Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/146

Rh sculptors. Desiderio was for a short time a pupil of Donatello, and he seems to have worked also with Mino da Fiesole, with the delicate and refined style of whose works those of Desiderio seem to have a closer affinity than with the perhaps more masculine tone of Donatello. Vasari especially praises the works of Desiderio for their grace and simplicity which, as the critic remarks, are a gift of nature, and can be acquired by no study. He particularly extols the sculptor s treatment of the figures of women and children, and the eulogy applies equally to the genius and manner of Mino da Fiesole. It does not appear that Desiderio ever worked elsewhere than at Florence ; and it is there that those who are interested in the Italian sculpture of the Eenaissance must Beek the few but remarkable works of his chisel, which have survived the changes and chances of four centuries.

 DES MOINES, formerly, a of the, capital of , at the confluence of the Raccoon with the Des Moines River, which is one of the right hand tributaries of the , and is navigable thus far for. Its public buildings include the old capitol, erected in 1856, the new capitol, founded in 1870, the post-office, with a number of other United States offices under the same roof, the, 15 es, and 5  s&thinsp;; and among its  are a -mill, a len factory, an -mill, besides , -shops, -s, and -factories. There are two public in the town, one of which is maintained by the State, and numbers 15,000 volumes&thinsp;; and, besides several daily and weekly s, no fewer than six monthly periodicals are published. Forty s of ground have been appropriated for a public &thinsp;; and another area of 100 acres belongs to a park-company. ,, and are abundant in the neighbourhood, and the town is supplied with water from the Raccoon. Des Moines, which dates from 1846, received in 1851, and was raised to the rank of a city and the capital of the State in 1857. Population in 1860, 3965; in 1873, 15,601.

 DESMOULINS, LUCIE SIMPLICE CAMILLE BENOIST (1760-1794), was born at Guise, in Picardy, on the 2d of March 1760. His father was lieutenant-general of the bailiwick of Guise, and was desirous that Camille his eldest son, who from his earliest years gave signs of unusual intelligence, should obtain as complete an education as France could then bestow. His wishes were seconded by a friend obtaining a &quot; bourse &quot; for the young Desmoulins, who at the age of fourteen left home for Paris, and entered the college of Louis le Grand. In this school, in which Robespierre was also a bursar and a distinguished student, Camille laid the solid foundation of his learning, and made an acquaintance with the literature and history of the classical nations so deep and extensive that it furnished him throughout the whole of his short and chequered life with illustrations which he applied with brilliancy and effect to the social manners and political events of his time. Desmoulins having been destined by his father for the law, and having completed his legal studies, was admitted an advocate of the Parliament of Paris in 1785. His pro fessional success was not great ; his manner was violent, his appearance far from attractive, and his speech was impaired by the natural defect of a painful stammer. He indulged and fostered, however, his love for literature, he was closely observant of the course of public affairs, and he was thus gradually being prepared for the main duties of Lis life those of a political litterateur. In March 1789 Desmoulins began his political career. Having been nominated deputy from the bailiwick of Guise, he appeared at Laon as one of the commissioners for the election of deputies to the States General summoned by royal edict of 24th January. Camille heralded its meeting by his Ode to the States General. It is, moreover, highly probable that he was the author of a radical pamphlet ntitled La Philosophic a^l peuple Fran^ais. His hopes of professional success were now scattered, and he was living in Paris in extreme poverty and almost in squalor. He, however, shared to the full the excitement which attended the meeting of the States General. As appears from his letters to his father, he watched with exultation the procession of deputies at Versailles, and with violent indignation the events of the latter part of June which followed the closing of the Salle des Menus to the deputies who had named themselves the National Assembly. It is further evident that Desmoulins was already sympathizing, not only with the enthusiasm, but also with the fury and cruelty, of the Parisian crowds. The sudden dismissal of Necker by Louis was the event which brought Desmoulins to fame. On the 12th of July 1789 Camille, leaping upon a table in one of the cafe s of the Palais Royal, startled a numerous crowd of listeners by the announcement of the dismissal of their favourite. Losing in his violent excitement the stammer which impeded his ordinary speech, he inflamed the passions of the mob by his burning words and his call &quot; To arms ! &quot; &quot; This dismissal,&quot; he said, &quot; is the tocsin of the St Bartholomew of the patriots.&quot; Drawing, at last, two pistols from under his coat, he declared that he would not fall alive into the hands of the police who were watching his movements. He descended amid the embraces of the crowd, and his cry &quot; To arms ! &quot; resounded on all sides. This scene was the beginning of the actual events of the Revolution. Following Desmoulins the crowd surged through Paris, procuring arms by force ; and on the 13th it was partly organized as the Parisian militia which was afterwards to be the National Guard. On the 14th the Bastille was taken. Desmoulins may be said to have begun on the following day that public literary career which lasted till his death. In May and June 1789 he had written La France libre, which, to his chagrin, his publisher refused to print. The taking of the Bastille, however, and the events by which it was preceded, were a sign that the times had changed ; and on the 15th of July Desmoulins s work was issued. It attracted immediate attention. By its erudite, brilliant, and courageous examination of the rights of king, of nobles, of clergy, arid of people, it attained a wide and sudden popularity; it secured for the author the friendship and protection of Mirabeau, and the studied abuse of numerous royalist pamphleteers. Shortly afterwards, with his vanity and love of popularity inflamed, he pandered to the passions of the lower orders by the publication of his Discours de la lanterne aux Parisiens, which with an almost fiendish reference to the excesses of the mob he headed by a quota tion from St John, Qui male aait odit lucem. Camille was dubbed &quot; Procureur-gdne ral de la lanterne.&quot; In November 1789 Desmoulins began his career as a journalist by the issue of the first number of a weekly publication Revolutions de France et de Brabant. He con ducted this alone till July 1790, and thereafter with the assistance of Stanislas Freron till July 1792, when the publication ceased. Success attended the Revolutions from its first to its last number, Camille was everywhere famous, and his poverty was relieved. These numbers are valuable as an exhibition not so much of events as of the feelings of the Parisian people during the most stormy period of their history ; they are adorned, moreover, by the erudi tion, the wit, and the genius of the author, but they are disfigured, not only by the most biting personalities and the defence and even advocacy of the excesses of the mob, but by the entire absence of the forgiveness and 