“My friends,” replied Vergniaud, “we have killed the tree by pruning it.  It was too aged.  Robespierre cuts it.  Will he be more fortunate than ourselves?  No, the soul is too weak to nourish the roots of civic liberty; this people is too childish to wield its laws without hurting itself.  We were deceived as to the age in which we were born, and in which we die for the freedom of the world.”

A long silence followed this speech of Vergniaud’s, and the conversation turned from earth to heaven.

“What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?” said Ducos, who always mingled mirth with the most serious subjects.  Each replied according to his nature.

Vergniaud reconciled in a few words all the different opinions.  “Let us believe what we will,” said he, “but let us die certain of our life and the price of our death.  Let us each sacrifice what we possess, the one his doubt, the other his faith, all of us our blood, for liberty.  When man offers himself a victim to Heaven, what more can he give?”

When all was ready, and the last lock of hair had fallen on the stones of the dungeon, the executioners and gens d’armes made the condemned march in a column to the court of the palace, where five carts, surrounded by an immense crowd, awaited them.  The moment they emerged from the Conciergerie, the Girondists burst into the “Marseillaise,” laying stress on these verses, which contained a double meaning: 

    Contre nous de la tyrannie
    L’etendard sanglant est leve.

From this moment they ceased to think of themselves, in order to think of the example of the death of republicans they wished to leave the people.  Their voices sank at the end of each verse, only to rise more sonorous at the first line of the next verse.  On their arrival at the scaffold they all embraced, in token of community in liberty, life, and death, and then resumed their funeral chant.

All died without weakness.  The hymn became feebler at each fall of the axe; one voice still continued it, that of Vergniaud.  Like his companions, he did not die, but passed in enthusiasm, and his life, begun by immortal orations, ended in a hymn to the eternity of the revolution.

* * * * *

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

The Modern Regime

The early life of Hippolyte Adolphe Taine is notable for its successes and its disappointments.  Born at Vouziers, in Ardennes, on April 21, 1838, he passed with great distinction through the College de Bourbon and the Ecole Normale.  Until he was twenty-five he filled minor positions at Toulon, Nevers, and Poitiers; and then, hopeless of further promotion, he abandoned educational work, returned to Paris, and devoted himself to letters.  During 1863-64 he produced his “History of English Literature,” a work which, on account of Taine’s uncompromising determinist