ertain infamies. In the tribune of the Assembly
some orators were to be found who expressed their minds freely and held
their own against the tempests of demagogy. There were generals and
soldiers in the army for whom discipline was not an idle word; and if
the fete of the Swiss of Chateauvieux made the future Septembrists and
furies of the guillotine utter shouts of joy, it drew from honest men a
long cry of grief and indignation.

Intimidated by the menaces of the Jacobins, the Assembly voted the
release of the Swiss incarcerated in the prison of Brest. But merely
to deliver them was not enough: the Jacobins wanted to give them an
ovation. Their march from Brest to Paris was a triumph, and Collot
d'Herbois organized a gigantic fete in their honor.

Andre Chenier was at this time writing weekly letters for the _Journal
de Paris_, in which he eloquently supported the principles of order and
liberty. As M. de Lamartine has said, he was the Tyrtaeus of good sense
and moderation. He was indignant at {114} the threatened scandal, and,
in concert with his collaborator on the _Journal de Paris_, Roucher,
the poet of _Les Mois_, he criticised in most energetic terms the
revolutionary manifestation then organizing. At the Jacobin Club, on
April 4, Collot d'Herbois freed his mind against him. "This is not
Chenier-Gracchus," said the comedian; "it is another person, quite
another." He spoke of Andre as a "sterile prose writer," and pointed
him out to popular vengeance. The two brothers were in opposing camps.
While Andre Chenier stigmatized the fete of anarchy, his brother Joseph
was diligently manufacturing scraps of poetry, inscriptions, and
devices which were to figure in the programme. "What!" cried Andre,
"must we invent extravagances capable of destroying any form of
government, recompense rebellion against the laws, and crown foreign
satellites for having shot French citizens in a riot? People say that
the statues will be veiled in every place through which this procession
is to pass. Oh! if this odious orgy takes place, it will be well to
veil the whole city; but it is not the images of despots that should be
wrapt in funeral crape, but the faces of honest men. How is it that
you do not blush when a turbulent handful, who seem numerous because
they are united and make a noise, oblige you to do their will, telling
you that it is your own, and amusing your childish curiosity meanwhile
with unworthy spectacles