Part 26

Member for Paris in the Convention, he pressed incessantly for the speedy trial and execution of the King. During that trial he was constantly appearing at the Convention and in the Jacobin Club, where mounting the tribune he demanded with violence that the body of Louis after his execution should be divided into eighty-four pieces, so that a portion of the tyrant’s remains might be despatched to every Department in the Republic. Legendre as Member of the Committee of Public Safety was, like Marat, one of the principal instigators of the proscription and execution of the Girondins. When Lanjuna made an attempt to speak in their defence, the ex-butcher threatened to hurl the orator from the tribune, unless he was instantly silent. In January 1794, Legendre was accused of _Hébertisme_, and threatened with expulsion from the Jacobin Club, but he escaped by proving his intimate friendship with Marat. Danton had been his friend and ally, and when the former was arrested Legendre at first spoke in his favour; finding that the Convention were against such a proceeding, he immediately declared that he answered for no one’s patriotism, and would never again defend an accused person. Legendre became the ally of Tallien and Fréron, and played an important part in the revolution of 9th Thermidor. As soon as the decree of arrest against Robespierre had been carried, Legendre sprang into the tribune and harangued with great heat and much vigour against the accused, after which he rushed to the Jacobin Club, forced every member to quit the building, locked the doors and brought the keys to the Convention. From that day Legendre never ceased clamouring for the immediate condemnation of the members of the very party of which he had so long been a leader, calling them “blood drinkers” and “terrorists.”

He was elected President of the Convention, and in that capacity marched at the head of the troops who dispersed and shot down the surging mobs who surrounded the walls of the Convention demanding bread.

This was his last exploit. His excesses and the violence of his temperament had undermined his constitution, and as Member of the Council of Ancients, he took little part in debate. A few weeks before his death he made a speech indicting the Government for their leniency towards the _emigrés_. He bequeathed his body to the School of Medicine, “so that even after his death he might still serve mankind.”

LIVINGSTONE, ROBERT.

Born, 1746; died, 1813. He was descended from an ancient Dutch family that settled on the banks of the Hudson, in the seventeenth century.

A lawyer, one of the committee of five who drew up the Act of Independence, in 1780 he became Foreign Secretary, and distinguished himself during the whole of the American War by his zeal and intelligence. On the conclusion of peace he was named Chancellor for the State of New York.

In 1801 President Jefferson despatched him to Paris as American Minister, when he, conjointly with Monroe, carried out successfully the negotiations for the cession of Louisiana to the United States.

Upon his return to his native country in 1805 he founded the New York Academy of Art, of which he was first President.

MARAT, JEAN PAUL.

Born at Boudry, 1744; assassinated in Paris, July, 3, 1793.

In early life he was a medical student, and the author of various treatises on physical science, and of a pamphlet in favour of the abolition of capital punishment.

He settled in Paris, and after attempting unsuccessfully many careers, such as savant, romantic writer and philosopher, was finally glad, after many efforts, to obtain the position of doctor to the body guard of the Comte D’Artois. He had lost this situation some time before the Revolution.

When that took place, Marat adopted the surname of “Friend of the People”: editing and publishing under that title a weekly newspaper.

Towards the close of 1789, in one of his articles he proposed the erection of 800 gibbets within the Tuileries Gardens, upon each of which was to be hanged one of those whom he called “traitors to the community”; of these the first was to be Mirabeau. In consequence of this audacious proposal the Constitutional Assembly ordered the arrest of the author, who took refuge first in the house of an actress at the Théâtre Français, and later in the presbytery of the _curé_ of St. Louis at Versailles.

Marat was one of those seven members of the Commune who signed the order for the September massacres in the prisons of Paris.

At the King’s trial his (Marat’s) vote was couched in these terms: “No appeal to the people, only an accomplice of the tyrant would demand this.”

After the execution of Louis XVI. Marat was seized with a frenzied thirst for blood and massacre, “Let us slay,” he wrote in his journal, “270,000 partisans of the _ancien régime_, and reduce by executions the number of the Convention by a quarter.” He constantly complained that too few persons were executed, adding, “Only the dead do not return.”

