himself. One of these rare allusions, which occurs in an oration on the Fête of Gratitude,' runs thus: 'Divine author of the Social Contract, eloquent avenger of Calas, sublime Helvetius, wise Montesquieu, virtuous Diderot, Apostles, Martyrs and Prophets of Liberty, we salute your immortal memory.' The term 'Divine' here applied to Rousseau is almost common form. It is worthy of note that, with very few exceptions, he is spoken of not merely as the final authority on religion, political economy and ethics, but with the same degree of reverence as that with which Christian writers treat the utterances of the Apostles, or the Saints and Fathers of the Church, nay even those of Christ Himself.

The darkest side of Rousseau's complex character was unquestionably the morbid egoism which developed in his later years into persecution mania. Some such manis as that from which he suffered exhibited itself in the wave of universal suspicion and terror which swept over France simultaneously with the Revolution. One aspect of this strange mental epidemic and of the consequent atmosphere of suspicion and delation under which the men and women of France lived and breathed during the last ten years of the eighteenth century is fully illustrated in the fifty-eight volumes of the 'Croker Tracts' labelled Dénonciations et Justifications.' A few selections from the 1097 pamphlets contained in these volumes wil suffice to give some idea of their contents, and to show how fully they illustrate Burke's judgment on this phase of the Revolution, 'It is alternate scorn and horror; it is alternate laughter and tears.'

The first volume taken at random opens with the mutual denunciation of two brothers,, Jean Duprat Deputy to the Convention, and Jean Étienne Dupra revolutionary agent at Avignon. Jean accuses hi brother of being a bad father, a bad friend and a bal brother; while Jean Étienne retorts by accusing h brother of much more serious offences, such as federaliss and enmity to the virtuous Marat and to the Sacre Mountain. Jean was duly guillotined on October 30, 1793 Jean Étienne of Avignon was imprisoned, but was so fortunate as to survive the 10th Thermidor and die holding office in Italy under the Empire. This is followed by a justification of his career by Dupont du Chambon, a

military officer, dated September 1794. The first sentence is a fair specimen of the certificates of virtue to which allusion has already been made. As an officer of the 33rd Regiment, I forced, solely by the ascendency of my own virtue and courage, all my brother officers to take the civic oath after the flight of the Tyrant.' A second quotation illustrates the inconveniences which attended visits to the theatre during the Terror.

'The counter-revolutionists having betaken themselves to the play at the Theatre of the Celestines (Lyons) to hiss the famous Ponteuil in the rôle of Brutus and to applaud the actor who was playing Cæsar, I sprang, sword in hand, upon the stage, vowing to slay the first spectator who dared to give the least sign of disapproval of Brutus, and swearing to exterminate every Dictator or Tyrant. This scene is too well known to require witnesses.'

Here is an example which offers a refreshing variety of naïveté and unconscious humour. Citizen Lepreux, aged 55, held in February 1794 the post of senior surgeon in the Army of the Interior. We have it on the best authority-his own-that he was a personage of the most exalted virtue and patriotism, but unfortunately he possessed no higher medical qualification than that of an 'Officier de Santé.' Moved by the enormous deathrate and the frequent accidents in the military hospitals, the Convention issued early in the year 1794 a decree compelling all medical officers holding this modest qualification to pass an examination before the 'Conseil de Santé.' Conscious of his inability to pass any such examination, and moved to the depth of his republican soul by the indignity of appearing before a board of young men, one of whom he describes as a mere boy of less than thirty years, Lepreux bethinks himself of an excellent device by means of which he may postpone or altogether escape the evil day. This is to denounce as aristocrats the members of the exclusive and over-educated board. His denunciation is addressed to Robespierre, before whom, after the fashion of the free and enlightened patriots of the day, he thus prostrates himself—

'Great Montagnard, it is before your virtuous, sympathetic, and truly republican soul that I lay my complaints founded on justice and on honour. May you progress and prosper,

brave Republican, in your glorious career. Beat down head after head of the hydra of aristocracy; show mercy to none of them. Be thine the voice which breaks down the cedars of Lebanon. Thinking of you I dream that I am in Sparta, where all was good, just and noble; in Sparta, where age was truly honoured; where, at the appearance of an old man, all rose and reverently saluted him. Shall it be otherwise in republican France? Indignation overpowers me at the thought of the threatened indignity, and I exclaim in my wrath, O Tempora, O Mores.'

Next comes the customary autobiographical laudation, after which follows the gist and purpose of the petition. 'O Sacred Mountain, all the aristocrats are not yet rooted up. I denounce to you the aristocracy of the "Conseil de Santé," a more menacing body than one would suppose could possibly continue to survive. Are such aristocrats as these to be our judges? Happily it needs but one breath of the Convention to dispel this baleful aristocracy!'

Did Robespierre ever smile? His sense of humour must have been small indeed if this effusion did not lighten one hour of his gloomy day.

