been elected deputy for Versailles, * as well as for Calais, but preferred representing the latter, as they had first elected him.†

* Sherwin says, for Abbeville and Beauvais also.

"On reaching Calais," says Richard Carlile, "the name of Thomas Paine was no sooner announced than the beach was crowded; all the soldiers on duty were drawn up; the officer of the guard embraced him on landing, and presented him with the national cockade, which a handsome young woman, who was standing by, begged the honor of fixing in his hat, and returned it to him, expressing a hope that he would continue his exertions in the behalf of Liberty, France, and the Rights of Man. A salute was then fired from the battery, to announce to the people of Calais the arrival of their new representative. This ceremony being over, he walked to Deissein's, in the Rue de l'Egalite (formerly Rue de Roi), the men, women, and children crowding around him, and calling out "Vive Thomas Paine !" He was then conducted to the Town Hall, and there presented to the municipality, who with the greatest affection embraced their representative. The Mayor addressed him in a short speech, which was interpreted to him by his friend and conductor, M. Audibert, to which Mr. Paine, laying his hand on his heart, replied, that his life should be devoted to their service. "At the inn he was waited upon by the different persons in authority, and by the President of the Constitutional Society, who desired he would attend their meeting of that night. He cheerfully complied with the request, and the whole town would have been there had there been room: the hall of the Minimes was so crowded that it was with the greatest difficulty they made way for Mr. Paine to the side of the President. Over the chair in which he sat was placed the bust of Mirabeau, and the colors of France, England, and America united. A speaker acquainted him from the tribune with his election, amidst the plaudits of the people. For some minutes after this ceremony nothing was heard but Vive la Nation!" "Vive Thomas Paine!" in voices male and female.

"On the following day an extra meeting was appointed to be held in the church, in honor of their new Deputy to the Convention, the Minimes being found quite suffocating from the vast concourse of people which had assembled on the previous occasion. A play was performed at the theatre on the evening after his arrival, and a box was specially reserved "for the author of Rights of Man, the object of the English Proclamation."-Eckler.

CHAPTER V.

THE REPRESENTATIVE; THE PRISONER; THE INFIDEL.

F Paine's conduct in the National Convention we know but little. He voted for the king's trial: but exerted himself to prevent the sentence or death.* He was one of a committee, appointed to frame the new Constitution, † whose labors were superseded by the democratic Constitution, proposed by the Jacobins; and he appears to have sided with the Girondists, the moderate reformers who murdered the republic. We do not mean by this to impeach his political honesty. It is possible that his former acquaintance with La Fayette (in America), and with Brissot, may have predisposed him to associate with them and their party (among whom,

* "Louis fell under the guillotine," says Richard Carlile, "and Mr. Paine's deprecation of that act brought down upon him the hatred of the whole Robespierrean party, The reign of terror now commenced in France; every public man who breathed a sigh for Louis was denounced as a traitor to the nation, and as such was put to death. Every man who complained of the despotism and violence of the party in power was hurried to a prison or before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and to immediate execution. Mr. Paine, although a Member of the Convention, was first excluded on the ground of being a foreigner, and then thrown into prison, because he had been born in England! His place of confinement was Luxembourg; the time about eleven months, during which he was seized with the most violent fever, that rendered him insensible to all that was passing, and to which circumstance he attributes his escape from the guillotine.

"Mr. Paine willingly voted for the trial of Louis, as a necessary exposure of court intrigue and corruption; but when he found a disposition to destroy him at once, in preference to banishment, he exposed the safety of his own person in his endeavor to save the life of Louis. Mr. Paine was a perfectly humane man; he deprecated the punishment of death on any occasion. His object was to destroy the monarchy, but not the man who had filled the office of monarch."-Eckler.