The Girondins succeeded in bringing him before the Revolutionary Tribune, but by the efforts of Fouquier-Tinville he was triumphantly acquitted. He soon revenged himself upon them, for all the Girondin party were ordered into arrest upon the 2nd of June following.

A few escaped from Paris, amongst these was the young gallant and handsome Barbaroux, who took temporary refuge at Caen in Normandy, where he met a female descendant of the great Corneille, Charlotte Corday. Barbaroux’s recitals of the cruelties being exercised in Paris moved her profoundly; and when a few days later the news of his execution at Bordeaux reached Caen, she determined ta proceed to Paris and kill Danton or Marat. The sequel of her journey is too well known to need repetition here.

After the death of Marat his body lay in state; he was accorded a magnificent funeral; his bust placed in all French municipalities, and the honours of the Panthéon decreed to him.

When the reaction came his bust and statue were destroyed, his remains disinterred and burnt, and their ashes flung into the main sewer of the Rue Montmârtre.

MIRECOURT, THÉROIGNE DE.

Born at Mirecourt, Flanders, 1752; died in Paris, 1817.

The true name of this heroine of the French Revolution was Anne Josephe Terwagne of Marcourt, a small town in Luxemburg. The daughter of a rich farmer, Pierre Théroigne or Terwagne, by the kindness of a distant cousin, who was the Abbess, she was, although not of noble birth, educated in the Convent of Robermont. At the age of seventeen she left her home and followed her lover, a young nobleman, to Paris.

Here we find her settled, apparently independently, in 1789. A contemporary describes her as having “a waist you could span with two hands and the face of the Venus of Praxiteles.” She adopted violent revolutionary principles, and never missed attending a meeting of the Assembly.

She held a kind of _salon_ in her apartment, where she received the Abbé Siezès and his brother Roussin, Camille Desmoulins, Péthion and other well-known revolutionists; adopted an extraordinary semi-masculine military costume, never appearing in public without a couple of pistols in her girdle, and a sword by her side. She attended all the principal revolutionary meetings, making violent and incendiary harangues on every possible occasion; was present at the taking of the Bastille, and rode in front of the mob which marched on Versailles. After the arrival of the Royal family in Paris her speeches in Flemish to the soldiers of the “Regiment de Flandre” assisted greatly in shaking their loyalty to the King.

In 1790 she returned to her native country, and remained some time at Liège. She was arrested there by the Austrians and carried off to the fortress of Kuffstein in the Tyrol, being accused of plotting against Marie Antoinette.

The Emperor Leopold II. had an interview with Théroigne at Vienna, and was so much smitten by her charms as not only to order her release, but to pay the expenses of her journey back to France. When she reached Paris she found herself the heroine of the hour. Soon after her return she commanded the 3rd Army Corps in the Faubourg on the occasion of the riots of June 20, 1792, and when the fight was over, the Federals, as a compliment to her bravery, decreed her a civic crown.

Suleon, the editor of a newspaper, having insulted Théroigne in a leading article, she, in company with a band of devoted adherents, laid in wait for him; and although he was at the time actually one of a patrol of the National Guard going their rounds, seized him by the coat collar and dragged him into the middle of the street, where she and her companions despatched him with their sabres.

She professed opinions similar to those of the Girondins, and when the fall of this party was imminent, declaimed loudly in their favour in public places. On one occasion when making a speech in the gardens of the Tuileries a number of women belonging to the so-called Société Fraternelle, stripped her naked and flogged her on the spot. This terrible punishment drove her mad, and she never recovered her reason. She died at the age of fifty-four in the public madhouse of La Salpêtrière, where, with one or two brief intervals, she had been confined for over twenty-four years.

METHERIE, JEAN CLAUD DE LA.

Born near Macon, 1743; died in Paris, 1817.

