their suggestion arose from the spirit and tact of our popular consul at Southampton, who has, as I heard on all sides, ingratiated himself deeply in the fastidious favor of all classes at Southampton, both commercial and fashionable.

We were still over our dessert, when Captain Crabtree dropped in upon I was exceedingly glad of this last opportunity of spending a few more pleasant moments in the society of this well-bred and well-informed gentleman. His society on ship-board was always agreeable; for, intelligent as I have always found the honorable fraternity to which he belongs, he possessed even more than the ordinary share of sound information, good sense, and freedom from prejudice, that distinguish them. In the performance of all the onerous and delicate duties of his command, no one could display greater devotion, activity, and tact. I bade him adieu with profound regret, wishing him all speed in his arduous course.

At midnight, the moon casting its soft radiance over a thousand picturesque objects, I wended my way to the pier-head, when I distinctly heard the shrill mutterings of the steam-pipe. I stopped for a moment, as I crossed under a low, broad archway, blackened by age, and which led me into a dark, narrow street, lined with small and dilapidated buildings. My guide seeing me gazing with interest on these objects, explained that this was the portal of the old town, now almost deserted. My mind flew back instantly to the epoch of the famous Earl of Southampton, the friend and munificent patron of Shakspeare, when this now neglected and decaying quarter was the scene of splendid hospitalities, and enlivened by the noble diversions of the most refined and brilliant era of English history. I should have loved to wander the whole night through on this enchanted ground; but the vital consideration that my baggage was on board the "Superb," just starting for France, put all romantic longings to flight, and I hastened hurriedly onward. Notwithstanding the seductive beauty of the night, I went at once below, and set to work, literally tumbling in; for by no other name can you christen the process of getting into a high berth, with no other aid than accident affords.

Just as I was dropping off the wheels began to turn; and directly they went round with a velocity and sputter that promised to "murder sleep" with a perfect Macbeth ferocity. I was right alongside of the wheelhouse; and the last thing I remember was a desperate struggle between my determination to go asleep, and the demon of racket that had perched himself at my feet. The victory was mine; for, when I opened my eyes again, the rowdy-wheels were still; and we lay off the port of Havre, waiting for the tide to let us in.

DANTON.

(Concluded.)

As it turned out, France was saved. The firmness and energy of Danton, and his bold eloquence, roused the patriotism of the capital, and soon reinforced Dumouriez's army with those invincible battalions of republican soldiers, by whose timely aid that able general baffled Brunswick at the Forest of Ardennes, and soon rolled back the tide of invasion over the frontier. And who shall say that the hand of Danton, in that critical hour, when the liberties of Europe hung trembling in the balance, did not save the Revolution? Who shall say that without him there had been a Republic? Who shall say that but for his potent arm France to-day might not have been slumbering quietly in the lap of monarchy ? In this consists the renown of Danton, or his infamy, as men differently view it. He served the Revolution; he did it by his deeds, which told upon the destinies of his country. No idle theorist was he; no speculative, dreamy philosopher; no man of words when the time to act had come. There was a vigorous, massive manhood about him-a prompting of purpose a greatness of action--a firmness of nerve-in short, an iron strength, that made him as he was, the MAN of the Revolution.

Danton was elected a member of the National Convention, and placed upon the most important of all its committees that for preparing the plan for a constitution. His colleagues were some of the most celebrated men in the Convention-Siéyès, Verguiaud, Condorcet, Petion, Brissot, Barrère, and Thomas Paine. Soon after his election, the Con

vention passed a decree, that the same person should not hold the office of minister and deputy at the same time. Danton, preferring the tribune to the council, resigned his place in the ministry, and was succeeded by Garat.

no

The limits of the present sketch will not permit us to follow the career of this extraordinary man in the Convention. It was a career less broadly and distinctly traced upon the face of the times than that which he had already pursued. As a legislator, as well as a popular demagogue, Danton has left his impress deeply marked upon the Revolution. Of all the men of that day, he seems most clearly to have comprehended the true spirit of the movement which was then convulsing France and the world, and to have devised the most apt and effectual means of carrying it forward. No one of his contemporaries -not even Mirabeau-displayed such profound and comprehensive statesmanship. He devised the most of those great measures of organization and defence, which, while they left much of terror, lent also such irresistible energy to the Revolution: which turned France into one vast military encampment, where martial law reigned supreme under the dictatorship of the Convention, but which finally saved, and which alone could save, the Republic from its enemies. We shall briefly notice a few of these measures.

