CHAP. IV. 1789. enjoyment, none could utter more elevated sentiments, or avail himself with more skill of the generous affections. Ambitious in the extreme, conscious of powers which qualified him for the lead, he was impatient of attaining it, and fretted against every opposition he encountered. According as his speeches were applauded or interrupted, he gave way to sanguine anticipations, or stigmatised the Assembly as the most deplorable set of imbeciles who were ever brought together. Yet did his self-confidence never desert him. There was something which savoured of the grand even in the resolution which sprang from his vices. Having lost all private character-even in the corrupted circles of Paris-he resolved to rear up a new influence founded upon public achievements; gradually rose superior to all his rivals in the Assembly; and by his courage in difficulty, and energy amid the hesitation of others, ultimately acquired its entire direction. Perhaps he was the only man in France who had a chance of moderating or arresting the fervour of the Revolution. 137, 139. Biog. Univ. He frequently said of Lafayette, when at the head of xxix. 109. the national guard of Paris, "Lafayette has an army; but, believe me, my head, too, is a power."1 The only orator on the aristocratic side in the National Assembly, who was at all to be compared to Mirabeau, was the ABBE MAURY.* This celebrated man, at once an academician and a preacher before the King, had * The Abbé Maury was born on the 26th June 1746, at Vaurens, in the Venaisin, of obscure parents. His education, commenced in his native parish, was completed at Avignon. An ardent thirst for knowledge, a retentive memory, and ready talent, rendered him remarkable from his earliest years. At the age of eighteen, he came without either money or friends to Paris, where he at first earned a precarious subsistence by teaching. Before he was twenty he composed a funeral éloge on the Dauphin; and in 1767, one on Charles V., and an essay on the advantages of Peace, for a prize proposed by the French Academy. These juvenile performances having procured for him some notice, he resolved to take orders, and devote himself to the attainment of public eloquence. His talent in this respect soon made itself known; and having been chosen, in 1772, to preach a panegyric on Saint Louis, his pulpit oratory met with such success that the Academy petitioned the King to bestow some preferment on the young ecclesiastic, which was immediately done by his being promoted to the abbacy of Frenade. In 1775, he published 1 Dumont, Character of the Abbé Maury. CHAP. already acquired a brilliant reputation before the meeting IV. of the States-general. A vivid imagination, a memory 1789. richly stored with the imagery of the East, a happy 28. power of applying the sublime language of Scripture, great facility of elocution, and that decided style of expression which springs from strong internal conviction, made his oratory always impressive, and riveted the attention even of the hostile and unbelieving crowd which composed the great majority of the Assembly. They listened to him as they would have gazed on the opera stage at a representation of the antique and exploded, but yet powerful imagery of Gothic superstition. But, in addition to this, he possessed remarkable abilities as a debater; and his antagonists soon found, that it was with no theatrical remnant of the olden time that they had to deal in the contests of the States-general. A sound judgment, a clear and penetrating intellect, great rapidity of thought, and a mind fraught with the incidents and a panegyric on Saint Augustin, which had been preached before the assembly of the clergy; and this was soon followed by other panegyrics on Fénélon and Bossuet. Subsequently he was promoted to the rich benefice of the priory of Lioris, worth 20,000 francs a-year; and he was admitted into the most brilliant literary and philosophical society in Paris. In 1787 and 1788, Lamoignon, then keeper of the seals, availed himself of his talents in the preparation of the edicts which excited such vehement opposition in the parliaments of France. In 1789 he was named deputy of the clergy for the bailiwick of Peronne, and he first appeared in debate during the discussions on the Veto in September of that year; after which he took a leading part in the discussions on every subject. The Revolution, which ruined the fortunes of so many others of his party, was, on the contrary, the making of his; he lost, indeed, all his benefices in France; but being called to Rome by the Pope, he was received with the utmost distinction by the head of the church, the two aunts of Louis XVI., and the whole conclave of cardinals; and ere long he was rewarded for his strenuous efforts in the cause of the altar and the throne by his elevation to the highest situations in the church. In 1792, he was named Archbishop of Nice in partibus, and in 1794 elevated to the dignity of cardinal and Bishop of Monte Fiascone. On the conquest of Italy by the French, in 1798, they did all they could to seize him, but he escaped disguised as a voiturier to Venice, from whence he withdrew to St Petersburg. In 1799 he returned to Rome upon the conquest of Italy by Suwarroff, and in 1806 was recalled to Paris after the coronation of Napoleon, by whom he was much esteemed; but his conduct there was far from proving agreeable to the Pope, it being deemed, and apparently with justice, not in unison with the former tenor of his character, and he died in 1817, after having fallen under the displeasure of the court of Rome.-See Biographie Universelle, xxvii. 