formerly elevated by so long a course of prosperity, then steeped in all the bitterness of affliction, will speak in sufficiently touching language; and if it is not given to a private individual to teach the proper lessons from so mournful a catastrophe, the King of Israel has supplied the words--'Hear, O ye great of the earth! Take lessons, ye rulers of the world!'"[20] A very different man from Bossuet, but who was perhaps his superior in nervous eloquence, Robespierre, thus spoke on the last occasion when he addressed the Convention, then bent on his destruction:-- "They call me a tyrant! If I were so, they would fall at my feet: I should have gorged them with gold, assured them of impunity to their crimes, and they would have worshipped me. Had I been so, the kings whom we have conquered would have been my most cordial supporters. It is by the aid of scoundrels you arrive at tyranny. Whither tend those who combat them? To the tomb and immortality! Who is the tyrant that protects me? What is the faction to which I belong? It is yourselves! What is the party which, since the commencement of the Revolution, has crushed all other factions--has annihilated so many specious traitors? It is yourselves; it is the people; it is the force of principles! This is the party to which I am devoted, and against which crime is everywhere leagued. I am ready to lay down my life without regret. I have seen the past; I foresee the future. What lover of his country would wish to live, when he can no longer succour oppressed innocence? Why should he desire to remain in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over truth--where justice is deemed an imposture--where the vilest passions, the most ridiculous fears, fill every heart, instead of the sacred interests of humanity? Who can bear the punishment of seeing that horrible succession of traitors, more or less skilful in concealing their hideous vices under the mask of virtue, and who will leave to posterity the difficult task of determining which was the most atrocious? In contemplating the multitude of vices which the Revolution has let loose pell-mell with the civic virtues, I own I sometimes fear that I myself shall be sullied in the eyes of posterity by their calumnies. But I am consoled by the reflection that, if I have seen in history all the defenders of liberty overwhelmed by calumny, I have seen their oppressors die also. The good and the bad disappear alike from the earth; but in very different conditions. No, Chaumette! 'Death is _not_ an eternal sleep!'--Citizens, efface from the tombs that maxim, engraven by sacrilegious hands, which throws a funeral pall over nature, which discourages oppressed innocence: write rather, 'Death is the commencement of immortality!' I leave to the