river to the place where the Orleans road branches off from the southern boulevard. Two travelling carriages stood there. In one of them was Billaud, attended by two officers; in the other, two more officers were waiting to receive Barère. Collot was already on the road. At Orleans, a city which had suffered cruelly from the Jacobin tyranny, the three deputies were surrounded by a mob bent on tearing them to pieces. All the national guards of the neighbourhood were assembled; and this force was not greater than the emergency required; for the multitude pursued the carriages far on the road to Blois.

At Amboise the prisoners learned that Tours was ready to receive them. The stately bridge was occupied by a throng of people, who swore that the men under whose rule the Loire had been choked with corpses, should have full personal experience of the nature of a noyade. In consequence of this news, the officers who had charge of the criminals made such arrangements that the carriages reached Tours at two in the morning, and drove straight to the posthouse. Fresh horses were instantly ordered, and the travellers started again at full gallop. They had in truth not a moment to lose; for the alarm had been given: lights were seen in motion; and the yells of a great multitude, disappointed of its revenge, mingled with the sound of the departing wheels.

At Poitiers there was another narrow escape. As the prisoners quitted the post-house, they saw the whole population pouring in fury down the steep declivity on which the city is built. They passed near Niort, but could not venture to enter it. The inhabitants came forth with threatening aspect, and vehemently cried to the postilions to stop; but the postilions urged the horses to full speed, and soon left the town behind. Through such dangers the men of blood were brought in safety to Rochelle.

ever.

These events strengthened the aversion with which the system of Terror and the authors of that system were regarded. One member of the Convention had moved, that the three prisoners of Oléron should be put to death; another, that they should be brought back to Paris, and tried by a council of war. These propositions were rejected. But something was conceded to the party which called for severity. A vessel which had been fitted out with great expedition at Rochefort touched at Oléron, and it was announced to Collot and Billaud that they must instantly go on board. They were forthwith conveyed to Guiana, where Collot soon drank himself to death with brandy. Billaud lived many years, shunning his fellow creatures and shunned by them; and diverted his lonely hours by teaching parrots to talk. Why a distinction was made between Barère and his companions in guilt, neither he nor any other writer, as far as we know, has explained. It does not appear that the distinction was meant to be at all in his favour; for orders soon arrived from Paris, that he should be brought to trial for his crimes before the criminal court of the department of the Upper Charente. He was accordingly brought back to the Continent, and confined during some months at Saintes, in an old convent which had lately been turned into the jail.

While he lingered here, the reaction which had followed the great crisis of Thermidor met with a temporary check. The friends of the house of Bourbon, presuming on the indulgence with which they had been treated after the fall of Robespierre, not only ventured to avow their opinions with little disguise, but at length took arms against the Convention, and were not put down till much blood had been shed in the streets of Paris. The vigilance of the public authorities was therefore now directed chiefly against the royalists, and the Oléron was the place of their destination, a rigour with which the Jacobins had lately been dreary island beaten by the raging waves of treated was somewhat relaxed. The Conventhe Bay of Biscay. The prisoners were con- tion, indeed, again resolved that Barère should fined in the castle; each had a single chamber, be sent to Guiana. But this decree was not at the door of which a guard was placed; and carried into effect. The prisoner, probably each was allowed the ration of a single soldier. with the connivance of some powerful perThey were not allowed to communicate either sons, made his escape from Saintes and fled to with the garrison or with the population of the Bordeaux, where he remained in concealment island: and soon after their arrival they were during some years. There seems to have been denied the indulgence of walking on the ram- a kind of understanding between him and the parts. The only place where they were suf-government, that, as long as he hid himself, he fered to take exercise was the esplanade where the troops were drilled.

should not be found, but that, if he obtruded himself on the public eye, he must take the consequences of his rashness.

