The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-12

sk ing the Terror.
@S ! That word sealed
his fate. 1t was Camille Desmoulins. He
was the youngest of the great revolution
lists, and the most amiable of them all.
For the rest, history, after century OF
time, is not much disposed to wear the
weeds of mourning. But for the versatile
and light hearted Camille she still sorrows
and weeps.
In revolutions history herself prepares
the combustibIes and arranges the train,
but some man lights the match. Patrick
Henry said, ''If that be treason, make the
most of it," The match was lighted. An
East indian said to sepoy soldier, Every
time you bite that cartridge you eat hogs
fat and taliow." The match was lighted
again. and the sepoy rebellion burst ous
volcanic. In the French revolution many
centuries had wrought in forming the
magazine and filing it with powder. One
day suffced, as we shall see, for the strik-
ing Of the match, and one hand did 1.-THE
hand of Camille Desmoulins.
This notable parsonage, almost poet,
certainly brilliant wit and mirthful
| spirit-set almost fowerlike on the bloody
breast of the French Revolution-was out
of the town of Guise, in Picardy, where
! he was born on the I'd of March; but,
strangely enough, the year is in doubt.
Nearly all OF the biographers. until those
of recent date, say 1852, but the later and
more careful say 1850. For our part we
| say 176l, having, as we shall see, Candles
Own authority for his age on the day of his
trial. From his childhood his mind was
| as bright as the sunshine. Already, at
thirteen years of age, his proud and ambi-
tious father sends him to Paris to enter
the College of Louis lie Grand, where he is
to be educated for the law. There he will
have for a senior classmate no other than
the King of the Terror, Maximilien Robes
pierre.
The genius Of young Camille opened like
a blossom. He absorbed all manner of
learning. and became by much the most
distinguished student and soundest CLASH
cal scholar of them who were to turn
France upside down in the Revolution.
Most of all did the literature and history
of the classical nations fix the attention of
the young enthusiast. Perhaps no other
scholar of the revolutionary epoch as we'll
as he was able to realize and reproduce in
popular way the lives and characters of
the patriot Greeks and Romans
But how hardly shall such man become
lawyer! So it proved in the case of Ca
mile Already in 1875, having been gradu-
ated from the law school, he was admit
ted to practice as an advocate of the par
Lament of Paris. But his hghtness of
character, his humors, even his wit and
genius, made against him in the gadgrind
OF the courts. Moreover, he was crippled,
as an orator, with an unimpressive person,
features without prepossessing qualities
and miserable stammer in his speech 1t
is the good fortune of literary men that
their ugliness, if such be, need not appear
IN their pages. Stam1nering, also, is of the
tongue and not of the pen.
Camille from the first was destined to
another career than that of law. For four
years no success came, and he sank into
poverty. With the call for the states gen
eral he broke forth in an "Ode'' which
awakened much patriot enthusiasm, and
then IN very radical monograph, which
he called ''The Philosophy of the French
People" On the 5th Of May, 1889. he
watched the great procession of the states
general at Versailles, and in the following
months became well known to the rising
democracy as a man of brains and audac-
ity.
Camille was now twenty-eight years Of
age. 1t is the summer of 1889. The strug-
gle out at Versailles has finally eliminated /
with the dismissal Of Necker from the min /
istry. 1t is the 18th of July, and the news
OF this startling event creeps into Paris.
The peoples minister is discharged-a
thing seemingly incredible. Necker is
really gone-gone secretly for whole day,
en- route to his own place in Switzerland
Instead of that friend of the people we
have Broglie for minister of war. We
have the base aristocrat Breteuil for an
other minister, and Foulop for another
Foulon, who said not long ago that the
starving French people might eat grass!
Under such news all Paris rose into fer
az, the very boiling of excite
ment. At this time there is place called
the Garden Of the Palais Royal, where the
people, even the under man, may come
and hear patriot speeches. Thither, on
this 18th of July, somewhat in the even
ing, there is general rush. The place is
full; but the police are On the outskirts,
lest some one, some daring pa
riot, should stand up and appeal to the
multitude against the dismissal of Necker.
Behold! young man with flashing eyes
and hair wildly flying about his head and
ACE, clutching a formidable pistol in each
hand, rushes through the crowd and
mounts a table. VIII the police try to
AXE him-to haul him down. He swears
hey shall not take him alive from that
,pot
Here, We friends of freedomp he cries
'ut, "let US stand and die. We are even
Is hunted Creatures We are as sheep !
,rowded into shanbles. The police have
or Us their butcher knives, but we shall
efn nd T OF n. !
nan rise to his duty and die for his coun-
~. Let US throw of oppression and fly
INTO the arms Of deliversnce. There is only {
me cry, one shout for Us today, and that Is.
To oT7Rsl to orrasi 0 ye patriots"
That speaker vas Camille DesmoulinA
The match was struck The train was
lighted. Tomorrow shall see all Paris in
dorious ihsurrec4ion Tomorrow shall see
q, GO spikes hammered into service in
ing&e day. Tomorrow shall see the dis
ovsry of mu.keek and the seiZinR OF can
ION. Tomorrow viii be the 18th of July,
nd the following morning will be the 18th
that memorable day. that day Of the be-
dining OF al things; that day when naked s
'asriotlsm, tired in this manner, shall q
torn the Raxs1e and hberate its captves; G
bat day which shall be forever the birth q
ay or new Trance, and # Of France, then /.
be world. Il
Ii was thus that the great French Revo- o
1tion burst into fame On the day fol- q
owing the storrning OF the Bast;le q new i
amphles by Camille entitled LA France
lbre"-thst is. Gree Frances-was pub
shed IL Was like a torch carried through
De stubble fields. No such brilliant and 8:
1dacious attacks had erer been known :
efors in Europe. The author laid the ak -