Hoche. You wrong me. It is not a portion, but a wife, that I feek.

Dechaux. Pardon, citizen general, the observation which I now make. It is cuftomary, when a person, propofes himself as a husband, that the parents of the woman whom he demands fhould receive fome information concerning him.

Hoche. That information will be fhort and fimple. I was born near Verfailles; my mother died foon after my birth; my father is ftill living at Paris; my name is Lazarus Hoche, and I have been a foldier from the age of fixteen.

Dechaux. But my daughter is very young, not yet fifteen.

Hoche. I wifh for a young mind, one that I may form myfelf. Your daughter appears to poffefs all the qualities which I defire. I conclude, citizen Dechaux, from all your obfervations, that I fhall be your fon-in-law.

Dechaux. Citizen general, you have taken your fatherin-law by affault.

Hoche. After having heard all your remarks, I have only one to make. Is your daughter's heart at liberty? Dechaux. I believe fo.

Hoche. I request an hour's converfation with her, to affure myself of that point.

That hour fufficed to convince Hoche that her heart was free, and that he was difpofed to love him. A few days completely determined the affair, and he became a husband.

But these were the calamitous days of the revolution, when those men who had affumed the fupreme power indulged every mean and wicked paffion, and exercised all the enormities of tyranny. The ableft and most active friends of liberty were involved in the common danger. Hoche had a powerful and unforgiving enemy: it was St.-Juft. He had refufed to communicate a particular military plan to that commiffioner, becaufe, he faid, fecrely was neceflary. St.-Juft was offended: he was alfo difpleafed because, when the armies of the Mofelle and Rhine had effected a junction, he had wifhed to give the chief command to Pichegru, while the other commiffioners infifted on the appointment of Hoche. St.-Juft was obliged to yield; but, in his reports of the fubfequent fucceffes to the convention, he endeavoured to rob Hoche of his glory; and Pichegru, it is faid, meanly fought to appropriate to himself the chief merit of the exploits. Hoche wrote to the committee of public fafety, requesting the members to examine his correfpondence with Pichegru and his official orders, and afcertain who it was that planned and executed thofe important actions.

While only the English journals did juftice to this able general, St.-Juft was bufy in plotting his deftruction. He was nominated general of the army of Italy; but, when he went to take the command, he was arrested at Nice. A confinement in the Conciergerie was the reward of his fervices. Among other books, he had the Epiftles of Seneca in prifon one fentence particularly ftruck him: Non fumus in ullius poteftate, cum mors in noftrâ poteftate eft.' It appeared to him worth whole volumes of philofophy; he called it the whole code of courage, and was often heard to fay, that the man was no republican who did not cherish in his heart the refolution of being fuperior to the power of all tyrants.

It was not, however, folely in the philofophy of the Stoics, that Hoche fought confolation during his imprisonment. Though he had hitherto been remarkable for temperance, he now drank to excefs, and, it is said, intrigued with women, irreproachable before their confinement, who could find no better comfort. His converfation was now all levity; and he spake in bons-mots. There remains a curious paper, written at this time, in which he has delineated with fome humour the characters of his fellowprisoners.

The fall of Robespierre restored Hoche to liberty; and, after fome delay, he obtained a command in La Vendée. This department, in which fo many generals had failed of fuccefs, was to Hoche a new theatre of glory. He did not employ terror alone against the infurgents: he protected the peasants, he conciliated their regard, he hunted down Charette, he conquered at Quiberon, and restored La Vendée to tranquillity and to the republic.

The expedition to Ireland, the favourite project of Hoche, was at length undertaken. A little while before he failed, an attempt was made at Rennes to affaffinate him; but the piftol miffed him, and the man was feized. Hoche fent money to the wife and children of the offender. The man's fate is not mentioned; but it is said, that on examination he was found to be a perfon of quality. The fleet failed to Ireland; but the winds preserved that kingdom, or the rebellion might have been now a revolution.

On his return, Hoche was appointed to the command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, then diforganized and crowded with effeminate officers. He reftored its difcipline and fpirit; he conquered at Neuwied; and his career was only stopped by intelligence of the signature of preliminaries of peace with the emperor.

That conteft which terminated in the banishment of Pichegru and his affociates deeply interested Hoche. He

was in the confidence of Barras, and was of opinion that the fafety of the commonwealth depended upon vigorous measures. He did not long live to enjoy the fuccefs of the republican party; an illness, the effect, it is furmised, of poifon, preyed upon him; and in September, 1797, to use the expreffions of his biographer, he retired from life, regretted and honoured by his friends and by the republic, and lamented alfo by his horfe, and his dog Pitt.'

The abbé St.-Pierre requires three things to constitute a great man: I. a great motive, or a great defire of promoting the public good; 2. great difficulties overcome, as well by the perfeverance of a patient and courageous mind, as by the talents of a juft and comprehenfive genius, fertile in expedients; 3. great advantages procured to the public in general, or to his country in particular. The reader may judge whether general Hoche accomplished thefe three conditions.

The fecond volume contains the official correspondence of Hoche. He feems to have accommodated his ftyle to the fashion of the times, and, when fans-culotterie was the order of the day, to have remembered the blackguardifms of the ftable. But his mind was daily advancing; and, when we recollect the low ftation from which he rofe, and his early age at his death, we may juftly rank him among the greateít men whom the republic has produced.

Mémoires pour fervir à l'Hiftoire du Jacobinifme, par M. l'Abbé Barruel. Quatrième Partie. 1798.

