TWO BOOKS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.* THE first of these

books had attained its majority before finding a translator. It was published in 1890, and it only now appears in an English dress. It is quite worth translat- ing, though; were the Papal Envoy alive, he might hardly be grateful for his introduction to a new public. We do not mean that there is anything in M. de Salamon's narrative which does him any real discredit. Indeed, it is in the fact that he sets little store by the dignity of history that gives his memoirs their charm. The story of the September massacres has been told by Carlyle and by the eye witnesses whom he quoted, and the Abbe can add nothing to their horror. But his memory has preserved a number of trifling details which probably would never have been introduced had he been writing for the public, but are just what would remain in the memory when more important matters are forgotten, and would be set down for the eye of an intimate friend. But for this we might be tempted to doubt the accuracy of recollections put on paper many years after the events to which they relate. The level of heroism and devotion among the priests penned up for slaughter in the Abbey of Saint-Germain des Pres was, as might be expected, very uneven, and the Abbe de Salmon makes no claim to a high place in it. He had a keen eye for any expedient that could make the days spent in prison more tolerable, and he was quite willing to share any little advantage he was able to gain by this means with his less capable or less fortunate fellow- sufferers. The prisoners were transferred to the Abbey early on December 2nd, 1792, and he at once suggested asking the warder to buy them a couple of brooms, by the use f which he managed to make the room a little cleaner. The ay was Sunday. "I confess," writes the Abbe, "I had forgotten it:'hat a more holy priest than 1, the good old Cure of Saint- Jean-en-Greve, remembered it for us." At his suggestion the whole company knelt down with the Cure and repeated the prayers of the Mass. Dinner followed (at the cost of the

• * (1) A Root Envoy daring the Terror. Lon(lon: Sands and Co. 1-10s. nat.1—(21 The French Revolution. By Hilaire Bello°. London: Williams (Is. net.]

prisoners for that day, with the prospect of its being paid for by the nation on the following days if any of them were left to eat it). Salamon, however, did not take his place at the table. His housekeeper had brought.a covered basket which she had specially prepared for him. "It consisted of soup it la, Borghese without bread, radishes, very tender boiled beef, a plump chicken, artichokes with pepper—one of my favourite dishes—and some fine peaches." He kept nothing of this to himself except the peaches. The rest be "shared with a poor priest. Evidently be bad had ne breakfast ; i distracted my thoughts to watch him eat." In the middle of the meal the warder drew back the bolts and told the diners to make haste, as the mob were stcrtning the prison and had already begun to massacre the prisoners. "Everyone hurriedly left the table, and the Abbe Godard and I began to collect for the expense of the half-eaten dinner. There was no reckoning ; each one put what he liked into the Abbe Godard's hat; there were even fifteen francs over, which we gave to the warder as a tip to make him more obliging." Later in the afternoon canie the news of the massacres in the other prisons, and the priests began to make their last confessions to the best known of their number ! I must own, adds the Abbe, "that instead of thinking about my confession I went mechanically back to my accustomed seat," but as the massacres seemed coming nearer the whole company "threw themselves at the feet of the Cure of Saint-Jean-en- Greve, and we all—priests and laymen—with one voice begged earnestly and with one voice for the absolution in ctrticulo mortis." About 11.30 p.m. the prison was invaded. Before the doors were forced the Abbe and thirteen of his fellow- prisoners lowered themselves through a window into a little yard from which there was no outlet except through a door which had been plastered up. Here the mob found them, but for the moment nothing was done. Salamon had not much toleration for individual attempts to remain unnoticed.

"While we were in this painful position a rough voice sud- denly called out : The Abbe Godard !' As may easily be imagined, the Abbe was in no hurry to go forward. Fearing lest the crowd should become irritated by his silence, I said : Come, Abbe, you are known here; go forward then, otherwise you will have us all massacred on the spot. Perhaps your gigantic stature will overawe them." Salamon says that "these words gave him courage," but it is more likely that he went forward because he saw that his fellow-prisoners would not let him remain in the background. Suddenly a big stout man seized him by the ea...tar, crying, "The scoundrel!

The brigand! " and he was led away, as they all supposed, to be murdered. It was only one of the rescues so frequent in

the Revolution. Though the poor Abbe Godard thought that his last hour had come, he was really in Ole hands of disguised friends, and a fortnight later Salamon met him in the

street.