They had not been long in this situation when news came that the Jacobins of Paris While the constitution of 1795, with its Exhad made a last attempt to regain ascendency ecutive Directory, its Council of Elders, and in the state, that the hall of the Convention had its Council of Five Hundred, was in operation, been forced by a furious crowd, that one of the he continued to live under the ban of the law. deputies had been murdered and his head fixed | It was in vain that he solicited, even at moon a pike, that the life of the President had ments when the polities of the Mountain been for a time in imminent danger, and that seemed to be again in the ascendant, a remissome members of the legislature had not been sion of the sentence pronounced by the Conashamed to join the rioters. But troops had vention. Even his fellow regicides, even the arrived in time to prevent a massacre. The authors of the slaughter of Vendémiaire and insurgents had been put to flight; the inhabit- of the arrests of Fructidor, were ashamed of ants of the disaffected quarters of the capital | him. had been disarmed; the guilty deputies had About eighteen months after his escape from suffered the just punishment of their treason; prison, his name was again brought before the and the power of the Mountain was broken for world. In his own province he still retained

His place was with great tyrants, with Critias and Sylla, with Eccelino and Borgia; not with hireling scribblers and police runners.

"Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;

in some of the Jacobin chiefs. To proscribe | When depravity is placed so high as his, the the Terrorists would have been wholly incon- | hatred which it inspires is mingled with awe. sistent with his policy; but of all the classes of men whom his comprehensive system included, he liked them the least; and Barère was the worst of them. This wretch had been branded with infamy, first by the Convention, But shall the dignity of vice be lost 1" and then by the Council of Five Hundred. So sang Pope; and so felt Barère. When it The inhabitants of four or five great cities had was proposed to him to publish a journal in attempted to tear him limb from limb. Nor defence of the consular government, rage and were his vices redeemed by eminent talents for shame inspired him for the first and last time administration or legislation. It would be un- with something like courage. He had filled as wise to place in any honourable or important large a space in the eyes of mankind as Mr. post a man so wicked, so odious, and so little Pitt or General Washington; and he was coolly qualified to discharge high political duties. At invited to descend at once to the level of Mr. the same time, there was a way in which it | Lewis Goldsmith. He saw, too, with agonies seemed likely that he might be of use to the of envy, that a wide distinction was made be government. The First Consul, as he after- tween himself and the other statesmen of the wards acknowledged, greatly overrated Ba- Revolution who were summoned to the aid of rère's powers as a writer. The effect which the government. Those statesmen were rethe reports of the committee of public safety quired, indeed, to make large sacrifices of prinhad produced by the camp-fires of the republi- ciple; but they were not called on to sacrifice can armies had been great. Napoleon himself, what, in the opinion of the vulgar, constitutes when a young soldier, had been delighted by personal dignity. They were made tribunes those compositions, which had much in com- and legislators, ambassadors and counsellors mon with the rhapsodies of his favourite poet, of state, ministers, senators, and consuls. They Macpherson. The taste, indeed, of the great might reasonably expect to rise with the rising warrior and statesman was never very pure. fortunes of their master; and, in truth, many His bulletins, his general orders, and his pro- of them were destined to wear the badge of clamations, are sometimes, it is true, master- his Legion of Honour and of his order of the pieces in their kind; but we too often detect, Iron Crown; to be arch-chancellors and archeven in his best writing, traces of Fingal, and treasurers, counts, dukes, and princes. Ba of the Carmagnoles. It is not strange, there- rère, only six years before, had been far more fore, that he should have been desirous to se- powerful, far more widely renowned, than any cure the aid of Barère's pen. Nor was this of them; and now, while they were thought the only kind of assistance which the old worthy to represent the majesty of France at member of the committee of public safety foreign courts, while they received crowds of might render to the consular government. He suitors in gilded ante-chambers, he was to pass was likely to find admission into the gloomy his life in measuring paragraphs, and scolding dens in which those Jacobins whose constancy correctors of the press. It was too much. was to be overcome by no reverse, or whose Those lips which had never before been able crimes admitted of no expiation, hid them to fashion themselves to a No, now murmured selves from the curses of mankind. No en-expostulation and refusal. “I could not"terprise was too bold or too atrocious for minds crazed by fanaticism, and familiar with misery and death. The government was anxious to have information of what passed in their secret councils; and no man was better qualified to furnish such information than Barère. For these reasons the First Consul was dis-fluous to name, held the first place in this posed to employ Barère as a writer and as a spy. But Barère-was it possible that he This outbreak of spirit was of short duration. would submit to such a degradation? Bad as Napoleon was inexorable. It is said indeed ne was, he had played a great part. He had that he was. for a moment, half inclined to adbelonged to that class of criminals who fill the mit Barère into the Council of State; but the world with the renown of their crimes; he had members of that body remonstrated in the been one of a cabinet which had ruled France strongest terms, and declared that such a nomiwith absolute power, and made war on all Eu-nation would be a disgrace to them all. This rope with signal success. Nav, he had been, though not the most powerful, yet, with the single exception of Robespierre, the most conspicuous member of that cabinet. His name had been a household word at Moscow and at Philadelphia, at Edinburgh and at Cadiz. The blood of the Queen of France, the blood of the greatest orators and philosophers of France, was on his hands. He had spoken; and it had been decreed, that the plough should pass over the great city of Lyons. He had spoken again; and it had been decreed, that the streets of Toulon should be razed to the ground.

