925 



BRISSOT, JACQUES PIERRE. 



BRITANNICUS. 



916 



BRISSOT, JACQUES PIERRE, was born on the 14th of January 

 1754, in the village of Ouarville, near Chartres. His father, though 

 only a poor pastry-cook, contrived to give all his children a pood edu- 

 c ition. It was his intention that Jacques Pierre, who as a boy gave 

 signs of great talents, should be brought up to the bar, but the youth's 

 early passion for literature defeated this project. Brissot was particu- 

 larly fond of the study of languages, and made himself a perfect 

 master of English : he eagerly devoured the best authors, turning his 

 attention more especially to the historians, economists, and political 

 writers. On attaining the age of manhood he quitted tbe study of law 

 and went to Boulogne, where he was intrusted with the editorship of 

 the ' Courier de 1'Europe.' This liberal journal was soon arbitrarily 

 suppressed by the French government, and Brissot was thrown upon 

 the world with no other resources than his acquirements and abilities. 



In 1780 he published his ' Theory of Criminal Laws ;' and the next 

 year two eloquent discourses on the same subject gained him the 

 prizes in the Academy of Chalons-sur-Marne. Between the years 1782 

 and 1786 he put forth ten volumes of ' The Philosophical Library ' on 

 criminal laws. At the same time he studied the natural sciences, and 

 devoted part of his time to metaphysical pursuits, in which latter 

 department he published an essay, entitled ' On Truth, or Meditations 

 on the Means of reaching Truth in all branches of Human Knowledge.' 

 During part of this time he resided in England, and it was in London, 

 somewhere about the year 1783, that he undertook a periodical work, 

 called ' Universal Correspondence on all that concerns the Happiness 

 of Men and Society.' The laudable object of this work was to dis- 

 seminate in France all such political principles as were baaed on reason. 

 The constitutional laws and usages of England formed a leading topic. 

 The French government seized and suppressed the book. His next 

 work* were 'A Picture of the Sciences and Arts of England,' and 

 another on British India. 



Returning to France, the ministry of the day arrested him and 

 threw uim into the Bastille. His imprisonment was not of long dura- 

 tion, but in obtaining his liberty he was compelled to give up au 

 Anglo-French work, which was to have been written partly by English- 

 men, and partly by Frenchmen, and circulated in both countries. 

 These persecutions inflamed his hatred of arbitrary power. In 1785, 

 during the insurrection of the Wallachians, he published two letters, 

 addressed to the Emperor Joseph II., 'On the Right of Emigration,' 

 and ' On the Right of Insurrection.' He continued to be indefatigable 

 with his pen, but most of his works possessing only a temporary 

 interest, have long since fallen into oblivion. He warmly favoured 

 the revolutionary party in the English North American colonies, and 

 wrote a good deal in support of their cause. He was au emancipationist, 

 ami one of the first members of the French society called 'The Friends 

 of the Blacks.' 



The freedom of his pen brought him again into difficulties, and on 

 learning that a lettre-de-cachet was signed for his arrest, he fled and 

 took refuge in England. After a short stay in London he crossed the 

 Atlantic to the United States, where his love of republican institutions 

 was increased by seeing their operation in that country. 



