The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1898-07-14

| HE was not merely a man of words
Daring and defiant as he was in speech
those who found themselves against hin
| soon learned that close behind his un
sparing tongue followed swift his equally
ruthless hand. And the hand was as
heavy as the tongue was terrible. In
| many situations he relied as much on his
physical prOwess as on his eloquence t.
| force his way through.
| "Barere was not, strictly speaking, &
| Frenchman of true Gallo blood. Born il
the northern foothills of the Pyrenees
| tCollines du NOrd DIES PyreneeS) where ye
strong traces fingered of the fierce Iberiar
stock known in the adjoining provinces OF
| Spain as 'BasQues' and on the French
! side of the mountains as 'BiScayenS
Barere, by lineage and in temperament
was much more Celt than Gaui In proof
of this it needs only be said that he could
speak the Basque tongue like Il Pyrenees
muietee-. And he used to say that he
learned that tongue before he learned
French, because, on account of his
mothers delicate health, he was wet
nursed by a fuil-blood Basque woman,
who not only taught him that wild tongue
but instiIled into his veins with her milk
the blood and spirit of that savage race
that Iberian race, he used proudly to
say, that won HannibaPs victories for
him. There was more than one evidence
of the preponderance of the Biscayen,
Basque, or ancient Iberian, in Barere s
makeup. Whenever, by excitement or
anger, his true nature showed up through
the veneering of his French education
and social discipline, Barere always for
got suavity, forgot pcliteness, became
brusQue, rude, OverbeaTing, and if OPP
posed beyond the limit of his caution or
his patience-which was a narrow limit
he was likely to develop into a blood
ancestors who followed Hannibal from
Saguntum to Capua and Cannae
These traits stood him in good stead
sometimes. AT other times they handi-
capped him. When calm and unruffied.
he would deliver Orations in the French
of Fontanelle. And he generally managed
to control himself within the following of
that pattern. But sometimes he would
be swept away by gusts OF passion and
then his dictiOn would be distinguished
by torrents of the dialect of the Hautes
Pyrenees, full Of quaint Basque idioms
and antique folklore (savOir du cens) of
his native mountains, half understood
and half guessed at by his overawed
auditors; but all terrible adluncts of q
ferocious eloauence, all telling tricks of a
fierce tongue.
To all he added reckless effronterv
and defiant arrogance which left to his
adversaries oftentimes nothing but a
auickly-chOSen alternative between ST
lence and a fight; and with this you have
the pen picture of Bertrand Barere.
Barere was by no means a scholarly
man. as, for example, Mirabeau. nor did
he ever affect to be. The secret of his
power lay in his instant readiness to
bring to bear his whole mental force, and
with it, if the worst came to the worst his
physical force, in any emergency no mat
ter how sudden, and on any subject no
matter how unexpected. In this no
French orator of his own or any previous
time ever remotely approached him.
1t is necessary to know the man and
the times and affairs which environed
him in order that a just estimate of his
character and conduct may be formed,
10 be continued)