Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/492

 454 Readings in European Histoiy Every year on the first day of Floreal the people of each commune shall select, from among the inhabitants of the commune, and in the temple, a young man rich and virtu- ous and without deformity, at least twenty-one years of age and not over thirty, who shall in turn select and marry a poor maiden, in everlasting memory of human equality. VII. Camille Desmoulins and his Newspaper The most amiable and humorous of the terrorists was Camille Desmoulins. While he was one of the very first to preach republican ideas and to propagate them through his writings, he had little of the relentless and stern fanaticism which blinded Robespierre and Saint- Just to the cruelty of the work in which they were engaged. In the autumn of 1793 Desmoulins, who was a journalist by profession, began to issue a new news- paper, which he called The Old Cordelier} The charm of his style, his wit and learning assured his editorials — and his newspaper was really nothing more than a periodical editorial — great popularity in Paris, and they still delight the historical student. In the third issue (December 15, 1793) he seeks to extenuate the severities of the Reign of Terror by showing, by skillfully adapted quotations from Tacitus, that the harsh measures of the new French republic were as nothing compared with the atrocities by which the early Roman emperors estab- lished their sway. pp. 268 sqq.). Compare in this connection an address of Billaud-Varen- nes on the theory of democratic government (Histoire Parlementaire, Vol. XXXII, pp. 335 -sy^.) and Fabre d'Eglantine's report on the new- calendar {Histoire Parlementaire, Vol. XXXI, pp. 415 sqq.). 1 Desmoulins had been from the first a very active member of the club of the Cordeliers, which had been more radical and republican in sentiment than the Jacobins.