well-meaning in their way, were unfit to stem the political ferment. In July 1789, on the exile of Necker, the popular wrath was great. The great court-yard of the Palais-Royal, which we now see a picture of tranquillity with its nurses and children, was crowded with vehement orators. The most fiery of the whole is Camille Desmoulins, who jumps upon a table, and for the instant overcoming his stammer, addresses and adds fury to the surging multitude. The spark of armed revolt was struck. A day or two afterwards (July 14), the Bastille was assaulted and taken. In the midst of the hideous saturnalia, Camille is seen with a drawn sword in his hand, joining in the popular triumph.

From this time Camille is one of the leaders of the Revolution, by speaking at the clubs and using his pen freely. His work La France Libre (France Free) helped materially to give him notoriety. The book, however, dealt too much with liberty in the abstract. He deemed it necessary to hint at the advantages of doing summary justice on suspected individuals. Here was a scholar and a gentleman so carried off his feet by political frenzy as to write ironically of assassination. His production, animated with a terrible demoniac fury, was entitled Discours de la Lanterne aux Parisiens—in plain English, the iron of the street lamps is invoked as a convenient gallows on which to perform the atrocities of 'Lynch-law.' From this extraordinary and disreputable production, Camille became known as the 'procureur-général de la lanterne;' a designation which he did not dislike. Will it be credited? Claretie, who tells all this minutely, expresses no horror at the revelation. Speaking of the work, he says: 'There was never anything more eloquent. Its wit, even when it seems ill employed in deadly personalities, dazzles us.'

Conferring a feverish popularity on Camille, which was satisfying to his vanity, these productions were, it appears, of little pecuniary avail. He was now thirty years of age, with barely means of subsistence; such was his extremity, that he was driven to ask doles of money from his father, which could very ill be spared. From this state of depression his fortunes rose by the exercise of his pen as a journalist. His periodical was styled the Révolutions de France et de Brabant. It was successful, but only by the vileness of its lampoons and libels on private character, which brought him frequently into trouble. In his wild indiscretion, he even cut libellous jokes on M. Sanson, the public executioner, who, not inclining to submit to his impertinence, raised an action of damages to the extent of three thousand livres. Considering the way in which public affairs were drifting, an attack on Sanson was very much like an act of madness. The guillotine was soon to be in full swing.

Towards the end of 1790, Camille passed through what may be called the romance of his existence. He formed an ardent attachment to Lucille Duplessis, a young lady of a good family, handsome, beautiful, of gentle temperament, and whom he called 'an adorable little blonde.' M. Duplessis, the father, offered some opposition to the proposed match; but in time he assented to what seemed the inevitable, and accepting Camille as a son-in-law, gave him a good fortune with his daughter. The marriage took place December 29, 1790, and we observe that among Camille's friends as witnesses are inscribed the names of Petion and Robespierre.

While still pouring out invectives in his journal, there occurred a fresh theme for vituperation. Alarmed for his personal safety, the poor king attempted to fly with his family, and was arrested, and brought back (June 1791). Roused at the idea of the king's desertion of his post, Camille's fury knew no bounds. He degraded his pen by writing of the 'male and female Capets,' and in his fervour headed a deputation to the municipality informing them of the project of deposing Louis XVI. Shortly afterwards, under some apprehension of rough usage, he dropped the publication of his journal, and for a time he resumed his occupation of advocate at the tribunals. In these vicissitudes he clung in a friendly spirit to Danton, and Danton liked him as an associate. They lived in different floors of the same building, in the Cour de Commerce, and betwixt their respective wives there was a kindly intercourse, the account given of which comes soothingly amidst details of public perturbation. Camille's son, Horace, was born July 6, 1792, 'the little Horace whom Robespierre danced so often on his knees'—a fine point this for any biographer of Robespierre!

Soon came the terrible convulsion of the 10th August 1792, when the Tuileries were sacked by a savage mob, and the royal family were forced to seek refuge in the National Assembly. What part Camille took in this brutal affair is not mentioned. We only know that he was somehow engaged in the disturbance, and, to the consternation of his wife Lucille, came home with a gun in his hand. The monarchy, at which he constantly railed, was now substantially at an end. A universal terrorism was let loose. Searching visits to private houses having filled the prisons with suspected aristocrats, it was resolved to massacre them en masse. The municipality taking in hand this atrocity, hired a band of three hundred assassins, who began the work of destruction on the 2d September. The massacre lasted five days, during which eight thousand individuals, convicted of no crime, were put to death with barbarous cruelty. Claretie indignantly denies that Camille had any hand in this iniquity, and throws the blame on Danton, who was now Minister of Justice and wished to strike terror into the royalists. An authority which we consider to be as trustworthy as Claretie, says distinctly that Camille, who was appointed secretary to Danton, 'organised with him the massacres in the prisons.' At anyrate, Camille was the confidant and associate of Danton, with whose designs he could scarcely fail to be acquainted.

Camille was now appointed a deputy to the Convention by the city of Paris, and as such he was placed in close connection with the leaders of the Revolution. We have not space to follow him in this new line of duty. As a Dantonist, he roundly abused the Girondists. To his eternal disgrace, he voted for the king's death, and had not even the good taste to refrain from facetiousness on the occasion. Deeply and remorsefully did he pay for his obsequiousness to the vilest of mankind. Already there was a Nemesis on his track. Batch after batch of unhappy individuals were condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal, not only in Paris but all over France. Camille began to entertain the notion that things had gone too far. His conscience was roused, and roused in a remarkable manner. Walking out one evening, the rays of the setting sun shining brilliantly, seemed to transform the waters of the Seine into a river of blood. To his poetical fancy the phenomenon was accepted as an appeal to mercy, and awakened him to a lively sense of the horrors produced by the revolutionary mania. We are led to understand that from this time he began to agitate for moderate measures. The change of views, though morally commendable, was fatal as regarded his own safety. Camille, who at first was thought to be recklessly extreme in his views, was now reckoned among the moderates, and was pointed at with the finger of scorn. He was chargeable with the grave offence of dining with aristocrats. Repudiated by the Cordeliers, of which club he had once been a shining light, he was in a sense a political outlaw. Such was the reward of his frantic extravagances. In his mortification he commenced a paper in numbers, the Vieux Cordelier (Old Cordelier). It was admirable as a brilliant effort of genius, but was of no more avail than if it had been addressed to a menagerie of wild beasts. The Old Cordelier advocated the institution of a Committee of Clemency to stay the Reign of Terror. The proposals for mercy were denounced at a meeting of the Jacobin Club,