these are his own words-"abase myself to such a point as to serve the First Consul merely in the capacity of a journalist, while so many insignificant, low, and servile people, such as the Treilhards. the Ræderers, the Lebruns, the Marets, and others whom it is super

government of upstarts."

plan was therefore relinquished. Thenceforth Barère's only chance of obtaining the patron age of the government was to subdue his pride, to forget that there had been a time when, with three words, he might have had the heads of the three consuls, and to betake himself, humbly and industriously, to the task of compos ing lampoons on England and panegyrics on Bonaparte.

It has often been asserted, we know not on what grounds, that Barère was employed by the government, not only as a writer, but as a censor of the writings of other men. This im

putation he vehemently denies in his Memoirs but our readers will probably agree with us in thinking, that his denial leaves the question exactly where it was.

;

Next, the indefatigable servant of the state falls in with an old republican, who has not changed with the times, who regrets the red cap and the tree of liberty, who has not un

scribes his letters with "Health and Fraternity." Into the ears of this sturdy politician our friend pours forth a long series of com. plaints. What evil times! What a change since the days when the Mountain governed France! What is the First Consul but a king under a new name? What is this Legion of Honour but a new aristocracy? The old superstition is reviving with the old tyranny. There is a treaty with the Pope, and a provision for the clergy. Emigrant nobles are returning in crowds, and are better received at the Tuileries than the men of the tenth of August. This cannot last. What is life without liberty? What terrors has death to the true patriot?

The old Jacobin catches fire, bestows and receives the fraternal hug, and hints that there will soon be great news, and that the breed of Harmodius and Brutus is not quite extinct. The next day he is close prisoner, and all his papers are in the hands of the government.

Thus much is certain, that he was not re-learned the Thee and Thou, and who still substrained from exercising the office of censor by any scruple of conscience or honour; for he did accept an office, compared with which that of censor, odious as it is, may be called an august and beneficent magistracy. He began to have what are delicately called relations with the police. We are not sure that we have formed, or that we can convey, an exact notion of the nature of Barère's new calling. It is a calling unknown in our country. It has, indeed, often happened in England, that a plot has been revealed to the government by one of the conspirators. The informer has sometimes been directed to carry it fair towards his accomplices, and to let the evil design come to full maturity. As soon as his work is done, he is generally snatched from the public gaze, and sent to some obscure village, or to some remote colony. The use of spies, even to this extent, is in the highest degree unpopular in England; but a political spy by profession, is a creature from which our island is as free as it is from wolves. In France the To this vocation, a vocation compared with race is well known, and was never more nume- which the life of a beggar, of a pickpocket, of rous, more greedy, more cunning, or more sav-a pimp, is honourable, did Barère now descend. age, than under the government of Bonaparte. Our idea of a gentleman in relations with the consular and imperial police may perhaps be incorrect. Such as it is, we will try to convey it to our readers. We image to ourselves a well dressed person, with a soft voice and affable manners. His opinions are those of the society in which he finds himself, but a lit-Gensonné. He fawned on Robespierre up to tle stronger. He often complains, in the language of honest indignation, that what passes in private conversation finds its way strangely to the government, and cautions his associates to take care what they say when they are not sure of their company. As for himself, he owns that he is indiscreet. He can never re-throats to the guillotine. frain from speaking his mind; and that is the reason that he is not prefect of a department.

