. Then, from July to October, he
was in Paris superintending the publication of his first work: _Cadastre
perpetuel, dedie a l'assemblee nationale, l'an 1789 et le premier de la
liberte francaise_, which was written in 1787 and issued in 1790. The same
year he published a pamphlet against feudal aids and the _gabelle_, for
which he was denounced and arrested, but provisionally released. In
October, on his return to Roye, he founded the _Correspondant picard_, the
violent character of which cost him another arrest. In November he was
elected a me