foreigners from the Convention. There were but two in it, Anacharsis Clootz and myself; and I saw I was particularly pointed at by Bourdon de l'Oise, in his speech on that motion. Conceiving, after this, that I had but a few days of liberty, I sat down and brought the work to a close as speedily as possible: and I had not finished it more than six hours, in the state it has since appeared, before a guard came, with an order for putting me in arrestation." The first part of the Age of Reason was probably published by Barlow,* during Paine's imprisonment. The second part made its appearance about the end of 1795. † At the invitation of a unanimous vote of the Convention, Paine resumed his seat; but it would seem that he little accorded with the now unmasked Respectables, then manufacturing a new constitution to displace that of '93, which, principally framed by Robespierre, had received the sanction of four millions of adult Frenchmen. More especially he contended against that odious. distinction (formerly so strenuously opposed by the maligned Robespierre) between direct and indirect taxes as qualifications for the rights of citizenship. § His objections had little weight with the Convention; and a new election following the formation of the "Constitution," Paine was not re-elected. Possibly his opinions were too extreme for the new regime of shopocrats. During the English invasion of Holland, he went to Brussels, where he passed a few days with General Brune. "For some years before he left Paris, he lodged at M. Bonville's," (Bonneville), "associating occasionally with the great men of the day, Condorcet, T *Gorton's Biographical Dictionary. †Sherwin says, early in '95. but Paine's Letter to Washington, contradicts this. Buonarroti's History of Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality. ? Sherwin, p. 175. Yorke's Letters from France. ¶ Condorcet died 28th of March, 1791. Paine's acquaintance with him must have been previous to his imprisonment. Volney, Mercier, Joel Barlow, &c., &c., and sometimes dining with Bonaparte and his generals."* The following is amusing: When Bonaparte returned from Italy "he called on Mr. Paine, and invited him to dinner in the course of his rapturous ecstacies, he declared that a statue of gold ought to be erected to him in every city in the universe; he also assured him that he always slept with his Rights of Man under his pillow, and conjured him to honor him with his correspondence and advice."† "Paine now indulged his mechanical taste, and amused himself in bridge and ship modelling, and in pursuing his favorite studies, the mathematics and natural philosophy. These models,' says a correspondent of that time, 'exhibit an extraordinary degree not only of skill, but of taste in mechanics; and are wrought with extreme delicacy entirely by his own hands. The largest of these, the model of a bridge, is nearly four feet in length: the iron-works, the chains, and every other article belonging to it were forged and manufactured by himself. It is intended as the model of a bridge which is to be constructed across the Delaware, extending four hundred and eighty feet with only one arch. He also forged himself the model of a crane of a new description, which, when put together, exhibited the power of the lever to a most surprising degree.'"'§ Soon after the publication of the second part of the Age of Reason, he gave to the world his Dissertation on First Principles of Government; Agrarian Justice, opposed to Agrarian Law and to Agrarian Monopoly; and The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance. In 1796, too, he published his Letter to George Washington. In 1797 he published A Discourse delivered to the Society of Theophilanthropists at Paris Rickman, p. 164. + Yorke's Letters from France. (a society of which he had been a principal promoter); A Letter to the People of France on the events of the 18th Fructidor; and A Letter to Camille Jordan, on Priests, Bells, and Public Worship.* His popularity was now waning, in consequence of his assault upon the Bible. If we may believe Mr. Yorke's Letters from France in 1802, he, who had been obliged by the press of visitors to appoint regular levee days, was then the lonely habitant of the second story of a bookseller's in the Rue du Théatre Francais; occupying "a little dirty room, containing a small wooden table and two chairs. The chimney-hearth was a heap of dirt; there was not a speck of cleanliness to be seen; three shelves were filled with pasteboard boxes, each labelled after the manner of a minister of foreign affairs, Correspondence Americaine, Britannique, Française; Notices Politiques; Le Citoyen Français,† &c. In one corner of the room stood several huge bars of iron, curiously shaped, and two large trunks; opposite the fireplace, a board covered with pamphlets and journals, having more the appearance of a dresser in a scullery than a sideboard.—Mr. Paine came down stairs, and entered the room, dressed in a long flannel gown. Time seemed to have made dreadful ravages over his whole frame, and a settled melancholy was visible on his countenance.” He was detained in France much longer than he desired, through fear of the British cruisers. 