New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-04-14
a RoBESPIERRE SOUVENIR
THREE PAGES IN AUTOGRAPH OFF, SPEECH
BEFORE THE CONVENTION. M

BEFORE THE CONVENTION.
frRox TIE REGULAR CONFECTIONERY or TIE rRnuxs.l
Paris March 20.
have been spending few hours in looking
over collection Of autographs which are to be
sold Q week hence. One of Robespierre threw q
flood of light upon that painstaking, selfcon-
scious, methodic, nervous. aud prggish little
great man. The handwriting Is that OF an excit-
able person, yet it shows no traces of precipita-
ton. With Robespierre the difficulty was a slow
and vague cerebratioI, TO make which clear be
had 70 beat his brain and manipulate his ideas
until they took well-defned outline Each word
is written with cool deliberation. the sylables
we'll Joined, the downstrokes strong the hair
strokes light and distinct and the words standing
well apart. But what an amount OF erasure. OF
interlineation and Of marginal writing there rs ,
There was never congestion Of ideas behind thu
slanting forehead Of Robespierre. His neck was
long and his brain was distant from the heart:
whereas the neeks Of the energetic men Of tina
Revolution, Mirabeau, Danton and Napoleon,
were very short Napoleon's chin almost rested
on hts chest Robespierre must have taken pains
to keep his pen in perfect order. In his tins
steel pens were not known, and the great trouble
with the quill pen Is that it is always getting
ont OF order. The three quarto pages Of the
Robesperrean manuscript that l have been ex-
amining would be as II written In copperplate,
were it not for the frequent erasnres, which are
often made with penknife, and the crosses
OF the ts" They alone show the nervous I'M
pressionability of the man--an imprcssionaoility
that made him turn sshy white and green
In these pages are the fragments Of . grand
speech that he delivered in the Convention twenty
DAYS before the fall Of the Girondists. 1t has a
basis of truth in 1t with good deal Of everything
sophistry. II believe that on the whole ths
working classes of every nation are better than
the wealthy and that hard circumstances are n
better school for most human beings than easy
ones. II it were not so, Providence would have
arranged that we should evolve in the moral order
from lower to higher through prosperity instead
of through hardships-a reason why we should
never, il we were philosophically minded, look
for more material felicity than just enough to rob
poverty of degrading circumstances and to'securs
Independence for old age and leisure to cogitate
over our experiences of life
Robespierre got hold Of this idea Il may have
got hold of him. AT any rate, he seeks to dem.
onstrate that the people alone are good and
unsophisticated, but that the Delegates ere cor
rupted and lost in epicureanism and false science.
"The People this immense and laborious class, to
whom the grand ones Of the earth give In con-
tumey this august name, the people is not
gnawed into by the causes Of depravity which
ruin those who belong to the .so-called upper
classes. The people are nearer to nature and
less depraved because precisely they have not re-
ceived that false education which among cnslayed
nations is one perpetual lesson Of falsehcod base
ness and s.rvitude.7 - ,.,.
There is in the above quotation nice assort-
ment Of epithets Robespierre was at some trouble
IN choosing them. He wrote at first I:
The people are nearer TO Natures benehcent
heart" Then he struck out benefcent 70 IN
terlne maternal,s and finally did without either.
" Falsehood' or falsity,' made 70 replace knav-
cry and enslaved' servile.' The same minute
care he showed In his toilet was bestowed on kls
harangues. dare say the traces Of labor which
they bore were what made him SO successful in
haranguing the people at the Jacohins' Club The
Parisians down low were then, rs now, artists.
They appreciated evidences of hard application
and victories won. by dint Of psinstanng and
spite Of poor quality Of mind. Robespierre Also
had conviction, and was no epicurean. Mlfa6eau
said Of him the first time he heard him at YER
sailles: That man win go long way, because
he believes in what he says Il. q.