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

st So, 9s6, 900. It is a great
of my own old crew, his conauerors. were
at that moment no better off in America
and SO dismissed the unpleasant con.
temptation from my mind"
| AGAIN IN FRANCE.
After about seven weeks sojourn in and
! about London, Jones went to Southamp-
ton, whence he took a packet for Bor-
deaux, and thence wentrtO fishing vii
lage on the BLACK Dunes of Gascony, "
not far from Bayonne, where he passed
the Autumn of 1891, returning to Paris al
the end of November. This tour did him
much good and for a time he thought his
lungs had healed. At any rate, from that
time until the following June 1882 he
experienced little trouble.
During the Winter of 1892 he busted
himself partly by entertaining his friends
Of the Assembly and the Committee and
advising them and partly by writing
occasional articles for the Point du Jour
and panlDhlets-which bore the same re-
lation to the current literature of that day
as magazine papers in ours.
In oder to keep whole the thread of
this narrative il is necessary to outline
here briefly the political situation in
France at the beginning of the year 1892.
| The First Assembly was dissolved Sent
80, 1901, the day on which the constitu-
/ ton it had framed went into full effect.
/ The next day the Second or Iepis1atiye
Assembly, elected under the provisions of
that constitution, organized The next
six months, or until the declaration of
war against Austria, in April following.
were devoted wholly to preparations for
upsettIng the Old order of things and
creating a new order, or rather disorder
During this period were sowed the seeds
which from time to time sDrouted in
various exceSSeS here and there-denon-
| STATIONS against the arist0crats. threats
| against the King, and the gradual work
ing up OF that frenzy in the French mind
which a year later burst into the Reign of
Terror
The actual governing power of France
| irrespective OF the shadow of monarchy
still existing, had now become LODGED in
the hands OF a committee of the Assembly
commonly known as The Committee, !"
quite similar in its organization and
operations to the terrible Committee of
| Public Safety" under the Conyention-a
compact organization which seven or
eight men completely dominated and
whose DEGREES the Assembly merely rati-
fed as matter OF form. The Assembly
would go through with a pantomime If
debate and a pretenSe of voting on meas
ures reported to it from the COMMITTEES
but all Legislation was done in the Com
mittee and dictated by the internal caha
that controlled 1t. 1t is these delibera-
pa
"the first brewings of the hell-broth "
Prior to this time Barere though hold
ing his own well up among the riants
with whom he wrought, had not shown
his full strength; had not begun to tower
above them all. IhIs was because thus
far events, momentous as they had been
were not tremendous enough to comnIeteIv
challenge his terrible energy or evoke hi
awful power. Now he began tn find snh.
jects worth his best attention. and with
them foemen worthy of his steel.
In the plans for dethrOning the King,
disestablishing the Church. confiscatinr
its property, and suppressing the nobility
he was foremost; but when IN these
measures Robespierre, ST. just. Couthon
Jean Bon, st. Andre, and others proposed
to add wholesale execution, or, rather,
indiScriminate massacre of the unner
classes, Barere called halt But for
him the arrest and Imprisonment of the
Royal Family in the Temple would have
| occurred simultaneously with the declara-
ton Of war against Austria, April 20. 1892
instead OF Deihe deferred as it was to
Aug. Is following. But for him the eye
cution OF the King might have occurred
any day after April 2O-within q week
Jan. Il, 1893.
Gallery has left record or rather
| synopsis OF fierce debates and occasional
description of savage scenes in the
Chamber of the Committee during this
period. which his position as Clerk or
Recording Secretary compelled him to
witness. In all of them Barere figures as
a giant-nOt only of intellect hut Of
muscle-not only of Oratory but of brute
| force. Gallery says OF him: "A face of
classic. manly beauty, form above
medium hight, heavily, though sym
metricaIly built, exceedingly quick of
motion, albeit graceful; of presence such
that when he once stood up, before he
| had said word, his audience waited i'm
| awe. He had at all times and in ali
situations the blind bravery of the bull
| ia bravoure avengle du taureau). often
the savage ferOcity, and sometimes the
manners of that animal. When he spoke
what speech! No one in France had ever
heard the like. 1t was an oratory and an
| elOcutiOn sui generis, all his own. His
| voice was the most perfect ever heard
| and his command of it the cOmDletest
| ever known. And it never tired In those
fierce debates, prolonged far into the
night, all other voices grew husky or
| faltered with fatigues, but Barere s was at
| the last as at the first clear as a great
| bell resounding through the vast Chamber
| peal on peal, now like successive cannon
shots, again like the long rolls of distant
| thunder. But magnificent as his voice
was, it became lost in the majesty of his
dictiOn. No matter how vehement his
| manner, no matter how impassioned his
style, no matter how sudden the emer-
gency thrust upon him, his sentiments
marched one after the other in troops of
stately images shaped in sentences
classic as the hexameters of Homer.