One more pamphlet, a singularly sinister sample, must suffice. The citoyenne Olympe de Gouges, one of the suffragettes of the period, was an authoress of some note and the founder of the Society of Tricoteuses, the knitting women so famous in the galleries of the Convention and around the guillotine. In a moment of courage or of weakness she published a pamphlet in favour of sparing the life of Louis XVI, and another which was supposed to favour the Girondist policy. She paid the penalty of her melting mood by a long imprisonment ended by the guillotine on November 3, 1793. On the 8th of the same month was published a pamphlet by her son, Pierre Aubry, Adjutant-General of the Army of the Rhine. The pamphlet is too long to give in its entirety. The following extracts will show its purport. 'Having read last evening that Olympe Gouges, formerly Aubry, had been condemned to death for writings treasonable to the Sovereignty of the People, I rendered to nature the customary tribute to the woman to whom I owed my being; but as a Man and a Republican I soon dried my tears, as I reflected how unworthy was their object. I said to myself, this woman was no Republican; she was not afraid to dishonour

me, to deprive me of the confidence of my fellow-citizens. I will efface her image from my memory, She has been put to death as a counter-revolutionist. Eh bien, Vive la République ! I swear to you, my fellow-citizens, that I utterly disavow the seditious and anti-revolutionary writings of Olympe Gouges; that I no longer recognise her as my mother; that I approve of the judgment of the Revolutionary Tribunal; and that I have no other desire than to live and die a Republican, and an upholder of liberty and equality. Many persons believe that I am a ci-devant noble. I desire to disprove the accusation. On the side of Olympe Gouges my grandparents were labourers. My father was the proprietor of a restaurant. I give notice that the name of de Gouges is not my own name, and that from this hour I repudiate both the name and the particle, which I shall never recall without a blush.'

All that is known of the subsequent history of Pierre Aubry is that in December 1794 he was placed on the retired list. His name does not appear in any of the records of the condemned, so that it may be presumed that his profession of shame saved his worthless neck.

The third point, the sensibilité of the revolutionary period, is so well known that it hardly requires explanation. It is enough to give a single instance in illustration of that strange blend of sentimentality and savagery which is the peculiar hall-mark of the Jacobin. When Collot d'Herbois returned, in April 1794, from his mission to Lyons, where he had succeeded in doing to death, by the guillotine and the fusillade, some nineteen hundred persons of both sexes, of all ages and of every possible rank, he was surprised to find it necessary to defend the republican virtue of which he had given such convincing proof. In the course of his speech before the Convention he said:

'A single drop of blood oozing from the veins of a Patriot falls upon my heart, but for conspirators I have no pity. The thunderbolt of the People strikes like that of heaven, leaving behind it only dust and ashes. . . . We too have sensibility; the Jacobin has every virtue. He is compassionate, humane and generous, but he keeps all these sentiments for patriots, who are his brethren, which aristocrats can never be.'

The whole of this oration should be studied. It gives the most lucid explanation which can be found of one of

the most difficult problems of the Revolution, the psychology of the Terrorist. We turn from sensibilité in the abstract to one of its most curious and least known manifestations, the hysterical outbursts of laudation and anathema. Instances will be found in every volume dealing with any person who played a prominent part in the earlier years of the Revolution. Later, the Directors and their allies neither expected nor received anything but curses, as loud and deep as contempt modified by fear could produce. Here are a couple of samples from the flood of pamphlets celebrating the return of Necker to Paris in July 1789.

'He has come back to us, this great, this immortal hero, whose retreat would have wrecked the country of his heart. Rejoice, O people! the Saviour of the Republic, the Messiah of France has been restored to you. Ye Gods! in what frightful affliction, in what profound despair were we plunged when our great Hero left us for a season! Some traitors have paid for their crimes, and their guilty heads have been paraded through the city. But now he has returned, and universal happiness is ours once more. He is ours again, that great man whom the beneficent genius of France has brought again to our bosoms. We have passed in a moment from the transports of fury to those of ecstatic joy.'

Another reads thus:

'O Divine Man, our only regret is that you are not immortal. The fame of Sully is but the thin smoke of a candle compared to yours. We possess again the beloved object of all our desires; let us now bask for ever in the sublime wisdom of your designs.'

Such quotations might be multiplied indefinitely. In good truth it was roses, roses all the way for Necker in July 1789; but the roses faded with astounding rapidity. Not much more than one year later a pamphlet, typical of many others published in 1790 and 1791, contains this passage on Necker.

'He lives yet, to the shame and dishonour of the French people and too probably of the whole Continent. He lives still, this supreme rogue, this Tartuffe par excellence, this king of charlatans, this public nuisance, this foe of the human race. He continues to add crime to crime, abomination to abomination. The curse of the country and of the age is still the inspiring genius of the Cabinet.'