New Hampshire Statesman

A Hero of The Reign of Terror. Many
years ago I met with a Frenchman who had been
an active if subordinate ministrant in the Reign of
Terror. In Petiot's Collection of Papers illustrative
of that period, we find him warmly commended
to Robespierre as a young patriot, ready to sacrifice
on the altar of his country as many hecatombs
of fellow-countrymen as the Goddess of Reason
might require. When I saw this ex-official of the
tribunal of blood, which was in a London
drawing-room, where his antecedents were not
generally known, he was a very polite, grey-haired
gentleman, of the old school of manners, addicted,
like Cardinal Richelieu and Warren Hastings, to
the composition of harmless verses. I have seldom
met with one who more instantaneously charmed
a social circle by his rapid and instinctive sympathy
with the humors of all around him—gay with
the gay, serious with the serious, easy with the
young, caressingly respectful to the old. Fascinated
by the charm of his address, a fine lady whispered
to me, "This, indeed, is that exquisite French
manner of which we have heard so much and seen
so little. Nothing nowadays like the polish of
the old regime."—Sir E. B. Lytton.