On the 10th March, 1793, on Danton's recommendation, an extraor

dinary tribunal was created, to try offences and conspiracies against the Republic. We give his reasons for it in his own language: "In order to overawe your internal enemies your laws must be arbitrary, because they cannot be precise; because, how terrible soever they may be, they are preferable to these popular executions which now, as in September, would be the consequence of any delay in the execution of justice. Let us organize a tribunal, not to do good-that is impossible; but which shall do the least possible evil. We must be terrible to prevent our enemies from becoming so." This formidable institution subsequently became, in the hands of the Convention, the REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL, at whose bar Fouquier Tinville was the public accuser. Danton was condemned by it a year after its creation. "This very day, a year ago," he was heard to exclaim in prison, "I caused the Revolutionary Tribunal to be instituted. I had thought to prevent a new September massacre, and not let loose a scourge upon mankind. May God pardon me for it!"

At the same time, on motion of Danton, forty-one commissioners, of two deputies each, were sent by the Convention into the departments, armed with plenary powers to enforce the recruiting, disarm the refractory, and to seize upon horses and other property for mili tary purposes. An extraordinary war tax, of a thousand million of francs, was also on his motion imposed upon the rich-a stern and severe measure, but one of imminent necessity. Both these decrees have been loudly condemned by those who see no "divine right” in any form of government but a monarchy to defend itself by extreme and arbitrary measures. They were, doubtless, arbitrary and despotic; but if no darker shadows than these rested upon Danton's revolutionary path, his justification as a statesman would be easy. If a government may justly sacrifice the lives of its citizens on a field of battle, in defence of national existence and liberty, may it not, in a case of necessity, to the same extent control their property?

It was on Danton's recommendation, too, that the COMMITtee of PUBLIC WELFARE was created, which subsequently centered in its own hands all the powers of the state. He himself was a member of it for the first three months of its existence, after which, becoming weary of public employment, he resigned. Had he remained upon it with such men as Carnot, Prieur, and Lindet, the Republic might have been saved by the energy of that formidable executive power, without the fearful scenes which after his death occurred in the Place de la Revolution.

Danton was also the author of a law which provided for the payment of a day's wages to the poorer citizens, for attending two public meetings a week in their sections-a fierce stimulant to Jacobin energyproving that he understood thoroughly, as is said of him, the "art of attracting interests to the Revolution."

He was the projector of the revolutionary army-a permanent military force organized at Paris to march against the rebellious departments, and to carry the decrees, and proclaim the sovereignty of the Convention all over France, at the cannon's mouth.

Lastly, in the month of August, 1793, when the war cloud once more gathered black over the Republic-when all Europe was closing on every side around France, and threatening her with destruction— when nothing but the energy of enthusiasm or of despair could save

the country-in this last terrific crises of the Revolution, Danton stood forth the colossus of the Convention. He urged through that memorable decree of the levy en masse, and the permanent requisition, which placed the entire Republic, men and property, at the disposal of the government, and poured the whole wealth and resources of France into the lap of the Convention; which raised, as if by magic, fourteen armies, and sent forth more than a million of republican bayonets to decide the struggle between democracy and absolutism on the battlefield of Europe.