In 1789 the progress of events in France enabled him to return 

 home, and use his pen without any fear of the Bastille. He floated 

 forward on the revolutionary torrent He was elected member of the 

 first municipal council of the city of Paris, and in that capacity receivec 

 the keys of the captured Bastille, on the 1 4th of July. Soon after he 

 was elected by the citizens of Paris to be their representative in the 

 Constituent Assembly. Ho joined the party called the Qironde, anc 

 co-operated with Vergniaud, Quadet, Gensonno", the Provencal Isnard 

 and others, who were weak and imprudent politicians, but among the 

 most eloquent and best men in France. " The opinions of Brissot 

 who desired a complete reform ; hia great activity of mind, which 

 enabled him to re-produce himself in the journal called ' The Patriot, 

 at the tribune of the Assembly, in the club of the Jacobins; his 

 precise and extensive information respecting the situation of foreign 

 powers, gave him a great ascendancy at a moment of struggle between 

 the parties and of war against all Europe." (Mignet, ' Hist, of the 

 French Revolution.') The Girondists triumphed over the Feuillans 

 or moderate constitutional monarchy party ; but they were in their 

 turn defeated in much the same manner by the Jacobins or party callec 

 the Mountain, who went as much farther than the Girondists, as the 

 Girondists had gone farther than the Feuillans. The Gironde was 

 nothing more in the revolution than a party of transition from the 

 power of the middling classes of society to that of the mob. The 

 members of it put themselves and their country in a position from 

 which there was no escape except through seas of blood. During the 

 fearful struggle Brissot incurred the deadly hatred of Robespierre 

 which was equivalent to a death-warrant. On the 2nd of June 1793 

 a sentence of arrest was passed against him. Brissot was calm anc 

 firm, and at first not inclined to do anything to escape death, but on 

 tbe entreaties of his family and friends he attempted to get to Switzer 

 land. Being arrested at Moulins, he was carried back to Paris, an 

 brought before the revolutionary tribunal, where the Jacobins in vaiu 

 endeavoured to destroy his courage and self-possession. The onl 

 regrets he expressed were at the political errors he had committee! 

 and at leaving bis wife and children in absolute poverty. He was 

 condemned, of course, and went to the guillotine with twenty othe 

 Girondists, hia associates and friends, on the 81st of October 1793 



ust nine months and ten days after they had voted the death of 

 jouis XVI. (whose life however they attempted to spare), and fifteen 

 ays after the execution of the Queen Marie Antoinette. They marched 

 o the scaffold with all the stoicism of the times, and singing, as it was 

 he fashion to do, the ' Marsellaise,' or song of the republic. They all 

 ied with courage. Briasot was only thirty-nine years old. His com- 

 panions in death were Vergniaud, Gensonne', Fonfrede, Ducos, Valaze', 

 jasource, Sille'ry, Gardien, Carra, Duprat, Beauvais, Duchatel, Jlaiu- 

 ielle, Lacaze, Boileau, Lehardy, Autiboul, and Vige"e. 



Brissot stood at the head of the party which he embraced. At one 

 ime ia his political career a large section of the house was called after 

 lis name, 'The Brissotins." He was singularly honest and disin- 

 arested : he sincerely wished the good of his country, but he knew 

 not how to accomplish it. His biographers have recorded of him, 

 ;hat he was mild and simple in his manners, small of stature, weak, 

 and somewhat deformed in person, and that his countenance was 

 rank, open, and expressive. After his return from America, he affected 

 ;he simplicity of dress of the Quakers. 



BRITA'NNICUS, son of the Emperor Claudius, and of his third 

 wife the infamous Messalina, was born on the llth of February, A.D. 

 12, on the twentieth day after his father's accession, and was at first 

 lamed Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, a name which was changed in 

 icnour of the subsequent conquests in Britain. When only six years 

 old, while exhibiting before his father in the mimic fights called 

 Troja,' during the Circensian games, the wishes of the populace 

 seemed to incline in favour of L. Domitius, the son of Agrippina, who 

 leaded the opposite band, and who afterwards succeeded to the 

 imperial dignity under the title of Nero. On the death of Messalina, 

 and the marriage of Claudius with his niece Agrippina, Octavia, sister 

 of Britannicus, who had been betrothed to Silanus, was given in 

 marriage to Lucius Domitius, and pains were taken by the courtiers, 

 who had procured the death of Measalina, to elevate the adopted 

 prince to equal honours with the sou whom Claudius had hitherto 

 acknowledged as his heir. 



Medal, with the inscription ( Claudius Britannicus Cjesar.' Copper. (Capt. 

 Smyth's collection.) 



Copper. (Capt. Smyth's collection.) 



At the Circensian games Britannicus appeared in the pratexta, or 

 youthful dress ; Nero in a triumphal robe ; and the populace formed 

 their opinion as to the future fortune of each accordingly. When the 

 boys met each other afterwards, Nero saluted his playfellow as 

 ' Britannicus ; ' Britannicus replied to him only by the family name 

 of ' Domitius.' Agrippina expressed great indignation at this affront, 

 and complained to her husband Claudius that his adoption was treated 

 with contempt that the decree of the senate and the command of 

 the people were abrogated within the palace walls and that if a stop 

 were not put to the perverseness of those preceptors by whom Britan- 

 nicus had been instructed, public disasters must ensue. Claudius, 

 moved by her remonstrances, banished or put to death the excellent 

 tutors who bad hitherto brought up his son, and placed him under 

 the care of others recommended by his crafty step-mother. 



When the intrigues and the crimes of Agrippina had obtained the 

 imperial dignity for her own son, Britannicus necessarily became an 

 object of suspicion to Nero, whose fears were by no means diminished 

 by the threats in which his mother indulged upon the banishment 

 of her lover Pallas. She took care indeed not to conceal her menaces 

 from her son ; and she pronounced Britannicus to be the true stock 

 of the Cjesars, and alone worthy to succeed to his father's empire, 



