The Countess De Charny - Volume II by Alexandre Dumas

contents of the manifesto bearing the date of July 26th, but which reached Paris on the 2Sth. Had an eagle transported it from Coblentz to Paris in its claws? One would suppose so, when one remembers it had traversed a distance of over two hundred leagues in thirty-six hours. The explosion of wrath such a document created can be easily imagined. It was like a spark falling on powder. Every heart bounded with rage and indignation, and every man eagerly girded himself for the fray.
    Among these numerous types of manhood there was one which we will now endeavour to depict.
    We have already alluded to a man named Barbaroux, who early in July wrote to his friend Rebecqui, “Send me five hundred men who know how to die.”
     
    54 LA COMTESSE DE CHAKNY.
    The man who penned these words exerted a powerful influence over his compariots through the potent charm of youth, beauty, and patriotism.
    This man was Charles Barbaroux, whose face haunted Madame Roland in the conjugal chamber, and made Charlotte Corday dream of him even at the foot of the scaffold.
    Madame Roland began by distrusting him, — and why? Because he was too handsome.
    This was the criticism bestowed upon another celebrated Revolutionist, whose head was held aloft by the hand of the public executioner within fourteen months of the day that Barbaroux met the same fate at Bordeaux. This other Adonis was Hérault de Séchelles, who was executed at Paris.
    Read what Madame Roland says of him : —
    ” Barbaroux is frivolous. The adoration women lavish upon him has impaired the earnestness of his sentiments. When I see these handsome young men intoxicated by the admiration they excite, as in the case of Barbaroux and Hérault de Séchelles, I cannot help thinking that they care too much for themselves to care very much for their country.”
    She was mistaken, this austere Minerva. His country may not have been Barbaroux’s only divinity, but he at least loved her sufficiently well to die for her.
    Barbaroux was scarcely twenty-five years of age. Born in Marseilles of a family of those sturdy seamen who made commerce a poem, his superb form, grace of movement, and personal beauty made him look like a direct descendant of one of those Phocians who transported their gods from the shores of the Permessus to the banks of the Rhone.
    Though young, he was already an adept in the art of oratory, a poet of no mean order, a graduate in medicine, and a valued correspondent of Saussure and Marat.
    He first attracted public notice during the disturbances which followed the election of Mirabeau in his native
     
    BAKBAROUX’S FIVE HUNDEED. 55
    town, and he was soon afterwards made secretary by the City Council.
    During the subsequent troubles in Aries, Barbaroux was ever in the foremost ranks, — an armed Antinoils.
    He was sent to Paris to give an account of the troubles in Avignon. From his report one might have supposed that he belonged to no party, that his heart, like that of justice, was a stranger alike to friendship and prejudice. He told the exact truth, terrible as it was, and the telling of it made him seem as great as truth itself.
    The Girondists had just come into power. The distinguishing characteristic of this party was their genuine artistic taste, or rather their love of the beautiful. They greeted Barbaroux with enthusiasm; then, proud of their new recruit, conducted him straight to Madame Roland.
    We know the impression Madame Roland first formed of him. She was amazed, too, at his youth. Her husband had corresponded with Barbarovix for a long time; and the latter’s letters had always been remarkably sensible, accurate, and full of wise counsel. She had never given much thought to this sage correspondent’s age or appearance, but had vaguely supposed him to be a bald-headed, wu-inkled man of forty.
    She found him to be a handsome, gay, frivolous young man of twenty-five, devoted to the ladies. In fact, all that fiery, impulsive generation that tiourished in