624 



PREVOST-PARADOL, LUCIEJJ A. 



presbyteries which have voted on the subject 

 have, however, returned favorable responses. 

 The churches concerned in the movement are 

 the Free Church, with nine hundred congrega- 

 tions ; the United Presbyterian Church, with 

 six hundred congregations; and the smaller 

 body of the Reformed Presbyterians. The 

 leaders of the Established Church have been 

 interested observers of these proceedings, and 

 have labored to win the Free Church to effect 

 a union with them, or, if this failed, to make 

 their own church a party in a union of all the 

 Presbyterian Churches. 



X. IRISH PBESBYTERIAXS. The Irish Pres- 

 byterians have been arranging the financial 

 measures which became necessary for the sup- 

 port of their church after the withdrawal of 

 the Regium Donum, under the provisions of 

 the church-disestablishment act. The General 

 Assembly were agreed upon a plan of commu- 

 tation, which by the terms of the Government 

 would secure every minister in the church 

 forty pounds sterling during each year of his 

 life. A sustentation fund was also established, 

 and the liberality of the church was appealed 

 to, to place it upon a secure foundation. This 

 church has 126,000 members, with an annual 

 income from the British Government of 94,- 

 000. It reports 1,094 Sunday-schools, 8,050 

 teachers, and 16,350 scholars. 



PREVOST-PARADOL, LTTCIEK AXATOLK, a 

 French Republican publicist and diplomatist, 

 born at Paris, August 8, 1829 ; died by his own 

 hand during an attack of temporary insanity, 

 in Washington, D. C., July 20, 1870. His father 

 was an officer in the French Army, and his 

 mother, Mile. Paradol, an actress of distinc- 

 tion in the Classical Theatre of the Rue Riche- 

 lieu. 



The son studied at the Bourbon College, 

 gaining many prizes, and entered the Ecole 

 Normals, where he remained until 1851, ob- 

 taining the prize for eloquence given by the 

 Acad6tnie Francaise for his " Eloge de Bernar- 

 dine St.-Pierre." In August, 1855, he took 

 the degree of Doctor in Letters, was appointed 

 to the chair of French Literature by the Fac- 

 ulty of Aix, and in 1856 became one of the 

 editors of the Journal des DebaU. In 1860 he 

 was attached for some months to the Presse, 

 but very soon returned to the Debats. In the 

 capacity of a journalist he had the peculiar 

 art of suggestiveness, of carefully wording his 

 views so that, while implying a good deal, the 

 censors of the press, ever watchful for any 

 thing like treason against the ruling power, 

 were unable to find tangible evidence warrant- 

 ing conviction. He managed to keep just 

 within the prescribed bounds, though never 

 losing sight of the great needs of France free 

 speech and free institutions. Unable to find 

 specific occasion for overt act, the journal 

 finally received a private intimation from the 

 Government that the premier-Paris of that 

 paper must no longer be contributed by M. 

 Pr6vost-Paradol. In June, 1860, he was fined 



1,000 francs and suffered a month's imprison- 

 ment for the publication of apolitical pamphlet 

 entitled "Les Anciens Partis." Subsequent- 

 ly he attached himself to the Courrier du 

 Dimanche, and here again developed his talent 

 for smooth, keen sarcasm, and delighted its 

 readers while exasperating the Government 

 officials, who found themselves wounded by a 

 weapon whose delicate edge and rapid play 

 rendered it perceptible only by its effects. 

 The paper for many years vibrated between 

 warnings, suspensions, and fitful issues, and 

 finally, in August, 1866, was suppressed. Twice 

 during his editorial career, in 1863 and 1869, 

 M. PreVost-Paradol became a candidate for 

 the suffrages of the electors of Paris and its 

 vicinity, to a seat in the Corps L6gislatif, but 

 both times he was signally unsuccessful, the 

 whole power of the Government being arrayed 

 against him, while the Republicans regarded 

 him as not sufficiently advanced to suit their 

 views. Disheartened by these failures, he de- 

 clared in his journal that he should never 

 again attempt the defence of universal suf- 

 frage. When, in January, 1870, Louis Napoleon, 

 driven to stake all upon his last card, gave to 

 France the shadow instead of the substance 

 of a liberal and constitutional government, and 

 called the whilom Republican, Ollivier, to the 

 premiership, he sought to placate still further 

 the Liberals by drawing away others of their 

 able men in the toils of official station. He 

 made overtures, through Ollivier, to his old 

 enemy PrSvost-Paradol, to represent his Gov- 

 ernment in a diplomatic capacity, and so 

 adroitly was the bait offered by the Premier, 

 that the Liberal journalist, at first surprised, 

 at length listened with but faint disapproval 

 to the urgent entreaties of his old friend, who 

 insisted that he might by taking office further 

 the cause of liberal government, and at last 

 consented somewhat reluctantly to become 

 French ambassador to the United States. 

 When his nomination was announced, his Lib- 

 eral friends did not at first believe that he 

 would accept the appointment at the hands of 

 a government which he had for years lashed 

 so unsparingly, and, when at last they were 

 convinced that he had consented, they de- 

 nounced him with great and undeserved bitter- 

 ness. That the step was an unwise one there 

 is no doubt, and none subsequently was more 

 conscious of it than himself; but that ho 

 entered upon it from any unworthy motives, 

 there is not a particle of evidence. His nature 

 was an intensely sensitive one, and he, no 

 doubt, honestly believed that he might be of 

 service to France by representing her at the 

 capital of a nation for whom he had mani- 

 fested the strongest and heartiest sympathy 

 during its recent gigantic struggle for a na- 

 tional existence. *Yet he was seriously de- 

 pressed by the attacks of his old friends. He 

 left Brest, France, on the 2d of July, and at 

 that time there were no intimations of the 

 coming storm of war, which was so soon to 