It was his constant practice, as often as he enrolled himself in a new party, to pay his footing with the heads of old friends. He was at first a royalist; and he made atonement by watering the tree of liberty with the blood of Louis. He was then a Girondist; and he made atonement by murdering Vergniaud and

the eighth of Thermidor; and he made atonement by moving, on the ninth, that Robespierre should be beheaded without a trial. He was now enlisted in the service of the new monarchy; and he proceeded to atone for his republican heresies by sending republican

Among his most intimate associates was a Gascon named Demerville, who had been employed in an office of high trust under the committee of public safety. This man was fanatically attached to the Jacobin system of politics, and, in conjunction with other enthusiasts of the same class, formed a design against the First Consul. A hint of this de sign escaped him in conversation with Barère. Barère carried the intelligence to Lannes, who commanded the Consular Guards. Demerville was arrested, tried, and beheaded; and among the witnesses who appeared against him was his friend Barère.

In a gallery of the Palais Royal he overhears two friends talking earnestly about the king and the Count of Artois. He follows them into a coffee-house, sits at the table next to them, calls for his half-dish and his small glass of cognac, takes up a journal, and seems occupied with the news. His neighbours go on talking without restraint, and in the style of persons warmly attached to the exiled family. They depart, and he follows them half round the boulevards till he fairly tracks them to their apartments, and learns their names from the porters. From that day every letter addressed The account which Barère has given of to either of them is sent from the post-office to these transactions is studionsly confused and the police, and opened. Their correspondents grossly dishonest. We think, however, that become known to the government, and are we can discern, through much falsehood and carefully watched. Six or eight honest fami- much artful obscurity, some truths which he lies, in different parts of France, find them-labours to conceal. It is clear to us that the selves at once under the frown of power, with-government suspected him of what the Italians our being able to guess what offence they have call a double treason. It was natural that such given. One person is dismissed from a public a suspicion should attach to him. He had, in office; another learns with dismay that his promising son has been turned out of the Polytechnic school.

times not very remote, zealously preached the Jacobin doctrine, that he who smites a tyrant deserves higher praise than he who saves a

citizen. Was it possible that the member of the committee of public safety, the king-killer, the queen-killer, could in earnest mean to deliver his old confederates, his bosom friends, to the executioner, solely because they had planned an act which, if there were any truth in his own Carmagnoles, was in the highest degree virtuous and glorious? Was it not more probable that he was really concerned in the plot, and that the information which he gave was merely intended to lull or to mislead the police? Accordingly spies were set on the spy. He was ordered to quit Paris, and not to come within twenty leagues till he received further orders. Nay, he ran no small risk of being sent, with some of his old friends, to Madagascar.

He made his peace, however, with the government so far, that he was not only permittea, during some years, to live unmolested, but was employed in the lowest sort of political drudgery. In the summer of 1803, while he was preparing to visit the south of France, he received a letter which deserves to be inserted. It was from Duroc, who is well known to have enjoyed a large share of Napoleon's confidence and favour.

"The First Consul, having been informed that Citizen Barère is about to set out for the country, desires that he will stay at Paris.

