e of the "French Orpheus." Robespierre,
speaking in a clear voice, delivered an eloquent discourse against the
enemies of the Republic. He belaboured with metaphysical and
uncompromising arguments Brissot and his accomplices. He spoke at great
length, in free-flowing harmonious periods. Soaring in the celestial
spheres of philosophy, he launched his lightnings at the base
conspirators crawling on the ground.

Evariste heard and understood. Till then he had blamed the Gironde; were
they not working for the restoration of the monarchy or the triumph of
the Orleans faction, were they not planning the ruin of the heroic city
that had delivered France from her fetters and would one day deliver the
universe? Now, as he listened to the sage's voice, he discerned truths
of a higher and purer compass; he grasped a revolutionary metaphysic
which lifted his mind above coarse, material conditions into a region of
absolute, unqualified convictions, untrammelled by the errors of the
senses. Things are in their nature involved and full of confusion; the
complexity of circumstances is such that we lose our way amongst them.
Robespierre simplified them to his mind, put good and evil before him in
clear and precise formulas. Federalism,--indivisibility; unity and
indivisibility meant salvation, federalism, damnation. Gamelin tasted
the ineffable joy of a believer who knows the word that saves and the
word that destroys the soul. Henceforth the Revolutionary Tribunal, as
of old the ecclesiastical courts, would take cognizance of crime
absolute, of crime definable in a word. And, because he had the
religious spirit, Evariste welcomed these revelations with a sombre
enthusiasm; his heart swelled and rejoiced at the thought that,
henceforth, he had a talisman to discern betwixt crime and innocence, he
possessed a creed! Ye stand in lieu of all else, oh, treasures of faith!

The sage Maximilien enlightened him further as to the perfidious intent
of those who were for equalizing property and partitioning the land,
abolishing wealth and poverty and establishing a happy mediocrity for
all. Misled by their specious maxims, he had originally approved their
designs, which he deemed in accord with the principles of a true
Republican. But Robespierre, in his speeches at the Jacobins, had
unmasked their machinations and convinced him that these men,
disinterested as their intentions appeared, were working to overthrow
the Republic, that they were ala