These are some of the measures projected and carried through by this remarkable man. Each of them, it is to be observed, form a part of a vast and comprehensive system, for consolidating the Revolution and securing its triumphs over its enemies; not one of them was devised for the gratification of a paltry vengeance, or a private hatred; or even for the purpose of obtaining an ephemeral popularity. He was a demagogue indeed-a leader of the people-but not a sycophant for popular favor or popular applause. A man of action rather than of words he served the Revolution for itself, and into every action he threw the full impulse of his heart and the strength of his manhood. In the most perilous hours of the Republic he stood forth in the breach. firm and immovable as a column of granite; and that potent voice of his, "reverberating from the dome" of the Tuilleries, was wont to infuse a portion of his own courage into the Convention, when the hearts of the stoutest were quailing. It was at such a time that Danton, in a phrase a single sentence-clothing a grand idea in the striking imagery of his wild imagination, and hurling it down upon his audience with the inspiration of an improvisator, made his influence felt upon the Revolution. Said he at one time: “A nation in a state of revolution cannot be conquered;" and again: "The kings of Europe have taken arms against the Republic; we cast down at their feet the head of a king as our gage of battle!" When urging the Convention to act with decision and promptness: "The Convention has in its hands the popular thunderbolts; let it hurl them at the head of the tyrants!" And once more, on a memorable occasion, kindling up with the grandeur of his theme, he exclaimed: "The people have nothing to give but blood. They give it profusely. Come, then, mercenary men, give you of your wealth. What! you have a whole nation for a lever, reason for a fulcrum, and you have not yet overturned the world! Throw aside your miserable quarrels! I know but the enemy! Let us crush the enemy! What though they call me bloodthirsty? What care I for my reputation? Let my name be blighted, but let France be free."*

The decline of Danton's popularity dates from the insurrection of the people against the Girondins, ou the 31st May, 1793. He refused to take part in it, or to violate the national representation, although he had openly broken with the Girondins, and was regarded by them as a political enemy. Danton was desirous of putting a stop to the violence and disorder of the times, and of bringing back the government to something like moderation. This was the cause of his subsequent breach with Robespierre and the Jacobins and which brought him to the

* Que mon mou soit flétri, que la France soit libre.

scaffold. He had embraced the Revolution with all the fiery promptings of his nature; by it he would stand or fall. He had attacked royalty and aristocracy when they sought to crush the people; he had combated the enemies of the Revolution, and grappled with tyranny in every form-unscrupulous often as to the means, so the end was obtained; but he refused to attack the national representatives, for he saw in such a conquest no benefit to the great cause; and, unlike Robespierre and some of his colleagues, he had no personal hatreds or private animosities to gratify. He had devised, too, all these extraordinary measures which raised the Revolution above the reach of coalition. He had done all that he conceived it necessary to do; and there he wished to stop. When the public danger no longer required those severe measures that terror prompted, Danton desired to abandon them. He wished to abolish the revolutionary committees; he wished to release the hundred thousand suspected persons who filled the prisons of France; and to stop the axe of the guillotine!

These moderate opinions of Danton occasioned a sensible decline in his popularity. He was obliged to justify himself at the Jacobins. And at length, wearied of public employment, he asked and obtained permission to retire for a short time into the country. This was in October, 1793. One of the private reasons for his retirement from public affairs, which he revealed in confidence to his family, was his horror at the approaching trial of Marie Antoinette. This unfortunate princess, so obnoxious to the people at large, had yet overcome the prejudices, enlisted the sympathy, and commanded the respect of all who personally approached her. A single interview had disarmed Mirabeau; a few words had conquered Barnave; and the heart of Danton, in his turn, had been deeply touched at her misfortunes. It is true he had voted for the death of the king, as a measure of political justice and necessity; but he had not concealed his design before the trial to pursue a more lenient course. Said he one day to a company of Jacobins, who reproached him for his want of zeal in this matter: "Nations save, but do not revenge themselves. I am a revolutionist, not a ferocious beast. I do not love the blood of vanquished kings; address yourselves to Marat." From this circumstance probably originated the charge of his enemies against him, before alluded to, that he endeavored to negotiate a mercenary treaty with the English government to save the king.

Disgust at the excesses of the government, over which his influence was now in a great measure lost, pity for the queen, and the imprisoned Girondists, whose fate he already foresaw, thus led Danton for a time to separate himself from the Revolution; but he did not publicly assign the true motives of his retirement. He went to his native village with the young wife whom he had just married, Mademoiselle de Gely, a beautiful girl of sixteen, to whom he was tenderly attached. Their marriage had been solemnized with religious ceremonies, by a nonjuring Catholic priest, to whom Danton had previously confessed. In the earlier years of the Revolution he had married Mademoiselle Charpentier. The influence of this lady, for whom Danton had never ceased to cherish the warmest affection, it is said, had insensibly corrected the grosser immoralities of his life, and led him from the wild disorders of his youth to more regular domestic habits. She died a