Or, what is still better, have relieved the exigencies of the state, without offering a pretext for the horrors of a revolution.—­O selfish luxury, impolitic avarice, how are ye punished? robbed of your enjoyments and your wealth—­glad even to commute both for a painful existence!

—­The most splendid sacrifices that fill the bulletin of the Convention, and claim an honourable mention in their registers, are made by the enemies of the republican government—­by those who have already been the objects of persecution, or are fearful of becoming such.—­Ah, your prison and guillotine are able financiers:  they raise, feed, and clothe an army, in less time than you can procure a tardy vote from the most complaisant House of Commons!—­Your, &c.

March 17, 1794.

After some days of agitation and suspense, we learn that the popularity of Robespierre is victorious, and that Hebert and his partizans are arrested.  Were the intrinsic claims of either party considered, without regard to the circumstances of the moment, it might seem strange I should express myself as though the result of a contest between such men could excite a general interest:  yet a people sadly skilled in the gradations of evil, and inured to a choice only of what is bad, learn to prefer comparatively, with no other view than that of adopting what may be least injurious to themselves; and the merit of the object is out of the question.  Hence it is, that the public wish was in favour of Robespierre; for, besides that his cautious character has given him an advantage over the undisguised profligacy of Hebert, it is conjectured by many, that the more merciful politics professed by Camille Desmoulins, are secretly suggested, or, at least assented to, by the former.*

* This was the opinion of many.—­The Convention and the Jacobins had taken alarm at a paper called “The Old Cordelier,” written by Camille Desmoulins, apparently with a view to introduce a milder system of government.  The author had been censured at the one, expelled the other, and defended by Robespierre, who seems not to have abandoned him until he found the Convention resolved to persist in the sanguinary plan they had adopted.  Robespierre afterwards sacrificed his friends to retrieve his influence; but could his views have been answered by humane measures, as certainly as by cruel ones, I think he would have preferred the first; for I repeat, that the Convention at large were averse from any thing like reason or justice, and Robespierre more than once risked his popularity by professions of moderation.—­The most eloquent speech I have seen of his was previous to the death of Danton, and it seems evidently intended to sound the principles of his colleagues as to a change of system.—­Camille Desmoulins has excited some interest, and has been deemed a kind of martyr to humanity.  Perhaps nothing marks the horrors of the time more than such a partiality.—­Camille