To this last party Barnave at once attached himself, and remained, during his short political career, its consistent and unflinching supporter. During the stormy debates that often took place in the Assembly, and gave rise to a number of personal quarrels, he got involved in a duel, which, however, terminated without bloodshed. A deputy named Cazalés had exclaimed, looking pointedly at Barnave, that all the members of the left were brigands; and, on Barnave's inquiring his meaning, he told him that the insult was specially levelled at him. Next day a meeting took place in the Bois de Boulogne, Barnave being seconded by Lameth, and Cazalés by Saint-Simon. Barnave fired first, and missed; and Cazalés' pistol twice hung fire. "I beg you will excuse me," politely exclaimed Cazalés." "I am here to wait your pleasure," returned Barnave. During the time the seconds were re-charging the pistols, the two antagonists conversed with the utmost coolness. "I should be heartbroken to kill you," said Cazalés; "but you give us a great deal of annoyance. I should only like to keep you out of the tribune for some time." "I am more generous," retorted Barnave, "I desire scarcely to touch you, for you are the only orator on your side of the house; whilst on mine, they would scarcely notice my absence." At the second fire the bullet of Barnave struck Cazalés on the forehead, but merely inflicted a severe contusion, the rim of his hat having deadened the blow. In the autumn of 1790 Barnave was appointed President of the Assembly, and was subsequently sent, along with La Tour-Maubourg, and Pétion, to bring back the King and Queen from Varennes, where their flight from France had been arrested. Throughout the journey, he conducted himself like a man of honour and feeling towards the unfortunate Queen; and by so doing prepared the way for his own arrest and condemnation at no distant date. He clearly perceived the fatal error committed by the Constituent Assembly in resolving that none of its members should form part of the approaching legislature-an error which in reality reopened and perpetuated the revolution, while declaring it at an end; and how truly he estimated the character of the moderate party, to which he belonged, may be seen from the following remarkable passage in his memoirs. "The moderate party," he says, "which, both in numbers and composition, should be regarded as the nation itself, has scarcely any influence; it throws itself, indeed, as a make-weight on the side which seeks to moderate the revolution, but it scarcely dares to give public utterance

to its wishes. When events which it has the most dreaded are consummated, it endorses them. It abandons its former chiefs, and its former principles, and seeks only, in its new career, still to form the rear-guard, and to retard the march of the revolutionary column, in whose train it is dragged along in spite of itself. This party has, always, coward-like, abandoned its leaders, whilst the aristocratic and popular party have always supported theirs. All that we can expect from it, in general, are secret good wishes and some applause when one has conquered for it, a feeble support in success, no resources in defeat, no hope of vengeance. In this revolution it has never possessed any energy, unity, or talent for attack." On the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, Barnave returned to his home at Grenoble, where we find him, in spite of his sense of the errors and crimes of the revolution, giving the following eloquent testimony to the good it had wrought. "What a vast space traversed in these three years, and without our being able to flatter ourselves that we have arrived at the end of our journey! We have dug very deep, we have found a new and fertile soil; but what an amount of corrupt exhalations has it sent forth! How much public spirit in individuals, how much courage in the mass; but how very little of real character, of calm force, and especially of true virtue ! Arrived at my home, I ask myself if it would not have been as well never to have left it; and I have need of a little reflection to answer, so much does the position in which this new Assembly has placed us abate the courage and energy. However, when I consider a little, I am convinced that, whatever happens, we cannot cease to be free, and that the principal abuses which we have destroyed will never reappear. How many misfortunes should we undergo to make us forget such great advantages!" Soon after his return home, Barnave was arrested on a charge of correspondence with the royal family, detained for a year in captivity in Dauphiné, brought to Paris on 3d March 1793, and beheaded on the 30th of the same month. He was only thirty-two when he died, and his political career had lasted little more than four years. Barnave's greatest oratorical success in the Constituent Assembly was his speech on the question of the inviolability of the royal person, in which he displayed admirable eloquence, and just and exalted political views. He uncompromisingly maintained the doctrine of the inviolability and irresponsibility of a constitutional king, and endeavoured to throw around the unfortunate monarch the protection of the

mantle of the law; and, in spite of the distastefulness of his theory to many of his hearers, he maintained it with a largeness of view, a dignity, and a fervour that drew down almost universal applause. Madame de Stael said of him that his eloquence resembled that of the best English models, from its close and vigorous reasoning, its appeal to the judgment rather than the passions; and an eminent French critic of a more recent date affirms, “If we would name at a distance, among the men of that great Assembly, the orator who would represent it most faithfully from its first to its last day, in its continuity and consistency of character, in its capacity, in its splendour, in its faults, in its integrity also, and in the work of its healthful majority, it would be neither Mirabeau, too great, too corrupt, too soon elevated to power, that we would choose, nor Maury, the Mirabeau of the minority, nor La Fayette not sufficiently eloquent, nor others; it would be, for the combination of qualities which best express the physiognomy of the Constituent Assembly, that young deputy of Dauphiné, Barnave.”