568, 575, (Maury.) IV. 1 Marm. ii. lessons of history, made him peculiarly powerful in reply. CHAP. His speeches on these occasions, always extempore—a thing then rare in the Assembly—and poured forth with 1789. the vehemence and energy of impassioned conviction, 404, 405. recalled those sublime instances of ancient heroism, when Mém. de the inspired prophets poured forth in burning strains, Montlosier, against a blind generation thirsting for their blood, the iii. 398, 399. awful denunciations of judgment to come.1 Comte ii. 255. Lab. cible moral It was his unconquerable moral courage, and the 29. steady adherence which he manifested in those perilous His invintimes to the great principles of justice and humanity, courage. which secured for the Abbé Maury the respect even of his most envenomed enemies. Opposed in debate by Mirabeau, Barnave, and Clermont Tonnerre: interrupted at every step by the hisses or cries of two or three thousand spectators in the galleries: certain of being defeated in all his efforts by an overwhelming majority: in danger of being stoned, strung up to the lamp-post, or torn to pieces at the close of every interesting debate, by the furious mob which often surrounded the Assembly he never deviated from his duty, but was ever to be found at his post, combating the projects of spoliation and robbery which were brought forward, and proclaiming aloud, in the midst of a guilty generation, the eternal principles of justice and religion. Such was the fervour and rapidity of his thoughts, that the reporters in the galleries were unable to write down his finest speeches ; and next day, in the retirement of his dwelling, he was unable to recall what the animation of the tribune had drawn forth. A true soldier of the church, he threw himself with undaunted valour into the breach; and it was hard to say whether, in oratorical contests, the vehement fervour of his declamation, the cutting force of his sarcasm, or the inexhaustible resources of his knowledge, were most conspicuous. His character may be judged of by two anecdotes. In the commencement of the Assembly, seeing the universal delusion which had seized CHAP. 1789. the nation, he said to his friend Marmontel — “I have studied the two parties; I know the views of each. My mind is made up: I will perish in the breach; but I have not the less the mournful conviction that the enemy will carry the place by assault, and give it up to pillage.” And when he took leave of him for the last time, on his setting out for Rome, he said "In defending the good cause, I have done all I could; I have exhausted my strength, not to prevail in an Assembly where all my efforts were in vain, but to spread profound ideas of justice and truth in the nation and over Europe. I hope 1 Marm. ii. even to be listened to by posterity. It is not without profound grief that I remove from my country, but I iii. 399, 400. carry with me the firm conviction that the revolutionary power will one day be destroyed."1 294, 407. Mign. i. 155. Lab. 30. The chief other supporter of the Côté Droit, or ConCharacter of Servative side in the Assembly, was M. CAZALES.* An old M. Cazalès. military officer, he had, shortly before the Revolution, been received into the ranks of the nobility, and he proved one of its most able and intrepid defenders. His character was essentially different from that of the Abbé Maury; it was more contemplative and philosophic. Less fervent and animated than the intrepid * Cazalès was born in 1752, at Grenade, on the Garonne. He was the son of a counsellor of the parliament at Toulouse, and had the misfortune to lose his father, a man of rank, in early youth; and as this circumstance seemed to preclude him from the studies requisite for the learned profession, he entered the army, and joined at first with ardour in the amusements and pleasures of that career. But his character was too vigorous, and his mind too powerful to rest long satisfied with such pursuits, and before he had been many years in the service, he took with avidity to literary studies; while he spent the day in military exercises or amusements, he sat up half the night labouring at every branch of knowledge, and seeking to make up for the deficiencies of his education by redoubled application in maturer life. He had profoundly studied Montesquieu, and constantly combated the innovations of the Constituent Assembly, upon the ground so ably taken by that great man, that no nation in the end can prosper but by institutions in conformity with its spirit. He was obliged to emigrate, and lost nearly all his fortune, in 1792, but returned to France in 1800, after the elevation of Napoleon, and with the wreck of his fortune purchased a small estate in his native province, where he lived contented and happy till his death in 1805. His simplicity of character, rare modesty, and entire disinterestedness, procured for him universal and lasting esteem. See Biographie Universelle, vii. 473, 475, (Cazales.) IV. 1789. champion of the church, he was more profound, and had CHAP. taken a wider and more comprehensive view of human affairs. The ardent admirer of Montesquieu, he meditated deeply on that great man's writings, and now exerted himself in the Assembly to resist the movement, from a firm conviction, drawn from his principles, that it would infallibly terminate in the destruction of that freedom to the establishment of which its efforts were at present directed. Being unaccustomed to public speaking, he at first expressed himself with difficulty, and made no impression; but the copiousness of his ideas and the intensity of his thoughts soon, as is generally the case, removed that impediment; and he at length spoke with such force that, after one of his extempore orations, Mirabeau addressed him with the words "Sir, you are an orator." Simple and precise in his ideas, frank and conscientious in his character, he owed his success in the Assembly to the lucid order in which he unfolded his arguments, and the admirable language in which they were conveyed to his hearers. Had his knowledge been equal to his intellectual powers, or his erudition to his eloquence, he would have made a formidable opponent to Mirabeau himself; but his military education had left great defects in these particulars, which all his subsequent efforts were unable to overcome. Mirabeau, fre- 1 Lab. iii. quently said "If the knowledge of Cazalès were equal Th. i. 131. to the charms of his elocution, all our efforts would be ineffectual against him."1 401, 402. 31. Of a disposition somewhat similar, but on the opposite side in politics, and incomparably superior in learning of M. Bailly. and information, was M. BAILLY.* This eminent and * Bailly was born at Paris on the 15th September 1736, so that in 1789 he was fifty-three years of age. His father, who was keeper of the King's pictures, destined him for the same office; but his disposition led him so strongly to literary studies that it determined his future career. In the first instance he composed some tragedies, which have not been published, and had no particular merit; but ere long science attracted him from the paths of literature, and, under the celebrated mathematician La Caille, he soon attained great proficiency in it. In 1762, he presented to the Academy |