erre in the time of Richelieu. He was a
man of profligate life, but of marked ability and boundless ambition. He
had a band of numerous and faithful followers, armed and desperate. He
was also one of those oily and aristocratic demagogues who bewitch the
people,--not, as in our times, by sophistries, but by flatteries. He was
as debauched as Mirabeau, but without his patriotism, though like him he
aimed to overturn the Constitution by allying himself with the
democracy. The people, whom he despised, he gained by his money and
promises; and he had powerful confederates of his own rank, so that he
was on the point of deluging Rome with blood, his aim being nothing less
than the extermination of the Senate and the magistrates by
assassination, and a general division of the public treasure, with
personal assumption of public power.

But all his schemes were foiled by Cicero, who added unwearied activity
to extraordinary penetration. For this great and signal service Cicero
received the highest tribute the State could render. He was called the
savior of his country; and he succeeded in staving off for a time the
fall of his country's liberties. It was a mournful sight to him to see
the ascendency which demagogues had already gained, since it betokened
the approaching destruction of the Constitution, which, good or bad, was
dear to him, and which as an aristocrat he sought to conserve.

Cicero's evil star was not Catiline, but Clodius,--another aristocratic
demagogue whose crimes he exposed, although he failed to bring him to
justice. Clodius was shielded by his powerful connections; and he was,
besides, a popular favorite, as well as a petted scion of one of the
greatest families. Clodius showed his hostility to Cicero, and sought
revenge by artfully causing the people to pass or revive a law that
whoever had inflicted capital punishment on a citizen without a trial
should be banished. This seemed to the people to be a protection to
their liberties. Now Cicero, when consul, had executed some of the
conspirators associated with Catiline, for which he was called the
savior of his country. But by the law which was now passed or revived by
the influence of Clodius, Cicero was himself a culprit, and it would
seem that all the influence of the Senate and his friends could not
prevent his exile. He appealed to his friend Pompey, but Pompey turned a
deaf ear; and also to Caesar, but Caesar was then outside the walls of
the city in