break out and destroy their enemies, and that any one who was not a priest or a forger was able to save his life if he kept his wits about him. The massacres were not much minded at Paris, but were disapproved in England by the aristocracy. Political murder is, no doubt, a regrettable circumstance ; but it is common to all revolutions. "There is an apology for the great revolutionary leaders who ought to have interfered, but who yet confidently believed the death of a thousand poor creatures who were foully murdered in the prisons of Paris would pave the way for a stronger and more glorious France." There were two thousand victims at Lyons ; yet, terrible as this severity may seem, it must be remembered that it attained its object. Robespierre is described as a highly moral man, and an opponent of bloodshed who had a sincere love of liberty. He did not much care whether the king was guilty, but he held it clearly expedient that he should die. Like Marat, he had his faults ; but he was very nearly a great man. As to Marat, it is true that he libelled many innocent men and encouraged the Parisians to shed blood ; but at other times his words were full of the wisdom of the statesman. Another personage worthy of honour is Maillard, for it was he who gave to massacre the consecrating forms of law, and he saved quite as many lives as he destroyed. At last one is not in the least surprised to read that life was nowhere more happy and gay than in the prisons of Paris. Once, it is true, Mr. Morse Stephens encounters a deed of violence which he cannot palliate, a delinquent for whom he feels no compassion. A generous indignation stifles his love of mercy, and he admits that Charlotte Corday was only a cold-blooded murderess.
It is agreed that a critic says very much less than he means, and with this provision against misconstruction and the perils of understatement I may safely say that the methods of this book would be fatal to history. Our judgment of men, and parties, and systems, is determined by the lowest point they touch. Murder, as the con-
