stitution; unpleasing to sundry who will not be
dispersed. To suppress whom, a young artillery officer is named
commandant; who with whiff of grapeshot does very promptly suppress
them; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into
space.

* * * * *

LAMARTINE

History of the Girondists

Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine, poet, historian, statesman,
was born at Macon, in Burgundy, on October 21, 1790. Early in
the nineteenth century he held a diplomatic appointment at
Naples, and in 1820 succeeded after many difficulties, in
finding a publisher for his first volume of poems, "Nouvelles
Meditations." The merits of the work were at once recognised,
and the young author soon found himself one of the most
popular of the younger generation of French poets. He next
adopted politics, and, with the Revolution of February, became
for a brief time the soul of political life in France. But the
triumph of imperialism and of Napoleon III. drove him into the
background, whereupon he retired from public life, and devoted
his remaining years to literature. He died on March I, 1869.
The publication, in 1847, of his "History of the Girondists,
or Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution,
from Unpublished Sources," was in the nature of a political
event in France. Brilliant in its romantic portraiture, the
work, like many other French histories, served the purposes of
a pamphlet as well as those of a chronicle.

_I.--The War-Seekers of the South_

The French Revolution had pursued its rapid progress for two full years.
Mirabeau, the first democratic leader, was dead. The royal family had
attempted flight and failed. War with Europe threatened and, in the
autumn of 1791, a new parliament was elected and summoned.

At this juncture the germ of a new opinion began to, display itself in
the south, and Bordeaux felt its full influence. The department of the
Gironde had given birth to a new political party in the twelve citizens
who formed its deputies. This department, far removed from the _centre_,
was at no distant period to seize on the empire alike of opinion and of
eloquence. The names (obscure and unknown up to this period) of Ducos,
Gaudet, Lafondladebat, Grangeneuve, Gensonne, Vergniaud, were about to
rise into notice and renown with the storms and the