A medical doctor and a great celebrity in his day as a chemist. He made many remarkable discoveries, particularly on the subject of oxygen and other gases. During the last thirty years of his life he devoted himself to the study of mineralogy and geology. He was appointed in 1812 Professor of Natural Science to the Collège de France, which post he retained until his death.

MERLIN, ANTOINE CHRISTOPHER.

Born, 1762; died, 1833.

The eldest of four remarkable brothers, who all took a prominent part in the days of the Revolution and the Empire. Intended for the Church, he resolutely refused to take holy orders, and leaving his home in Lorraine at the age of twenty-one, arrived in Paris with only twenty-five louis in his pocket. He obtained a place as usher in a military school. The following year he was reconciled to his family, and his father being President and Procureur of Thionville, he agreed to act as his head clerk, intending eventually to succeed to his parent’s appointments.

When the Revolution commenced, Merlin joined the Jacobin party, returned to Paris, and in 1791 represented Moselle in the Legislative Assembly. According to his views, Royalty, clergy, and nobility were alike to be annihilated without delay. Living as he had done upon the road to Coblentz, he had been able to watch emigration upon the spot. He wearied the Assembly by his rages and recriminations, accumulating, as he said, proof upon proof of treason. His violent speeches, his fierce activity, and his wild passion made him a leader in the Jacobin Club. He demanded the deportation to the American penal colonies of all priests who refused the oath, the confiscation of the property of every _émigré_, and the establishment of a Committee of Public Safety.

After the abolition of the Monarchy these proposals were all adopted, and he made an audacious appeal to insurrection. “It is not with speeches,” he said, “but with cannon we should attack kings in their palaces, if we wish to ensure the liberty of the people.”

When the Tuileries was invaded upon June 20, the spectacle of the Royal family, abandoned by their friends and covered with insult and opprobrium, affected him to tears. “You weep,” said the Queen, “at the sight of a great King brought so low.” “Madame,” he answered, “my tears are not for a King but for a good father of a family and his estimable wife, who are suffering misfortune.”

He took an active part in the events of August 10. He persuaded the King and his family to leave the Château of the Tuileries, protecting them on their way to the Assembly. At the peril of his own life he saved later in the day those of the Duc de Choiseul and a number of the officers of the Swiss Guard.

After these events his conduct in the Legislature was more violent than before. His cry was: “War upon Kings, and peace for Nations.” At the moment of the invasion he encouraged the people to meet the enemy at the frontier. Commissioner of the Assembly, he rode over the five Departments surrounding Paris, obtaining money, horses and provisions everywhere he went; through his eloquence volunteers flocked to the Republican flag. He used his influence to prevent massacres of prisoners and suspected persons.

His joy at the proclamation of the Republic was intense. He took his seat in the Convention on the benches of the _Montagne_, and soon became as ferocious as the most ferocious of his companions. He declared it would be an honour to stab, with his own hand, any person who aspired to become a tyrant. He pressed forward the trials of the “infamous Louis” and the “infamous Antoinette.” He defended Robespierre against Louvet, and was a mortal enemy to Roland.

At the time of the trial of Louis XVI. Merlin was with the army at Mayence, he therefore did not vote for the King’s death; but he wrote to Paris on January 8, 1793: “We are surrounded by the dead and dying. In the name of Louis Capet our brothers are slain, and yet Louis Capet still lives!” Merlin, who was in supreme command, showed great ability and prodigies of courage during the siege of Mayence, which lasted from March to July of the same year, but famine and the superior number of the enemy prevailed, and the town capitulated on July 24, 1793.

On his return to Paris he was arrested as a traitor, and accused of selling Mayence to the enemy; but was triumphantly acquitted, a victim being found to assuage the vanity of the Republic in the person of General Alexandre de Beauharnais, the first husband of the Empress Josephine, who, being a noble, was a more agreeable offering to the guillotine than Merlin.

Merlin for a short time commanded part of the Republican army in La Vendée, but was recalled and returned to the Convention after an absence of nearly a year. During this time the political condition of France had undergone a complete change.