"Citizen Barère will every week draw up a report of the state of public opinion on the proceedings of the government, and generally on every thing which, in his judgment, it will be interesting to the First Consul to learn.

himself conspicuous even among the crowd of flatterers by the peculiar fulsomeness of his adulation. He translated into French a contemptible volume of Italian verses, entitled, "The Poetic Crown, composed on the glorious accession of Napoleon the First, by the Shepherds of Arcadia." He commenced a new series of Carmagnoles very different from those which had charmed the Mountain. The title of Emperor of the French, he said, was mean; Napoleon ought to be Emperor of Europe. King of Italy was too humble an appellation; Napoleon's style ought to be King of Kings.

But Barère laboured to small purpose in both his vocations. Neither as a writer nor as a spy was he of much use. He complains bitterly that his paper did not sell. While the Journal des Debats, then flourishing under the able management of Geoffroy, had a circulation of at least twenty thousand copies, the Memorial Antibritannique never, in its most pros perous times, had more than fifteen hundred subscribers; and these subscribers were, with scarcely an exception, persons residing far from Paris, probably Gascons, among whom the name of Barère had not yet lost its influence.

A writer who cannot find readers, generally attributes the public neglect to any cause rather than to the true one; and Barère was no exception to the general rule. His old hatred to Paris revived in all its fury. That city, he says, has no sympathy with France. No Parisian cares to subscribe to a journal which dwells on the real wants and interests of the country. To a Parisian nothing is so "He will deliver his reports under seal into | ridiculous as patriotism. The higher classes General Duroc's own hand, and General Duroc of the capital have always been devoted to will deliver them to the First Consul. But it England. A corporal from London is better is absolutely necessary that nobody should sus-received among them than a French general. pect that this species of communication takes A journal, therefore, which attacks England place; and, should any such suspicion get has no chance of their support. abroad, the First Consul will cease to receive the reports of Citizen Barère.

"He may write with perfect freedom.

"It will also be proper that Citizen Barère should frequently insert in the journals articles tending to animate the public mind, particularly against the English."

A much better explanation of the failure of the Memorial, was given by Bonaparte at St. Helena. "Barère," said he to Barry O'Meara, "had the reputation of being a man of talent; but I did not find him so. I employed him to write; but he did not display ability. He used many flowers of rhetoric, but no solid argument; nothing but cogliomerie wrapped up in high-sounding language."

During some years Barère continued to discharge the functions assigned to him by his master. Secret reports, filled with the talk of coffee-houses, were carried by him every week The truth is, that though Barère was a man to the Tuileries. His friends assure us that he of quick parts, and could do with ease what took especial pains to do all the harm in his he could do at all, he had never been a good power to the returned emigrants. It was not writer. In the day of his power, he had been his fault if Napoleon was not apprised of every in the habit of haranguing an excitable audimurmur and every sarcasm which old mar-ence on exciting topics. The faults of his quesses who had lost their estates, and old clergymen who had lost their benefices, uttered against the imperial system. M. Hippolyte Carnot, we grieve to say, is so much blinded by party spirit, that he seems to reckon this dirty wickedness among his hero's titles to public esteem.

Barère was, at the same time, an indefatigable journalist and pamphleteer. He set up a paper directed against England, and called the Memorial Antibritannique. He planned a work entitled, “France made great and illustrious by Napoleon." When the imperial government was established, the old regicide made

style passed uncensnred; for it was a time of literary as well as of civil lawlessness, and a patriot was licensed to violate the ordinary rules of composition as well as the ordinary rules of jurisprudence and of social morality. But there had now been a literary as well as a civil reaction. As there was again a throne and a court, a magistracy, a chivalry, and a hierarchy, so was there a revival of classical taste. Honor was again paid to the prose of Pascal and Masillon, and to the verse of Racine and La Fontaine. The oratory which had delighted the galleries of the Convention, was not only as much out of date as the language of