The rest of the prisoners were then taken to another room, where they found a number of men hotly disputing with one another. The names of the prisoners had not been furnished to the judges ; they had been sent in simply as "refractory priests." There was a division among the judges as to whether the prisoners should be asked any questions. The more merciful view prevailed, but the delay thus interposed was a short one. The priests were asked one after another whether they had taken the oath, and death followed at once upon eaeh "No." The massacres were now interrupted to receive a deputation from the Marseillais who had made the famous march to Paris. They came to ask pardon for two

prisoners confined in another part of the Abbey. 4 young man "who wore his hair powdered and a earter's smock all covered with blood fiercely opposed this, and ended by moving that "we resolve on cruelty." At this point

Salmon was seized by one of his higher impulses. He

"advanced to the table and shouted : 'Who deep not know that the patriotism of the Marseillais burns brighter than the sun which t shines upon them ? Who can doubt that when the Marseillais.: interest themselves in two prisoners it is because those two are the two greatest patriots in Paris ? . . . I move, Monsieur le. President, that these two prisoners be brought hero instantly and pardoned,' and by way of Conclusion I brought my fist down with a bang upon the green table-cloth."

After a long interval of uproar the motion was carried, the two pardoned prisoners were brought in, and in one of them the Abbe recognized an acquaintance. By daylight all hie companions had been murdered, and then Salamon's turn

came. But the judges had grown tired of their work and he was remanded for further information. The next evening be was tried and acquitted, his very judges congratulating him on his escape from "this horrible massacre."

Though this is the most exciting chapter in the book, those which describe his life under the Terror—passed partly in hiding in Paris and partly in the woods which then sur- rounded the city—and his trial and acquittal under the Directory are full of interest. No part of the book, however, gives at all a complete view of M. de Salamon's career or an adequate estimate of his merits. There is nothing to explain

the choice of him first as Papal Internuncio during the Revolution, next as Vicar Apostolic until he was superseded by a Legate a latere in 1801, and then as Administrator General of the Province of Normandy. For information on these matters the reader must turn to his secret correspond-

ence with Cardinal Zelada. His letters were forwarded to Rome with a regularity which is simply marvellous when we

remember the circumstances in which they often bad to be written. They were supposed to be lost until

the Vicomte de Richemont discovered the portion covering the period between August 29th, 1791, and June 6th, 1792, and published it in 1898. These letters give a far higher idea of Salamon's abilities and character than is gained from the memoir, and are really better worth trans- lating.

The second work we have to notice is of a different and rarer order. It is a survey of the French Revolution from the meeting of the National Assembly in May, 1789, to the end of the Terror in July, 1794. Nowhere will the ordinary reader find the meaning of these eventful five years made so clear as in Mr. Belloc's little book. We do not mean that it contains the last word that will be said about the French Revolution. Until its place in history is taken by some still more eventful series of changes that word is likely to remain unspoken. Mr. Belloc's merit is that be makes the Revolution intelligible. He has his explanation of its origin, of the motives which actuated the chief personages of the drama, of the part which civil and religious considerations severally played in its development, and, above all, of the fact that the Revolution, "more than any other modern period, turns upon, and is explained by, its military history." Mr. Belloc holds that it is to the military situation that we must go if we wish to account for either the beginning or the ending of the Terror. From the captivity of the Royal Family in June, 1791, events in Paris are more and more governed by what is happening in the field, until in August, 1793, Carnot enters the Committee of Public Safety and every other consideration, moral or political, is postponed to that of National Defence. This same month of August sees the first true levy. "It was a levy of men, vehicles, animals, and pro- visions, and soon furnished something not far short of half a million soldiers." To Carnot and his colleagues the Terror was

"no more than martial law and an engine of their despotic control. Of the two thousand and more that passed before the Revolutionary tribunal and were executed in fParis the large majority were those whom the Committee of Public Safety judged

to be obstacles to their military policy Some were generals who had failed or were suspected of treason ; and some, among the most conspicuous were politicians who had attempted to check so absolute a method of conducting the war."

Of the former class the most striking example was Houchard. He had raised the siege of Dunkirk and won

"the first successful decisive action which the Revolution could count since the moment of the extreme danger and the open- ing of the general European war. But it was nothing like what it might have been had Houchard been willing to risk a hardy stroke. Houchard was therefore recalled, condemned to death, and executed by the Committee of Public Safety, whose pitiless des- potism was alone capable of saving the nation."

'On the civil side the chief sufferer was Danton. "Re believed, perhaps, that the country was now safe in the military sense and needed such rigours no more. But the Committee dis- agreed, and were evidence available we should perceive that Carnot in particular determined that such opposition must cease." Perhaps the most interesting thing in Mr. Belloc's volume is his estimate of Robespierre. It may not account for all the inconsistencies of that strange temperament, but at least it brings them into some kind of orderly sequence. Mr.

Bello° distinguishes between the legendary and the real Robespierre—the one the author and the soul of the Terror, the other identified with the Terror in the popular mind, and accepting the character because he "believed the Terror to be popular and dared not lose his popular name."

We have only space to add that the book has six chapters —two on the theory of the Revolution and Rousseau's share in getting it accepted, two dealing with the characters and phases of the Revolution, and two on its military and religious aspects—and that all this matter is brought within the com- pass of a shilling volume. The rough outline maps given in the text help greatly to make the movements of the armies