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    it is- , somewhat pale anxL meagre , ini . comparison with the account of Marat ' s assassination and the punishment of Charlotte Corday ; But , like the rest of the book ,, it iawEittEaia . a-spirit of judicial moderation ajul chivalrous When France ,, according to Burke ,-was . given , up to rage and frenzy , it « was , according to , history ,, engaged in . publk works of exiraocdinaxy niagnir tude . The Convention fostered art and science , inaugurated a magnificeni system of education , laid , the , groundwork of the Napoleonic code—in fact ,, supplied Napoleon with a plan .. It was the Revolution , that founded the Polytechnic and Normal . schools ,, that universalized the study of the French language in France , that sefc tcp telegraphs along the great roads , that decreed the consolidation of the laws ., that instituted the Grand Liore , that

    established the decimal system * a- , uniformity of weight * and measures ,, and iui improved calendar ; and yet schoolboyaace told by compilers ? that the Revolution , began , continued , and ended in tragedy , and .-left no traces except those of bloodshed and . atrocity . The official organ , of the republican government attests- the : constant and . benevolent labour * of the Assembly . Unhappily , the Boyalists and theGirondists ,: the former by their selfish treachery r the latter by their criminal infatuation , pro voiced a . fearful series of retributive decrees , the results of which . M . Blanc sums up in hi » ' Necrology '—a dreadful catalogue : Vorgnaaud and ; his friends * Adam Luxr the Duke of Orleans , General Couatard ^ Madame . Roland , and Bailly—tristis et hictuosa swscessio—a . processionof fuflerak . filling the atmosphere , with , the scent of blood untimely shed . 'Ifc is time , to terrify eonspiratora , * ' was- the . signal which , on the 5 th of September , proclaimed the doom of the Gironde ., They had been leniently warned , to fly ; they had been allowed to go wherever they pleased in Paris * guarded only by a single soldier ; they had continued to , receive eighteen

    , francs each daily as members of the Contention ; and what di&thtiy do . ? They pouredout invectives against the Committee of Public Safety , stigmatized it as a gang of impostors and assassins ,, challenged the nation to civil war , and gave unmistakable proofs that ,, had they triumphed , the scaffold -would have been at least as mercilessly , used by them as- , it was : by their enemies . Louvet and Gruadet—not Robespierre and the Montagnards—had been the first to talk of guillotining . Louvet had expatiated , with diabolical unction , upon the fate of Beavais , whom the . Hoyalists had tortured to death , in prison . The first Girondist executed was Garsas , who had instigated an Insurrection ; , he suffered on the 7 th of October ;; sixteen days afterwards twenty-one of his associates were put upon , their , triaL . They were all comparatively young : —Vergniaud thirty-fiv « i Brissot xiot yet forty ,, Ducos and Mainvil 3 e twenty-eight . In . five tumbrils they were taken to . the scaffold . Then came Olymgie de Gouges with Adam Lux , and their heads also fell . And after them Philippe Egalite .

    by Chaumette .. Can we . class without injustice this last among the Herbertists ? . Tea * because he himself always identified his cause with , theirs ; bat justice requires , that we should not pass over in silence any of the facts which , assign to the Procureur-Greneral of the Commune a place apart in the history of Ms party . Son of a sftoemaker of Severs , who gave him some slight education , Ghaumette had begun byserving as-a midshipman . But he- loveet books , he loved' plants , and the- navy did not fail * soon to dwgust him , so he- left it to study- botany . He was twenty-six yeara old ; anil wa » copying- clierk . in the office , of aprocureur when the'revolution broke out . He embraced ita principles ,, contributed to the journal of . Pruduaiamej then edited by LoustatoL . and displayed aravolutiunarj enthusiasm , which : gained ., him . the favour of the people ,, the more easily as- he hod rather au attractive countenance , a . sonorous voice ,, easy gestures , and a facility of improvisation which , under the influence of chazor pagne , for which he felt a peculiar predilection , sometimes rose to eloquence .

