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Rh modify, if not revolutionise, your conception of them, and of the events in which they took part. The portrait confirms the feeling of surprise I remember to have experienced when first I saw that authentic likeness of Robespierre of which Lord Rosebery is the owner. I loathe Robespierre, and thus I have to confess that this portrait is unpleasantly startling to me. To my imagination the Sea-green Incorruptible always appeared as having a long face, with straight, regular, icy-cold features. The portrait that looks on one from this book is that of a man with a short, rather chubby face; the cheeks are full and round; the nose is irregular, with broad nostrils, and a slight tendency to the snub; the air is almost boyish, and is gentle, even tender and rather sad. In short, if I had been shown the portrait without knowing the name or the nationality, I should have said it was the portrait of an Irishman; and I might have even gone the length of guessing that it was the portrait of John Philpot Curran, the celebrated Irish orator and patriot, beautified and idealised. And I may mention, as some extenuation of this impression, that I have read somewhere that Robespierre had some Irish blood in his veins.

The portrait of Robespierre faces the first volume of these Memoirs, that of Barras faces the second. And what a contrast! I am convinced that any physiognomist in the world who was asked to say which was the cruel monster