Merlin, who had now become more a soldier than a politician, joined no party, until a few days before the fall of Robespierre.

He made a speech in favour of Danton, and also brought forward a motion (which was carried) that all the riches and art treasures of conquered nations should be brought to Paris. It was upon this very motion Bonaparte acted when he first began to plunder the art collections of Italy. Merlin terminated his speech in these words: “People of foreign nations may complain; the remedy is, however, in their own hands,--let them destroy their monarchs.”

When the 9th Thermidor arrived, Merlin at once entered into direct antagonism with Robespierre, and as head of the Committee of War despatched various brigades of the Parisian _Gendarmerie_ in detachments to various positions in the city. He descended into the street, haranguing the people, whom he called upon to rise in defence of the Convention. Henriot was arrested by Merlin’s soldiers, and the same men made the celebrated seizure at the Hôtel de Ville of Robespierre and the proscribed representatives. The real success of the 9th Thermidor rising is entirely due to Merlin. On August 17 he was elected President of the Convention, and he prosecuted the Jacobins without mercy, insisting upon the dissolution of that club (of which he had once been a leading member), “Let us close,” said he, “this cavern of brigands and murderers.” It was mainly through his influence that this society was dissolved.

In October 1794 he was again despatched to the army of the Rhine, and gave further proof of excellent generalship and military ability. The taking of Mannheim, the occupation of Luxemburg and another siege of Mayence marked this campaign.

After his return to Paris he assisted in quelling the insurrection of April 1, 1795, in the Faubourgs of Paris. He was even then only thirty years of age; and strange to say (although he was still a member of the Five Hundred), his political and military career may be then said to have closed. He saw with disgust the Republic alienating itself from the people and entirely depending upon the army. His dreams of universal freedom were over, and he did not seek re-election in 1798. He retired to Commençaux near Chauny, and devoted himself to the cultivation and improvement of an estate he had purchased during the _Ventes des Biens Nationaux_, and the only public function he exercised was the modest one of _juge de paix_.

As he was absent from Paris during the trial of Louis XVI. the law against regicides did not affect him. He was threatened with banishment on account of the message he sent the Convention on January 8, 1793, but he addressed a letter to the Ministers of Louis XVIII. which gained his pardon; it terminated in these words; “_Messeigneurs_, I was twenty-seven when I wrote from Mayence; I am now fifty, and my opinions have changed. I rely upon the clemency and justice of his Majesty Louis XVIII.”

MIRABEAU, HONORÉ GABRIEL RICHIETTI, COMTE DE.

Born, March 9, 1749; died, April 2, 1791.

At the age of three he suffered from the smallpox, which disfigured him for life and completely transformed his features. His father was a bigoted Jansenist, despotic, harsh, and cruel to his son, whose ardent nature and genius he did not in the least understand. He compelled Honoré, at the age of fifteen, to enter the army. After five years with his regiment, the young man had shown such aptitude for military study that he was about to receive promotion, when his father discovered that he had lost forty louis at play; was in debt, and engaged in an amorous intrigue with a young woman of the people. The old marquis, therefore, obtained a _lettre de cachet_, by which his son was imprisoned in the fort of the _Ile de Rê_. Here Mirabeau wrote his famous “Essay upon Despotism.” After his release he went with his regiment to Corsica, where he conducted himself with so much distinction as to be recommended for a captaincy of dragoons. But his arbitrary old father would not consent to this, as he now wished his son to leave the army and to embrace a rural life.

The result was a breach between father and son, though a reconciliation was effected a few months later. The maternal grandmother of young Mirabeau died in 1770, and left a vast fortune, which her daughter attempted to secure entirely for herself by obtaining a separation from her tyrannical husband. The result was a lawsuit lasting fifteen years, during the whole of which time Mirabeau was in the painful position of a son between two parents who furiously hated one another. In 1772 Mirabeau married, under pressure from his father, the only daughter of the Marquis de Mariguana, a plain girl of eighteen, reputed to be a great heiress. He never received any fortune with her, beyond an annuity of 3000 francs, for her father survived his son-in-law twelve years, dying in 1803.

