Los Angeles herald., 1891-05-17

~ one day Of being
thirty-one years Of
age. His birthplace and home was Arras,
capital of Pas-de-C Calais, 100 miles north
east from Paris. Here the boy Maximilien,
who had a strain Of Irish blood in his
veins, received his primary education. At
school he had for his fellows Camille Des-
moulins and Stanislas Freron-names not
unknown to the Revolution.
Maximilien, who was the eldest of the
children, was devoted by his father to the
profession of law. So he was sent to Paris
where he pursued his studies in the Col
lege of Louis 1e Grand. Before graduation.
however, his younger brother Augustin
had become of college age, and the strictly
conscientious Maximilien gave up his schol-
arship at the university in order that Au-
gustin might come in his place; for Maxi
milien was q youth both good and gener-
,ousl
Back to his home at Arras went the
young man Robespierre, and began the
practice of law. Meanwhile philosophi-
cal American, not unknown in human an
nails, named Benjamin Franklin, had, in the
language ofthe French academy, "snatched
the lightning from heaven and the scep-
ter from tyrants'-which is a figura-
tive way of saying that he had invented
the lightning rod-had thrust up his sharp
metallic point at the clouds and brought
down their charge harmless to the earth.
But the great invention was received with
as much distrust as Jenner's vaccination
or Koch's lymph. In France, they who
would sell Franklin's rods were arrested.
1t was so at Arras, where cause came on
about the setting up of lightning rod,
and Robespierre made his first great plea
w..-A. IL e.
kind-"in favor of the Franklin thunder
rod"
Thus he gained some reputation, and the
Bishop of Arras made him judge of the
diocese. Not an unlearned young judge
he was-certainly not unjust-until man
under trial for his life was brought into
court. Hereupon, Judge Maximilien, con
scientiously opposed to capital punishment,
resigned his place rather than risk the con-
tingency of condemning human being to
the gallows. Aye, more than this, the leg
end runs that Judge Robespierre had such
ahorror of the sight of blood that be would
not permit the cook to behead chicken in
his presence.
Here we may note the beginning of one
Of the greatest of human paradoxes-the
conversion of a tender hearted, timid
young advocate, pervaded as he was with
all humanitarian principles, into a rabid
killer of men. 1t is transformation
which we cannot understand until we re-
member that personal cowardice and an
inflamed conscience are the natural ante
cedents of the greatest crimes.
Meanwhile, after descending from the
bench, Maximilien becomes member of
the Arras Academy of Science. He writes
many prize essays, but does not gain the
prizes. Then he writes others, all of them
streaked more or less with the gospel ac-
cording to St. Jean Jacques Rousseau; for
Rousseau has now become the one intel
lectual fountain in whose .humanities and
perfections Robespierre, to the day of his
DEATH continued to find his elements of
truth and motives of action. The doc
trines of the Contrat Social entered into
the very fiber of the future revolutionist,
and from these principles he never swerved
from first to last. They became a sort of
formula into which the whole future life
of Robespierre was cast, and by which he
was directed even in the revolutionary
tribunal
The year 17SS finds Robespierre a dele
gate elect to the states general at Yer
sailles He is democrat, last of a list of
five members from his department. So in
the great procession we see him--a small
man, slight of form, with his obscure eyes
under spectacles; timid in manner, with
an upturned face; generally shifting, as
though he would smell something; very
neat in his person, painfully virtuous in
morals; having, as Mme de Stasl de-
clares, a sallow complexion, mean look
and green vei1ls. History must needs take
note of a man with green veinsl for tae
healthy color is blue.
No one making an inventory of probabil-
ities from the gallery of the states general,
or afterward from the upper seats of the
national assembly, would have chosen
Robespierre as a coming leader. 1t is con-
ceded that he was man of no personal
courage. He did not even believe in him
self. He was suspicious timid and easily
excited. Some qualities, however he pos
sessed which might make him a man of
note He was an orator of cogent reason
ing powers and voice full of sympathy.
Besides this he had a formula, an inflamed
conscience and the gospel according to
Rousseau.
In the national assembly Robespierre
went to the extreme Left, and took his seat
with the profoundest radicals of the age
with those audacious democrats who al
ready scented the destruction of the mon
archy and the rise of the people. OF these
delegates there were only thirty. and they
were held in contempt. Mircbeau was
wont to refer to them as thirty Uoices, as il
they were sound and nothing more-mere
human noise, not to be regarded. But
Mirabeau had not failed to discover in
Robespierre possibility which none other
had yet perceived. He said of him one
day, s'That young man believes what he
says; therefore he will go far" Perhaps
he would not have 'gone far" if Mirabeau
had lived; but with the death of the giant.
strange shapes arose from the earth and
began to reign-among the rest this Maxi
milien Robespierre.
1t was in the club of the Jacobins that
the future King of the Terror first gained
an ascendancy. During the year 1901 he
often put up his head, but as often drew
back, being afraid. The student of his
tory will remember that as the monarchy
began to reel an alliance was attempted
between it and the Girondins-an alliance
which proved fatal to both. In the mean
time Robespierre's residence had been
finally transferred to Paris. Here he be.