SANSCULLOTISED LITERATURE IN FRANCE. 36/ 



satirical, and as a pamphleteer he wielded the whip of satire 

 with elegant ease. He frequently made Paris split with laiiohter 

 by the macaronic fancies-rafter the manner of Juvenal — which 

 he popped off against ^those wdiom he wished to stigmatize. The 

 first to be the target of his caustic sallies were the royal family ; 

 then came the turn of the aristocrats ; then those who were the 

 first to show fright at the progress of the Revolutit>n ; then those 

 w'ho wanted to check the revolutionary movement. In his turn 

 Camille put in the last straw that broke the back of the opposi- 

 tion, when the King was to Ibe sent to the guillotine, and finally, 

 be attacked the Girondins. When be was informed that they 

 had been sentenced to death, he swooned, exclaiming : " It is my 

 book that is the cause of their death!" At a glance 

 he now ])roved the abyss which was yawning at his 

 ifeet, and into which so many good Republicans had already 

 been engulfed, driven into it by that delirium of persecution 

 which had laid hold of the least demented among them. Was it 

 si-ncere remorse for having provoked the downfall of the Giron- 

 dins? Was it a pro])hetic vision of the fate awaiting him? or 

 Avas it that he loathed his own unwarrantable cruelties, that, in 

 •conjunction with Souberbielle and Danton, made him resolve 

 to check the terrorists? Whatsoever it may have been, the shells 

 fell from his eyes when it was too late to mend. " I feel some- 

 times," said Camille, "as if I could turn my pen into a dagger 

 and stab the wretches ? But let them beware ! My ink is more 

 indelible than their blood; it will stain for immortality!" " W^ell, 

 then, if this be so, begin to-morrow," replied Danton. " It was 

 you who started the Revolution ; it is your duty to put on the 

 Ijrakes." But the sinister wheel was revolving with too great 

 I'elocity to obe}- any brakes, and on the 9th thermidor it crushed 

 the reckless demagogue who had set it going. Let us now leave 

 the orators and journalists, and see what became of dramatic 

 literature. 



It says somewhere that the drama is a harbinger of the 

 evolution of ideas and the jjioneer of social emancipation, but 

 that, whenever a political tempest breaks loose, it is carried 

 along and tossed hither and thither by the terrible violence of 

 the blast. Excellent for the purpose of justifying theoretical 

 reform, the drama is incapable of controlling the practical appli- 

 cation oif the same ; it is powerless against the unavoidable 

 excesses accruing from a revolution, and unable to act as the 

 moderating brake that is indispensable for securing the stability 

 of equilibrium. It is kept in subjection by the events, and when 

 no longer able to hold the leadership, it stoops to follow in the 

 wake of triumphant demagogy. The history of the drama dur- 

 ing the revolutionary |)eri()d is a typical illustration of this 

 theory. In proportion as the various political ])hases are develo])- 

 ing, and the rule of liberty, progressively established, graduallv 

 (legenerates first into despotism and then into terrorism, dramatic 

 art shows a retrogression which daih' becomes more and more 

 noticeable, and finallv results in a most lamentable bankrujjtcv. 