Memoirs illuftrating the History of Jacobinifm, by the Abbé. Barruel. Vol. IV. 8vo. De Boffe.

IN our laft furvey of the abbé Barruel's memoirs *, we concluded that his labours were at an end. For, although, in his third volume, after giving a hiftory of the illuminés, he promised to examine how far fuccefs had attended their fteps, and what fhare their machinations had in the revolution of France, by engendering Jacobinifm, it occurred to us that the labours of profeffor Robifon, by anticipating, this part of the fubject, rendered it unneceffary for the abbe to write the volume which now lies before us. In this,' however, he proceeds to a detail, illuftrated by copious extracts, of the origin and progrefs of free-mafonry, evidently` ufing the fame materials that the profeffor employed, and following nearly the fame arrangement. With this fubject our readers may be prefumed to be fufficiently acquainted from the profeffor's work, although he is by no

*See our XX1st. Vol. New Arr. p. 530.

means fo acute in his obfervations, or so candid in his statements, as the abbé. In our account of his proofs of a confpiracy, we offered various objections, and animadverted on his defect of evidence. The abbé, unfortunately for Mr. Robifon, furnishes us with a new ground of objection. He obferves, that, although they both ufed the fame materials, the public will fee a remarkable difference between their quotations. He accounts for the difference by faying, that Mr. Robifon adopted the eafter, though the more hazardous, of two methods of quotation, combining in one paragraph what his memory might have compiled from many.

In the prefent volume, we find a more authentic and perfect account of illuminifm (to ufe an expreffion of the abbé) and its connexion with free-mafonry, than the profeffor has given. We proceed to exhibit a sketch of its moft material contents.

In the first place, M. Barruel finds every measure of the French revolution in the preceding plots. Beginning with the meeting of the states-general, he obferves, that the difciples of Montefquieu and Rouffeau had declared, as early as the year 1771, that it was only by a general affembly of national deputies, that man could be re-established in his primitive rights of equality and liberty, and the people in their imprefcriptible rights of legislative fovereignty.' About the fame time alfo, the fophifts had pronounced that the great obftacle to the acquifition of those rights, was the ancient diftinction of three orders, the clergy, nobility, and commons.' It was therefore thought expedient, as one of the primary means of effecting a revolution, to obtain a convocation of the ftates-general, and to abolish in those. very ftates the diftinction of orders. In the event, Necker was the chief agent of the conspirators. The abbé does not fcruple to confider that minifter as the principal cause of all the difafters of the revolution. In the feveral articles of the declaration of the rights of man, he difcovers the effence of the three confpiracies. Those which declare that all men are equal and free, that the fovereignty refides in the nation, and that the king is only the organ of the general will,' are the fame which were pronounced by Montefquieu, d'Argenfon, Rouffeau, and Voltaire, and by all the fophifts in their Lycea, all the free-masons in their fecret lodges, and all the illuminés in their dens.

In the formation of the national guards, the confpiracy proceeded exactly as it was pre-concerted. In a letter publifhed in the fecond volume of thefe memoirs, and attributed to Montefquieu, are these words: What progrefs might we not make, if we were delivered from foreign and merSee our XXIA Vol. New Arr. p. 426.

cenary foldiers. A national army would declare for liberty. The fophifts, adds the abbé, made this remark thirty years ago: the confpirators had not forgotten it, and the national guards were quickly formed. In this manner, as in a book of prophefy, our author traces every branch of the revolutionary fyftem. We fhall felect one example, in which he profeffes to give the real motives for the death of the king.

The fect advances to the confummation of its myfteries. But that Louis, who was king, ftill exifts; and the adepts had not been trained in vain, in the den of Kadofh, to trample crowns under foot, and to cut off the heads of kings. It was proper that atrocious fports fhould be fuc ceeded by real vengeance. Robefpierre advances: let us leave him with his executioners; he is only the wild beaft let loofe by the fect. It is not he that devours Louis, but the fect in Louis himfelf we diftinguifh the victim, purfued by the fect. It is not his perfon that the confpirators hate; the Jacobins themfelves would have loved and revered Louis XVI. if he had not been king. They made his head fall, when they deftroyed the ftatues of the good and great Henry; there were no other titles left for them to hate. He was king; and it was requifite that whatever evinced the exiftence of kings, all their monuments, all their emblems, fhould be configned to destruction. It was not againt Louis, but against royalty, that this war of Vandalism was declared. They called Louis XVI. a tyrant, they call him fo ftill; but they know very well in what fenie they use the word. They, as well as all their fophifts, pronounce every king a tyrant. They know that Louis XVI. during the nineteen years of his reign, granted many pardons, and never figned a warrant for the death of a fingle man; and fuch is not the reign of a tyrant. They know, that, when he came to the throne, he gave up to his fubjects the tribute due on that event; and that he abolished, in favour of the people, the corvées, and the torture both with respect to convicts and fufpected perfons. Thefe are not the edicts of a tyrant.' After other honourable testimonies to the character of Louis, and fome quotations from the fpeeches of his judges, the abbé obferves, that, if the chief caufe of the death of that monarch is not fufficiently manifeft from what has been faid, we may recur to the club of fophifts, in which fociety Condorcet exprefied his confident hopes, that the time would come when the fun would thine only on freemen, and when kings and priests would exift only in history, or on the theatre. It is therefore not to be doubted, that Louis was put to death because he was a king; the daughter of the Cæfars perifhed alfo be