Vergniaud, like Barnave, belonged to a provincial Bar-that of Bordeaux-and his brilliant public career was even shorter than that of the great statesman and orator of Grenoble, scarcely extending over four years-for the revolution, like Saturn, was fond of devouring its own children. His fame as an advocate stood high before he entered upon the dangerous arena of the public life of the revolution; but the splendour of his eloquence and the ascendancy of his position in the National and Legislative Assemblies has entirely eclipsed his professional reputation, and procured for him the fame of being, with the exceptions of Mirabeau and Barnave, the greatest orator of the revolution. Unfortunately, however, in spite of his eloquence, patriotism, and disinterestedness, Vergniaud was wanting in political foresight and in decision of purpose, and no man did more than he to widen the breach between the throne and the people, to place the supreme power in the hands of the lowest and most brutal of the populace, and thus to prepare the way for the reign of terror. He permitted the Jacobins to gain power when he might have crushed or disarmed them. He advocated extreme councils until it was too late to fall back upon moderate measures, and-like the magician's servant in the story-called forth a spirit which he could not control, and which finally tore him to pieces. The reign of terror claimed him as one of its earliest and most illustrious victims, and his premature death on the scaffold in the flower of his days

and the height of his faculties, was a bitter expiation of his errors of judgment and vacillation of purpose. Yet it cannot be forgotten that the most eloquent voice in France was raised to ensure and precipitate the fall of the monarchy; to enforce the utmost severities against the emigrés; to bring Lessent, the minister of Louis XVI. to the scaffold; to justify the cowardly assassins of Avignon; to persecute the priesthood; to vote for the death of the king. But while admitting Vergniaud's want of political prudence and foresight, the purity of his motives and the sincerity of his convictions must at the same time, be fully granted. The following brief extracts from some of his speeches on memorable occasions may give a slight idea of the brilliant character of his eloquence. The first is from the speech against Lessent on 10th March 1792. Stretching out his hand and pointing towards the Tuileries the orator exclaimed: "From this tribune from which I address you, I behold the palace where perverse counsellors mislead and deceive the king whom the constitution has given us, forge the fetters with which they wish to enchain us, and prepare the schemes which would deliver us up to the house of Austria ! I behold the windows of the palace where they concert the counter-revolution, where they contrive the means of replunging us into the horrors of slavery, after having made us pass through all the disorders of anarchy and all the furies of civil war! The day has come when you can put a stop to such audacity! Consternation and terror have often gone forth in ancient times from that famous palace, let them return to it today in the name of the law!" The second extract which we shall give is from a speech in which Vergniaud boldly and nobly, at the risk of his life, denounced the horrible massacres of September, in which the Parisian mob had murdered by hundreds. the prisoners in the different prisons of the city. His eyes had at last been opened by these hideous butcheries. But his illusions were dispelled too late. The power of the Jacobins was confirmed. But the day after the night of these massacres he thus boldly denounced them in the Assembly. "The blinded Parisians dare to say that they are free! Ah! they are no longer the slaves, it is true, of crowned tyrants, but they are the slaves of the vilest of men, the most detestable of scoundrels. It is time to break these shameful chains, to crush this new tyranny! It is time that those who have made good men tremble, should be made to tremble in their turn. I am not ignoraut that they have daggers

at their bidding; but, I take you to witness, that my voice shall thunder with all the force it possesses against such crimes and such tyrants! What care I for daggers and assassins! What matters life to the representatives of the nation, when the question regards the safety of the people?"

Two other deputies from the Gironde, Guadet and Gensonné, were distinguished members of the French Bar, and about the same age as Vergniaud-thirty-six-when they were called, like him, to take an active part in political life. The various qualities of their eloquence have been happily characterised by an eminent advocate of the present day. "Guadet, an impassioned orator, supported with impetuous vehemence extreme opinions; he spoke extempore with remarkable facility, and excelled in dealing the most terrible blows to his antagonists. Always ready, he threw himself boldly into the tribune, and there displayed the inexhaustible resources of his fertile intellect. As calm as Guadet was impetuous, Gensonné, austere and grave, possessed no seductive qualities; but, endowed with an accurate judgment, he understood how to state the subject under discussion in the most powerful manner and in the fewest words, and if he was unable to captivate his hearers by the charms of his eloquence, he at least understood how to convince them by the force of his reasoning. Vergniaud united the impetuous eloquence of the first to the inflexible logic of the second, and excelled both by the elevation of his thoughts and the sustained dignity of his language. The most accomplished orator of the Gironde, he belonged to that rare class of men who have no need gradually to grow to greatness in an assembly, but who, by a single bound, spring into the first rank and there maintain themselves without an effort."

Another great man belonging to the Bar of the ancient Parliament, and a prominent figure in the revolution, was Boissy d'Anglas, born at St Jean Chantre in 1756, and died at Paris in 1826. He is indeed better known as a writer, a magistrate, and a statesman, than as a lawyer; but, as he was admitted, when a young man, advocate to the Parliament of Paris, we are entitled to rank him among the celebrities of the Bar, which we are the better pleased to do, as his was not only a useful, consistent, and successful life, but was also illustrated by one of the most splendid examples of civil courage recorded in the annals of history. In the revolutionary assemblies Boissy d' Anglas was distinguished for moderation, firmness, and application to business. In his