he trembled with emotion, as in
a low and broken voice he announced that Louis was condemned to death.
Barere had not, it is true, yet attained to full perfection in the art
of mingling jests and conceits with words of death; but he already gave
promise of his future excellence in this high department of Jacobin
oratory. He concluded his speech with a sentence worthy of his head and
heart. "The tree of liberty," he said, "as an ancient author remarks,
flourishes when it is watered with the blood of all classes of tyrants."
M. Hippolyte Carnot has quoted this passage in order, as we suppose, to
do honor to his hero. We wish that a note had been added to inform us
from what ancient author Barere quoted. In the course of our own small
reading among the Greek and Latin writers, we have not happened to fall
in with trees of liberty and watering-pots full of blood; nor can we,
such is our ignorance of classical antiquity, even imagine an Attic or
Roman orator employing imagery of that sort. In plain words, when Barere
talked about an ancient author, he was lying, as he generally was when
he asserted any fact, great or small. Why he lied on this occasion we
cannot guess, unless indeed it was to keep his hand in.

It is not improbable that, but for one circumstance, Barere would, like
most of those with whom he ordinarily acted, have voted for the appeal
to the people and for the respite. But, just before the commencement of
the trial, papers had been discovered which proved that, while a member
of the National Assembly, he had been in communication with the Court
respecting his Reports on the Woods and Forests. He was acquitted of all
criminality by the Convention; but the fiercer Republicans considered
him as a tool of the fallen monarch; and this reproach was long repeated
in the journal of Marat, and in the speeches at the Jacobin club. It was
natural that a man like Barere should, under such circumstances, try to
distinguish himself among the crowd of regicides by peculiar ferocity.
It was because he had been a royalist that he was one of the foremost in
shedding blood.

The King was no more. The leading Girondists had, by their conduct
towards him, lowered their character in the eyes both of friends and
foes. They still, however, maintained the contest against the Mountain,
called for vengeance on the assassins of September, and protested
against the anarchical and sanguinary doctrines of Marat. For a time
they seemed li