The life of Napoleon Buonaparte, emperor of the French. By Sir Walter Scott.

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
literature, silenced during the reign of Robespierre, ment, far less changing its character. These veteran
were once more admitted to exercise their natural revolutionists must be considered as separate from
influence in favour of civil order and religion. Mar- those who called themselves thermidoriens, though
montel, La Harpe, and others, who in their youth they lent their assistance to the revolution on tl:e
had been enrolled in the list of Voltaire's disciples, 9th Thermidor. They viewed as deserters and
and amongst the infidels of the Encyclop&die, now apostates Legendre, Le Cointre, and others, above
made amends for their youthful errors, by exerting all Tallien and Barras, who, in the fill height of their
themselves in the cause of good morals, and of a career, had paused to take breath, and were now
regulated government. endeavouring to shape a course so different from that
At length followed that general and long-desired which they had hitherto pursued.
measure, which gave liberty to so many thousands, These genuine sans-culottes endeavoured to rest
by suspending'the law denouncing suspected per- their own power and popularity upon the same basis
sons, and emptying at once of' their inhabitants the as formerly. They re-opened the sittings of' the Japrisons which had hitherto only transmitted them to cobin Club, shut up on the 9tll Thermllidor. This
the guillotine. The tales which these victims of ancient revolutionary cavern again heard its roof
jacobinism had to repeat, when revealing the secrets resound with denunciations, by which Vadier, Bilof their prison-house, together with the moral in- laud Varennes, and others, devoted to the infernal
flence produced by such a universal gaol-delivery, deities Le Cointre, and those who, they complained,
and tlie reunion which it effected amongst fiiends wished to involve all honest republicans in the
and relations that had been so long separated, tended charges brought against Robespierre and his friends.
greatly to strengthen the hands of the thermidoriens, Those threats, however, were no longer rapidly folwho still boasted of that name, and to consolidate a lowed by the thunderbolts which used to attend such
rational and moderate party, both in the capital and flashes of jacobin eloquence. Men's homes were
provinces. It is, however, by no means to be won- now in comparison safe. A man mlig-ht be nanled in
dered at, that the liberated sufferers showed a dis- a jacobin club as an aristocrat, or a moderate, and
position to exercise retribution in a degree which yet live. In fact, the demagogues svere more anxious
their liberators trembled to indulge, lest it might have to secure immunity for their past crimes, than at
recoiled upon themselves. Still both parties united present to incur new censure. The tide of general
against the remains of the jacobins. opinion was flowving strongly against them, and a
A singular and melancholy species of force sup- singularincident increased its power, and rendered
ported these movements towards civilization and it irresistible.
order. It was levied among the orphans and youthful The Parisians had naturally enough imlagined,
friends of those. who had fallen under the fatal guil- that the provinces could have no instances of'jacolotine, and amounted in number to two or three binical cruelty and misrule to describe, more tragic
thousand young men, who acted in concert, were and appalling than the numerous executions which
distinguished by black collars, and by their hair the capital had exhibited every day. But the arrival
being plaited and turned up a la victime, as pre- of eighty prisoners, citizens of Nantes, charged with
pared for the guillotine. This costume was adopted the usual imputations cast upon suspected persons,
in memory of the principle of mourning on which undeceived them. These captives lhad been sent,
they were associated. These volunteers were not for the purpose of being tried at Paris before the
regularly armed or disciplined, but formed a sort of Revolutionary Tribunal. Fortunately, they (did not
free corps, who opposed themselves readily and arrive till after Robespierre's fall, and cons(eqIlently
effectually to the jacobins, when they attempted when they were looked upon rather as oppressed
their ordinary revolutionary tactics of exciting partial persons than as criminals, ande( were listened to more
insulrections, and intimidating the orderly citizens as accusers of those by whonl they were iperst-tcuLted,
by sholts and violence. Many scuffles took place than as culprits on their defence.
betwixt the parties, with various success; but ulti- It was then that the metropolis first heard of
Inately the spirit and courage of the young avengers horrors which we have formerly barely hinted at.
steemed to give them daily a more decided snpe- It was then they were told of cl'owds of citiz-nls,
riotity. The jacobins dared not show themselves, mostof whom had been favourable to the republican
thl:t is, to avouch their principles, either at the places order of things, and had borne arms against the
of public anmuserment, or in the Palais Royal, or the Vendeans in their attack upon Nantes; miten accused
Tllilel:ies, all of' which had formerly witnessed their upon grounds equally slight, and incapable of proof;
victories. Their assemblies now took place under having been piled together in dungeons, where the
some appearance of secrecy, and were held in re- air was pestilential front ordrle, fiom tile carcasses
nlote streets, and with such marks of diminished of the dead, and the infectious diseases of tile dying,
audacity as augured that the spirit of the party was It was then they heard of repulllican baptisln, atl
crestfallen. republican marriages-of men, women, and children
Still, however, the jacobin party possessed dread- sprawling together, like toads and frogs in the season
fil leaders in Billand Varennes and Collot d'Her- of spring, in the waters of the Loire, too shallow to
bois, who repeatedly attempted to awaken its ter- afford them instant death. It was then they heard
rific energy. These demagogues had joined, indeed, of a hundred other abominations-how those upin the struggle against Robespierre, but it was with permost upon the expitinitg minass p-rayed to be thrust
the expectation that an Amurath was to succeed an into the deeper water, that they Inight have the
Amurath-a jacobin a jacobin-not for the purpose means of death-and of much more that hutmanity
of relaxing the reins of the revolutionary govern- forbears to detail; but in regard to which, the sharp,