The young couple lived for some time quietly together in the Château of Mirabeau, but Mirabeau’s fortune was not in any way equal to his rank, and he soon contracted heavy debts; this again excited his father’s anger, and he caused him to be arrested in 1774. Mirabeau was therefore reimprisoned, this time in the Château d’If, in the Gulf of Marseilles. From the Château d’If he was transported to Fort de Jaux in the Jura. The governor, who sympathised with him, accorded him semi-liberty, and he was able to make acquaintances in the town of Portarlier, where he was hospitably received by the leading families. One of these was that of the Marquis de Monnier, an old man of seventy, with a young, beautiful and intelligent wife. Mirabeau became her lover, and he and she eloped, first to Switzerland, and then to Holland, where they took up their abode in Amsterdam. The two fugitives were arrested, and Mirabeau was imprisoned in the Castle of Vincennes, where he remained for four years, his lengthy incarceration being the result of the efforts of his implacable father.

He wrote in prison his _Lettres à Sophie_, and executed much literary work. After personally conducting two law cases, one to cause the revocation of the act against him as ravisher of Mdme. Monnier, and the other to re-establish his conjugal rights over Mdme. Mirabeau--both of which he won, after showing prodigious eloquence, though he had never before spoken in public--he proceeded to London, where he printed “Considerations upon the Order of Cincinnatus.”

When the States-General assembled, Mirabeau endeavoured to obtain a membership; but his own order, the nobility, refused to accept him as a candidate. He therefore hired a shop in the town of Aix in Provence, and wrote over the door “Mirabeau, Cloth Merchant.” He was elected by the _Tiers État_ Deputy for Aix.

After the opening of the States-General, Mirabeau soon became the most noted orator in the Assembly, and although on the side of liberty and freedom he showed much moderation and common sense. It is probable that had he lived France might have enjoyed the benefits of a constitutional monarchy, and all the horrors of the Revolution been averted; but his irregular life had destroyed even his robust constitution, and he expired on April 2, 1791, aged forty-two.

MOUGE, COMTE DE PELUSE, GASPARD.

Born at Béaune in Burgundy, 1746; died in Paris, 1818.

Early in life he attained extraordinary knowledge in mathematics, chemistry and geometry. At the age of sixteen he made a plan of his native town with only the aid of geometrical instruments he had manufactured himself. This plan was exhibited in the Hôtel de Ville of Béaune, and was there seen by a distinguished engineering officer, who invited its creator to enter the famous College of Mézières. This offer was accepted; Mouge became Professor of Mathematics in this College, and was admitted to the Academy of Sciences in 1780. He retained this post until the Revolution closed both College and Academy.

In 1792 Mouge was appointed Minister of Marine; he held this position for a year--from August 11, 1792, to August 12, 1793.

At this moment the indignation of Europe against France had reached its height; the whole continent was prepared to attack her. The French Government, without money and without credit, required fourteen armies--and they obtained them. A million men were at their disposal, but these men were unarmed. Until this period all war material, iron, bronze, steel, even gunpowder had been supplied from abroad; but importation had now ceased. Mouge now showed the resources of his genius; he wrote, “All we require to aid the triumphs of our soldiers, all we formerly asked for from the stranger is concealed in our soil--it remains only for us to pluck it out.”

He placed himself at the head of a body of metallurgists, mechanics and chemists, and directed night and day the manufacture of arms and explosives. Bells were turned into cannon, old iron hardened into steel, and saltpetre extracted from the simplest materials. An immense quantity of powder filled the magazines, and cannons and other weapons were cast or forged in enormous quantities.

These great efforts ended, Mouge determined to open, at his own expense, a house where he might entertain and instruct a number of young men destined for the artillery of engineers. This establishment was the nucleus from which the _École Polytechnique_ sprang.

In 1792, when Mouge was Minister of Marine, he received with kindness a young artillery officer who was out of employment. This same artillery officer, four years later, became the conqueror of Italy.