Before 1789 André Chénier was the elegiac, idyllic, and erotic poet. He developed marvellously both as poet and man after the French Revolution broke out and filled the air with its thunders and lightnings. He had been educated in the philosophic spirit with which Voltaire had imbued the aristocracy of intellect; he had shared in the feelings which led distinguished Frenchmen to support the cause of the free states of North America; now he hailed with the purest enthusiasm the new era of liberty which he had so long desired to see. His idea of liberty was absolute freedom in the domains of thought and religion. Instructed "by the eighteen centuries which theological follies have stained with blood, devoid of respect for the priesthood of any creed whatsoever," because he is convinced that they have one and all "conspired against the happiness and peace of humanity," he desires "to break the yoke of despotism and priestcraft." He was so inexperienced and enthusiastic as to believe it possible that this result could be attained without overstepping the limits of the strictly lawful. During the first year of the Revolution he still devoted most of his time to poetry. He conceived a short-lived passion for a young and beautiful lady, Madame Gouy d'Arcy, whose praises he has sung in a famous poem. But politics soon drove all other occupations and passions into the background. In 1792, with a prevision of the approaching Reign of Terror, André made a violent attack on the Jacobins in a newspaper article. When his younger brother, the famous revolutionary poet, Marie-Joseph Chénier, who was an active member of the Jacobin Club, felt obliged to defend his fellow-members, André proudly and recklessly took up the gauntlet thrown down. Mutual friends of the brothers managed to bring the painful controversy to a speedy close, but the strained relations lasted for some time. Before this the brothers had been warmly attached. But it was with André as with the ancient Romans; the ties of blood had to give way to the political idea. In the early days of the Revolution he had allowed his brother's tragedy, _Brutus and Cassius_, to be dedicated to him, and in acknowledging this dedication had, with the naïveté of the day, declared his conviction that the great Brutus had expressed himself exactly as he was made to do in the drama. He called the heroes of the play "noble murderers, great tyrannicides, whom the phrase-makers of our day are incapable of understanding"--in short, expressed his approval of regicide when necessary. But the trial of Louis XVI. roused his unbounded wrath; he solicited permission to assist in the King's defence; he wrote a series of articles in his favour; and when the sentence of death had been passed, it was André Chénier who composed the beautiful and dignified letter in which the King demanded the permission of the National Assembly to appeal to the nation. It is (as Becq de Fouquières has