On the outbreak of the revolution, Chamfort, much to the indignant surprise of his aristocratic friends, who had not perhaps taken his advanced views very seriously, threw in his lot with the popular party. For a time he was secretary of the Jacobin Club, and we discover the fine gentleman of the salons among the stormers of the Bastille. The sincerity of Chamfort’s revolutionary fervour has been questioned, and brooding over the stigma of his birth assigned as its real cause. But we may allow, I think, that he genuinely believed the overcharged political and social atmosphere required a beneficent revolutionary thunderstorm to clear it. Had not he, moreover, been among the prophets? To him the final outburst was no matter for surprise. Whatever his motives, he was a valuable acquisition to his new associates, and his biting wit won him in the Clubs the nickname of “La Rochefoucauld Chamfort.” But in time he developed an unfortunate habit of finding the weak points of the ruling party and pointing them out in his pungent fashion. In his famous “_sois mon frère ou je vous tue_,” he tersely summed up Jacobin pretensions, and the Jacobins not unnaturally resented this and other witticisms. In short he was haled before the tribunal, imprisoned, then released, but only to be threatened with imprisonment again. This harassed existence was too much for poor Chamfort, and, rather than endure a new captivity, he attempted suicide with a pistol and a razor. Unluckily he only succeeded in wounding himself horribly, and lingered on for some months longer. His death took place on April 13, 1794. Chamfort’s is not altogether a sympathetic personality, but one cannot grudge a regret over the miserable end of a brilliant career.