'When Monroe left France, to return to America," he says, "I was to have gone with him: it was fortunate I did not. The vessel he sailed in was visited by a British frigate, that searched every part of it, and down to the hold, for Thomas Paine. I then went, the same year, to embark at Havre; but several British frigates were cruising in sight of the port, who knew I was there, and I had to return again to Paris. Seeing myself thus cut off from *Sherwin, p. 175 to 181. In which he is said to have written. ANTON, whom the Revolution had found an obscure barrister at the Châtelet, had Dincreased with it in influence. He had already, says Lamertine, that celebrity which the multitude assigns to him whom it sees every where, and always listens to. He was one of those men who seem born of the stir of revolutions, and which float on its surface until it swallows them up. All in him was like the mass-athletic, rude, coarse. He pleased them because he resembled them. His eloquence was like the loud clamor of the mob. His brief and decisive phrases had the martial curtness of command. His irresistible gestures gave impulse to his plebian auditories. Ambition was his sole line of politics. Devoid of honor, principles, or morality, he only loved democracy because it was exciting. It was his element, and he plunged into it. He was intoxicated with the revolutionary vertigo as a man becomes drunken with wine; yet he bore his intoxication well. He had that superiority of calmness in the confusion he created, which enabled him to control it: preserving sang froid in his excitement and his temper, even in a moment of passion, he jested with the clubs in their stormiest moods. A burst of laughter interrupted bitterest imprecations; and he amused the people even whilst he impelled them to the uttermost pitch of fury. He was only with the people because he was of the people, and thus the people ought to triumph. He would have betrayed it, as he served it, unscrupulously. The court well knew the tariff of his conscience. He threatened it in order to make it desirous of buying him; he only opened his mouth in order to have it stuffed with gold. His most revolutionary movements were but the marked prices at which he was purchasable. His hand was in every intrigue, and his honesty was not checked by any offer of corruption. He was bought daily, and next morning was again for sale. Mirabeau, La Fayette, Montmorin, M. De Laporte, the intendant of the civil list, the Duc d'Orleans, the king himself, all knew his price. Money had flowed with him from all sources, even the most impure, without remaining with him. Any other individual would have felt shame before men and parties who had the secret of his dishonor; but he only was not ashamed, and looked them in the face without a blush. His was the quietude of vice.* Danton and his friend Lacroix were arrested and thrown into the same cell. He desired, towards the middle of the day, to take exercise, like the rest of the detenus, in the corridors. The gaolers dared not refuse some steps in the prison to the man who ruled the Convention on the evening before. Hérault de Séchelles ran and embraced him. Danton affected indifference and gaiety. "When men do foolish things," said he, shrugging his shoulders at Hérault de Séchelles, "they must know how to laugh at them." Then, perceiving Thomas Paine, the American Democrat, he approached him, and said with sorrow, "That which you have done for your country, I have endeavored to do for mine." Danton assumed a lofty air on the scaffold, and seemed as if he measured out his pedestal. Never in the tribune had he been more haughty - -more imposing. He cast, right and left, a glance of pity, and seemed by his attitude to say, "Look at me well. You will not look upon my like again." Bat nature for a moment overcame this pride. A cry escaped him, torn from him by the remembrance of his young wife. "Oh my best beloved!" he exclaimed with moistened eyes, "I shall never see thee more!" Then, as if reproaching himself for his weakness, he said aloud: "Come, come, Danton, no weakness." Then he turned towards the headsman and said, with an air of authority; "You will show my head to the people it will be well worth the display !" His head fell, and the executioner complying with his last wish, caught it from the basket, and carried it round the scaffold - the mob applauded! Thus end favorites! Thus died on the stage before the multitude the man for whom the scaffold was also a theatre, and who desired to die applauded, at the close of the tragic drama of his life, as he had been at the beginning and in the middle, His only deficiency as a great man was virtue. He had its nature, cause, genius, exterior, destiny, death, but not its conscience. He played the great man, but was not one. There is no greatness in a part there is greatness only in the actual faith. Danton had the feeling, frequently the passion of liberty, but not the faith, for internally he professed no worship but that of renown.-E. *"Infamous and contented."—Junius. |