    Unhappily his sleet and shining hair and a sort of unction with which he delivered , his civic preachings made him . something resembling a- priest , and his enemies spread the report that he had once been a monTc . So you . have been a monk J The accusation- was . a serious one in those days , so serious that Ghaumette himself tells us that one day it nearly cost him his life ; Bnt he succeeded in' exculpating- himself with the faubourgs f and the people by raising him to the dignity of Procoreur-General of the Commune , supplied him with means to extend his- influence . Hebert had a low and : arid soul , a calculating' and cold . mind . He is well painted by the fact that the filthy author of tie Per&JDuchesne , as soon , -as he was no longer in \ the . midst of what , he called his cookery , pretented to wit and played the-peiit-maiire . Very

    different from ; his substitute , Chaumette had an ardent and ! sincere heart . He was capable of political impulses ,, and subject to . tender movements * with which , was combined a . sort of mysticism , and it may be said that he was an atheist with the enthusiasm of belief and the fervour of devotion . A rapid enumeration of his acts will make hfm Better known . He demanded and obtained the abolition of whipping in houses of education . He pursued into its last retreats prostitution , attacked by him as it public plague which could not be endured in any country not subject to unmarried priests and to kinga He- adopted measures of extreme severity against vendors of indecent books and corrupting engravings . He proposed to subs tit ate for the Morgue an establishment by which , might ba avoided the scandal ; of an indecent exposureof the victims : of crime or deatinv ..

    A glance at the references to manuscripts 1 and other documents vrilli explain to the reader-how it is that M . Louis Blanc has been , enabled to add so largely to the history of the French Revolution- Certain , minute and curious memoirs- of the Vendean war , placed in his haadt * by a aoa of > the principal Commissioner of the Convention in Iua Vendee , furnished him with materials for a narrative by far the most authentic and the most complete ever published' of the origin course , and issue ; , of that pitiable tragedy .

    M . Louis Blanc declares that he has examined with the utmost , care the entire body of historical documents to discover what this prince had done , to merit the vengeance of the Republic , and thai all Ms researches- have been in vain .. Not an act , nob a word of . hist caa be cited either to convict kini of treason , oc to show that he secretly aspired , to the crown . But ¦ calumny assailed , him on all sides , and he found all parties arrayed against him in turn : tlue Constitutionalists because he figured among the enemies of the throne , the Montagnards because : his presence ^ in their ranks laid them open to a suspicion that they were his allies and his accomplices ^ the {¦ Hronde because he sat among the Mountain .. Qf the dissoluteness of his ananners and the vices of his- private life the evidence is unhappily too clear , but there is absolutely nothing to indicate : that his profesaed devotion to the principles of the Revolution was insincere .

    From M . Louis Blanc ' s chapter on Heberfcism we extract the opening passage . The entire analysis is full of interest , and , exhibiting as it does the eccentric aspects of the Revolution , demonstrates- at once the profound intimacy of the historian with every detail of his vast subject , and his determination to conceal nothing , to misrepresent nothing , and to tell the true story of the Revolution : — Midst such sanguinary executions , the revolution ran its inevitable course ; barn of the eighteenth century , it realized in its acts the thoughts of that contury , and challenged the intellectnul contest of the two grant schools , o £ which ,, in the first volume of this work , we wrote . It has been seen how a desire to rend the chain , of traditional and enforced superstitions led the Encyclopaedists to the negation of every leligion but thot . af reason . We have beheld them assembled every Monday and Thursday round tlic table of the Baron . Holback ,. glass in hand , holding tho foativa 6 l their beloved and

    goddess ; from tho entire dissimilarity of their ideas ,. th « ir perpetual opposition ; in discourso , their arguments , on the Deity , ethics , free-wiill ,, the soul , the origiu of tha world , its course , its climax ,, in * short upon everythiug , wo discover how reason , when each , one aoeks her for himself , is a . goddess , very difficult to identity . Iirom tie tabla . of tho baroa we ha . vo followed them to that of tho financial , philosopher ironically styled Atticua by Voltaire , and wo havo seen how , from their conversation , carefully choaen and . somewhat sifted . Helvetiua drew tho matmiula of hia celebrated volume ' De VEaprU ? which makes self-interest tho only source of action , attributes all ideas and passions to the agency of corporealaanaibility , and attaches a purely accidental or relative valuo to truth , virtue , devotion , heroism , and genius , infusing discord into the breast of human societv under tlie deceptive phrase—tho supremacy of tlio Ego . Those who first represented this school during the revolution were , tho Girondists . When dead , the flag they bad carried was appropriated , but by what men ? Tho philosophy of individuality restrained by tho tjirondiata within tho limits of good taste , and animated with much , that could charm , produced in their survivors onl

