Los Angeles herald., 1891-05-15

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 combustibles 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 n sepoy soldier, every
time you bite that cartridge you eat hogs
fat and tallow." The match was lighted
again, and the sepoy rebellion burst out
volcanic In the French revolution many
centuries had wrought in forming the
magazine and filing it with powder. One
day sufficed, 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 a brilliant wit and mirthful
spirit-set almost flowerlike 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 1862, but the later and
more careful say 1760. For our part we
say 1761, having, as we shall see, Camille's
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 le Grand, where he is
TO be educated for the law. There he will
have for 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 classi-
cal scholar of them who were to turn
France upside down in the Revolution.
Most of all did tho literature and history
of the classical nations fix the attention of
the young enthusiast. Perhaps no other
scholar of the revolutionary epoch as well
as he was able to realize and reproduce i'll
popular way the lives and characters of
the patriot Greeks and Romans
But how hardly shall such man become
"a lawyerl So it proved in the case of Ca
mile. Already in 1885, having been gradu-
ated from the law school, he was admit
ted to practice as an advocate of the par
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. Stammering, 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
wears 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, 1883, he
watched the great procession of the states
general at Versailles and in the following
months became well known to the rising
democracy as q 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 Foulon for another
Foulon, who said not long ago that the
starving French people might eat grass!
Under such news all Paris rose into fer
mentation, ay, 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 a general rush. The place is
full; but the police ARE on the outskirts,
watching lest some one, some daring pa
triot, 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
face, clutching formidable pistol in each
hand, rushes through the crowd and
mounts table. Will the police try to
take him-to haul him down? He swears
they shall not take him alive from that
spot. %
'1ere, " yc lTlcutlS VI lISCuOIui hO Siio1
out, ''let us stand and die. We are even
as hunted creatures. We are as sheep
crowded into shambles. The police have
for us their butcher knives, but we shall
now stand against them. Let every French
man rise to his duty and die for his coun-
try. Let us throw off oppression and hy
into the arms of deliverance. There is only
one cry, one shout for us today, and that is
To a1mlsl to arms! o ye patriots"
That speaker was Camille Desmoulins
The match was struck. The train was
lighted Tomorrow shall see all Paris IL
glorious insurrection. Tomorrow shall SET
$4,000 spikes hammered into service in {
single day. Tomorrow shall see the dis
covery of muskets and the seizing OF can
non. Tomorrow will be the 18th of July
and the following morning will be the 14tl
that memorable day; that day of the be
ginning of all things; that day when naked
patriotism, fred in this manner, shal
storm the Bastile and liberate its captives
that day which shall be forever the birth
day of new France. and if of France, thel
the world
1t was thus that the great French Revo
luton burst into fame. On the day fol
lowing the storming of the Bastile nev
pamphlet by Camille entitled LA Franc
Libre''-that is, Free France"-was put
lished 1t was like torch carried through
the stubble fields. No such brilliant an
audacious attacks had ever been know
before in Europe. The author laid the a.
at the root of the tree. BY his argumen