remarked) significant that three of Europe's best poets, André Chénier, Schiller, and Alfieri, who were all equally antagonistic to the old autocratic government, and had all hailed the Revolution with joy, should all in 1792 desire to defend King Louis. Marie-Joseph Chénier was a less gifted and less seriously minded man than his brother; he followed with the stream and rejoiced in the popularity which a talent exactly suited to the requirements of the time procured him. André had the courage which on occasion manifests itself in proud defiance; he was of the stuff of which martyrs are made. Obvious danger only made him bolder in his attacks upon the men who, in his opinion, were disgracing France. He published in his own name his extremely sarcastic ode on the occasion of the fête given by the Jacobins to the amnestied soldiers of the Chateauvieux regiment, who had with perfect justice been sentenced to the galleys for ordinary, mean crimes. And after Marat's assassination, when 44,000 altars were erected to "the friend of the people," André Chénier was the one French poet who felt constrained to sing the praises of Charlotte Corday--a much more daring deed at that time than afterwards. He exclaims: "La Grèce, ô fille illustre, admirant ton courage, Épuiserait Paros pour placer ton image Auprès d'Harmodius, auprès de son ami; Et des chœurs sur ta tombe, en une sainte ivresse, Chanterait Némésis, la tardive déesse, Qui frappe le méchant sur son trône endormi. Mais la France à la hache abandonne ta tête. C'est au monstre égorgé qu'on prépare une fête Parmi ses compagnons, tous dignes de son sort Oh! quel noble dédain fît sourire ta bouche, Quand un brigand, vengeur de ce brigand farouche, Crut te faire pâlir aux menaces de mort." After the death of the King it was impossible for André to remain in Paris. His brother found a refuge for him in a small house in a retired part of Versailles. Here he lived for some time in quiet and solitude. He worked at his long poem _Hermès_, of which he had as yet only produced fragments, though it had occupied his thoughts more or less for the last ten years, and wrote to Fanny (Madame Laurent Lecoulteux), a lady who lived in the same neighbourhood, his last love poems, which are distinguished by an emotion new in André Chénier's writings--the melancholy of a purely spiritual love. The nobility and charm of a peculiarly beautiful feminine character communicated themselves to these sad, chaste verses.