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Rh members of this body who first propagated the idea, “that the Assembly had ruined France, and Robespierre eould alone save it!”

It is but candid liere to confess that his conduct in the Legislative Body was pure and unspotted; that he stedfastly opposed the interested revision of the constitution, and withstood every temptation arising from the corruption so prodigally administered by the court. Alas! this very circumstance, in the end, rendered him more dangerous to Liberty, and the surname of Incorruptible enabled him to sacrifice all his real or supposed enemies to his vengeance.

Robespierre did not refuse to fill subordinate offices, as has been asserted: he, however, did not retain them any considerable time. He was first nominated President of the Tribunal of the district of Versailles; and was, consequently, empowered to decide both in civil and criminal affairs, as the juries had not been then organized. Having resigned this employment, he next obtained that of Accusateur-Public to the Criminal Tribunal of the department of Paris, which he also held but for a short period. His conduct in the exercise of these functions stands unimpeached: no one instance of cruelty or injustice has been adduced by the bitterest of his enemies; and had the court but proved faithful to that constitution, from which it could not recede without the foulest perjury. Robespierre would never have been elevated to the dictatorship!

It was during the National Convention that this man attained the summit of his ambition. In the first Legislature he had joined the patriots, in the second he declared for the