by a black ribbon to a button hole, and a rather large wig powdered and curled; and evidently "fond of a good dinner." He wore his cocked hat even in the country. Lord Brougham informs us also, that he had a strong Scottish accent, and a "manner not very graceful in little matters, though dignified on the whole." Dr. Robertson, a considerable time before he was enfeebled, retired from the leadership of the general assembly—one reason alleged for his abdication being, that his followers were threatening to go so far before him as to abolish subscription to the Confession of Faith. As for the ecclesiastical policy of which he was the representative and the advocate, and which Dugald Stewart, Bishop Gleig, and others of his biographers, so much extol, it may be added that it has originated three seceding communities, and at length left the Church of Scotland with a mere minority of the population within her pale.—(Life, by Dugald Stewart; Memoir by Bishop Gleig, prefixed to an edition of his works; Brougham, Men of Letters in the Time of George III.)—J. E.
ROBERVAL (De), the surname assumed by a celebrated French mathematician and mechanical writer, Gilles Persone, from his birthplace, a village near Beauvais. He was born in 1602, and died at the collège Gervais in Paris, on the 27th of October, 1675. In 1631 he obtained the appointment of professor of philosophy in the collège Gervais, and in 1632 that of professor of mathematics in the collège royal. He approached very near to the discovery of the differential calculus, in a method which he invented for finding tangents to curves. He wasted much time and labour in opposing the geometry of Descartes. In support of the true Copernican system of astronomy, he wrote a book entitled "De Mundi Systemate;" and probably through dread of the consequences of publicly maintaining opinions then considered heretical, he passed it for a translation from a work of Aristarchus of Samos, the earliest known supporter of that system, although it was in fact his own composition.—W. J. M. R.
ROBESPIERRE, François Joseph Maximilien Isidore, was born at Arras in the north of France in 1759, the birth year of Schiller, of Pitt, of Burns; and his family is said to have been of Irish origin, and to have come to France after the fall of the Stewarts. Both the father and the grandfather of Robespierre were barristers, and Robespierre himself practised as a barrister in his native town, after having pursued with much assiduity and completed with much distinction his education at Paris. His talents were considerable; his vanity was great; his ambition greater. As writer, as speaker, as agitator, he acquired a local celebrity. But this could not satisfy his yearning for renown. There were startling signs of a national movement, and he panted to take a part in it—not wholly, it must be confessed, from pure selfishness, but also from the desire to realize ardent ideas of liberty which he had long cherished. The drama—the prelude of which had been a hundred years of sin, and shame, and sorrow, and oppression, and injustice—began in the spring of 1789. Robespierre was able to appear on the scene from the commencement; but as long as the colossal figure of Mirabeau towered supreme, men of the Robespierre order could have slender influence, except as demagogues, in clubs, and in the wild, lawless gatherings of the multitude. In the chaos of parties and of principles through which France was struggling and stumbling to organic life, Robespierre and those who acted with him entertained not, and were incapable of entertaining, any deep designs. They aspired to gain sway for certain pedantic dogmas; they fiercely clutched at ascendancy; and at last they became terrorists from terror and from cowardice—statesmanship was out of the question. From the legislative assembly all members of the national assembly were excluded. Neither in the national assembly nor in the legislative assembly was, directly or indirectly, Robespierre's power overwhelmingly felt, because neither the one nor the other was prevailingly democratic, and it was the pure democracy that Robespierre affected to represent. But in the famous Jacobin club, which was more a force in the state than either of the assemblies, Robespierre crushed down all opposition. Early in September, 1792, took place at Paris those atrocities known as the September massacres. On the 20th of the month, heralded by his shriek of blood, the national convention opened. From demagogue Robespierre here rose to be dictator; but a grander dictator was to come, who, as yet, was nothing more than a young unknown officer of artillery. The 20th September, 1792, was rendered memorable by another event; the French gained on that day the battle of Valmy, the first of countless glorious victories. It was followed in not much more than a month by the triumph at Jemappes, and by the conquest of Belgium. What added to the strength of France without, did not promote its tranquillity within. There is a tragical, an inexorable logic, in revolution; and of all revolutions the French was certainly the most logical. Of the same type as Calvin and Guizot, Robespierre was the most logical head in France, a doctrinaire by instinct. This was the source of Robespierre's supremacy; he exercised little guiding or controlling energy; he simply abandoned himself to the onrush of circumstances. The two principal parties in the national convention were the so-called Mountain and the so-called Gironde; the first embracing violent democrats, the second consisting of enthusiastic republicans, who were filled with the noblest spirit of Greece and Rome, and who dreamed of making France strong and beautiful by a revival of antique virtues. The so-called Plain included persons who paraded neutrality, but who generally voted with the Girondists. Never, perhaps, was there a more brilliant or gifted political party than the Girondists; never, perhaps, a political party more destitute of sagacity and firmness. As soon as the deliberations of the national assembly commenced, it was evident that a combat was engaged between the Girondists and the Anarchists for life, for death; and that those would conquer who had the courage to strike the first blow. In presence of the whole convention some of the Girondists accused Robespierre of being a tyrant, and of aiming at still more ferocious tyranny. A few days after, he defied any of the members to repeat the accusation. Louvet, the author of some disreputable books, but, as a politician, incorruptible and brave, immediately rushed to the tribune and fulminated at Robespierre a magnificent philippic. The doom of Robespierre was in the hands of the Girondists. He sat confused and self-condemned. But instead of smiting their detested foe, the Girondists agreed with the rest of the convention in giving him a week to prepare his defence. He came armed with sophistries and plausibilities, and the convention, in effect, acquitted him by passing to the order of the day. From being the accused Robespierre stood up as the accuser. The Girondists wished to save the unfortunate king, whose life since the Revolution burst forth had been so miserable, and who, along with his family, was now suffering the harshest, most ignominious treatment. But the Anarchists had resolved on his destruction. None of them displayed a more cruel and vindictive temper than Robespierre; and to stimulate odious passions he pictured the royal family as the cause of the famine and the other woes by which France was tormented. Alike in the debates in reference to the king's trial and in the trial itself, the Girondists acted with signal irresolution, and their greatest orator, Verginaud, was the most irresolute and guilty of all. He voted for that against which he had strenuously spoken. The Girondists could have saved Louis XVI., and in saving him they would have saved themselves and saved France. But they were not magnanimous enough to risk their popularity; they did not dare to offend a Paris mob. On the 21st of January, 1793, Louis XVI. mounted the scaffold. A cry of horror and indignation ran through Europe; and there was a conspiracy of kings—though rather from conservative fear for dynasties than from sympathy with a murdered brother. In many parts of France, likewise, and chiefly in the extreme west, there were formidable insurrections. But curses abroad and alarms at home did not diminish Robespierre's empire; they rather increased it. He had persuaded the people, and especially the populace, that he was no less indispensable than incorruptible. Not long after the monarch's death the committee of public safety was created, which, with Robespierre as president, and with the subordinate organizations over which it commanded, was the real and supreme authority in France. With the existence of that committee began what is known in history as the Reign of Terror. To be just, however, we must admit that when the fortune of French arms wavered, and when immense, rapid, comprehensive energy was needed, the committee of public safety, under the shadow of the unpausing and unpitying guillotine, did notable and patriotic service. The defection of Dumouriez in April, 1793, was followed by the fall of the Girondists in May and June—the rabble of Paris and the creatures of Robespierre combining to overthrow them. Robespierre's two chief coadjutors were Couthon and Saint-Just. Strangely enough, it was precisely during the Reign of Terror that Robespierre manifested qualities, both as a statesman and an orator, which no one had ever sus-