† In place of the unsatisfactory Constitution of 1791. That of '93 was in its turn set aside, to make room for the "moderate" Constitution of '95, the "good intentions" of which paved the hell-path of Napoleon.

no doubt, there were honest men, as there are honest men in all parties,) rather than to seek the companionship of those whose "ultra" opinions were not, we may be sure, too favorably represented by their adversaries; and once surrounded by the sophistry of "respectability," there was little chance of his learning the true characters of the real republicans, the Friends of the People. Not fully understanding their views, his humanity, too, would be enlisted against the extreme section of the Jacobins, who feared not to declare, that they deemed the life of a peer, or a priest, of no more worth than the life of a proletarian ;* and who, while they directed their cannon against the distant foe, whetted the guillotine for the more dangerous traitors, the hypocritical "friends" at home. That Paine acted with the Brissotins, on the trial of Louis, and in other instances, is evident: but this will no more justify us in condemning him as a half-reformer, than their association with him will lead us to infer the soundness of their political faith-if they had faith, "who were sure of but one thing, that a man and a Girondin ought to have footing somewhere, and to stand firmly upon it, keeping well "with the respectable classes."† That Paine in principle was a thorough republican, let his own words avouch:-"The true, and only true basis of representative government is equality of rights. Every man has a right to one vote, and no more, in the choice of representatives. The rich have no more right to exclude the poor from the right of voting, or of electing, and being elected, than the poor have to exclude the rich; and wherever it is attempted, it is a question of force, and not of right."- Dissertation on First Principles of Govern

ment.

"That which is now called aristocracy, implies an inequality of rights.”—Ib.

* Proletarian-One whose only business in the world is to labor and beget laborers. Carlyle's French Revolution.

"Inequality of rights is created by a combination in one part of the community to exclude another part from its rights."-Ib.

"He that would employ his pecuniary property, or presume upon the influence it gives him, to dispossess or rob another of his property of rights, uses that pecuniary property as he would use fire-arms, and merits to have it taken from him."- Ib.

"In any view of the case it is dangerous and impolitic, sometimes ridiculous, and always unjust, to make property the criterion of the right of voting." - Ib.

Hardly prepared were the Girondists to work out these principles. These were not their motors. They, the virtuous, the philosophic, the always moderate men, preferred a property-qualification, which Robespierre, the “Incorruptible" (called so even by his enemies), so intrepidly denounced. The Constituent Assembly, the framers of the so much vaunted Constitution of '91, had divided the nation into "active" and "passive" citizens, establishing, in opposition to Robespierre and a few others, two degrees of qualification for the exercise of the universal right. The payment of direct taxes to the amount of three days wages was the qualification for voting in the primary assemblies, in other words, of choosing those who were to elect the deputies, a propertyqualification being required from these secondary electors. It was for opposing this law of disfranchisement, and other laws as iniquitous, that Robespierre lost his life, and became the Slandered of History. Paine could have had but little sympathy with such reformers as these Girondists; and it is hard to account for his moving in their ranks. It is manifest from the Rights of Man, that, when he wrote that work, he was not aware of the manifold delinquencies of the Constituent Assembly.*

* See, for one instance, where he says, "The Constitution of France says, that every man who pays a tax of sixty sous per annum is an elector." We have shown it was no such thing.

His knowledge of the French language, too, appears to have been very imperfect; and even this may have been some hindrance to his forming a just estimate of what was passing around him. His addresses in the Convention were all written in English, and translated for him. His intimacy with Brissot was preserved, partly, because Brissot spoke English.*

The "libeller" was not forgotten in England. On the 18th of December his trial came on at the Guildhall, London, before Lord Kenyon. The result was such as might have been anticipated: the judge (as is usual in political cases) being a mere tool of the government, the jury his obsequious obeyers; no inquiry being instituted as to the truth of the condemned principles; the only question raised, being, whether their publication disturbed the government. The jury found a verdict for the crown, "without the trouble of deliberation :"-guilty-guilty of speaking the truth to enlighten his fellow men, the old blasphemy, unforgiven of political or spiritual depotism. Mr. Erskine was the defendant's counsel, and addressed the jury for some hours, in an able, lawyerlike speech, of which Paine remarked, that it was "a good speech for himself, but a poor defence of the Rights of Man." A number of state prosecutions against the vendors of Paine's works, followed hard upon his conviction. Any one having a copy of the proscribed book was a marked man; and every endeavor was used by the paternal care of the government, to prevent the spreading of these "inflammatory" writings-for some time with considerable success; but after a while, as is always the case, rather aiding than retarding the advancement of the interdicted opinions. Paine's frequent toast was, "The best way of advertising good books: by prosecution."

Though the representative of Calais held opinions on

Rickman, p. 162.