    y gross materialism and recklessness , for it confessed that in the sphero of ideas the best was but the imitator and exuggerator of Guadot . Unly the doctrine which Guadet had professed taking for his starting point , the inatincta and the interests of tho bourgeois , Hubert first endeavoured to bring into favour by means of an ultra-democratic misc-ensccnc . He clothed it in rags ; h < s put into Jts mouth tho language of the Halles : he succeeded almost in popularizing it by combining with , it a consistent system of furioua attacks against whatever the people had reason to hate ; and as he hud for hia organ a widely circulated journal ,, people baptized with hia niuno without looking too cloaely either at his antecedents , or at his cuuPMter , the party of ; thoeo who , by invoking reason , urged tho world towarda mtollectaai anarchy , and , by invoking tha sovereignty of tha individual , towards oo ^ wl anarchy Iu the month of Novombor , 1793 , thia party was already very strong , beinL wanted ut Uiepw » Bb rHob « t , hi tli ^ war bureaua by . Vincent ;; among ( ho dopuLiea in misaiwr by Foutfrfund Carrier , at tho hood of the revolutionary army by KouMn , j w tho Committee of Public Safety by Collot dJHorijoia , ; . in . the Commune

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    A FASCICLE OF BOMANCE . The author- of ' Ethel' has published simultaneously- two novelettes- —A lord of the Creation and Sister Anne-. ( Edinburgh ,: James Hogg . ) - —The first-named is the more pleasing , although both are elever . In . A Lord of the Creation the element in which the personages have their being- is purelove , a disappointment and a compensation forming two episodes ; in the life of a most graceful Caroline . This young lady is a sort of -well-bred Esmeralda , with * a wil'd , half-Intlian grace in- her lithe elastic movements ; a flush of exquisite colour m the deep-toned gold of hex hair and the warm roses that for ever glowed in her cheeks . ' Here we have a heroine proper ,, and we promise the sweet reader by the saa-side that she shall liave to let down the lace fall of her round hat while listening to the tale of Caroline ' s love typified by ' rich burning , passionate red-buds , like drops of sunfire , *

    on the south side of the old house at Redvvoodi , She will be touched , we say , by the accidents of the maiden ' s heart , and it may be that after the-heartrending-interludes between Caroline and Vauglmn , some people might be disposed to consider Mr . Fnrquhar an intruder . How it happens we know not , but these placid , faultless pinks of honour are never interesting—at least not half so interesting as the slightly graceless individuals whom the aad-hearted heroine rejects , promising them forgiveness , but nothing more . It is well for morality- that novelists do sometimes work out a rigid principle in the decision of love suits ; this the author of Ethel' does in A Lord oftlve Creation . Tile lord in question is justly treated , and Caroline , after one course of false love and one of true , is all that sympathy could wish her to be . Ais

    for bister An ? ie t tho -writer ' s second presentation , we are not so muck concerned for her . She comes of a disagreeable family . We do' not like the Dynevor circle . The mother is an awkward woman ; the children are fussy ; Sister Anne herself is a little old-maidish . But tha tale improves as it goes on , and the purple light of love enriches all things like the sun ? s rays passing through a painted window . The scenes between the sisters are really effective ; the dialogue , indeed-, being far more sisterly than is usual . Also , there is a fresh picturing of rural life , and there are pointed touches of nature with as keen womanly analysis of womanly passions . This would suffice to ensure popularity for Sister Amic ; but tlie romance is well developed , and the reader will bo well content when the joys and sorrows of the youths and maidens are brought to a close in a poetical pleasing husk .

    Kathcrwc Lverintj ( Edinburgh : James Hogg ) is announced as ' by tlie Author of " Mr . Arle , " ' but it belongs to the same series as Sister Anne and A Lord of the Creation . In fact , they arc all three contributions to a romantic library entitled by tlie publishers Love in Light and Shadow . Here , then , is another history-ol hearts . ICather conventional in form , it contains some striking situations , but the moral tone is morbid , and the style is dashed with siekliness : — " Living and . loving , watching an < l praying , steadfast in faith , earnest in duty , Katherino . waited patiently the call of the Death Angel . , . . lie pitiful , oh life , and tender and true in thy teaching , ere

    the coming , of the end of the great ,, graud calm of Death ! " This is a little too melancholy as the conclusion of a drama in which Ella has so often pouted a . ud plained , her hat with purple feathers . It almost appears as if tho writer , had been , bent upon pathos , and had lost her way in search of it . A book of a very different Jund is The Story of Mij Childhood , by Mrs . Henry Lynch ( Longman and Co . ) , dedicated by permission , to Mr . Charles Oiclcens . It is elegantly written , ami presents a graceful picture of orphan life , of girlish friendships , and of other influences surrounding a ' girlhood' ' good society . The intention , of the authoress ia excellent ,, nn < l slio has worked it in a manner worthy of . heraelf—for it should bo mentioned that Mrs . Lynch

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 12, 1857, page 883, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2209/page/19/