Chapter XXXIII: Part VI: They Sang (29)

The leader of the restored nobles was Tuathal, “the Legitimate,” who, having been declared King of Ireland, reorganized the government, founded the Irish Pentarchy, established great national and provincial fairs, and enacted the greater part, at least, of the body of laws known as the _Senchas Mor_. He was in fact the first able soldier, as well as law‐ giver, of whom we have any definite and well‐authenticated account in Gaelic history. As the country at that time, and for centuries after, was essentially agricultural, we naturally find that the laws of Tuathal and his successors are mainly devoted to agrarian matters; the divisions, rights, and duties of the various classes of occupants of the soil being set forth with a minuteness and exactness rarely to be found in modern codes. Politically, the island was divided into five subordinate kingdoms, nearly corresponding with the present four provinces, except that the fifth, which was called Meath, embraced not only that county, but Westmeath and a portion of the surrounding territory. Here were situated Tara, the principal palace of the _Ard‐Rig_, or supreme monarch, and the mensal land set apart for his use. Sometimes the _Ard‐Rig_ was also King of Meath, but generally, as in the cases of Con “of the Hundred Battles,” Nial, “of the Nine Hostages,” and Brian, “Boru,” he was the head of some of the great northern or southern septs. In theory the sovereignty was elective, and by the law of Tanistry the king’s successor was designated during his lifetime; but in practice, when the crown did not descend hereditarily, it was most frequently the prize of successful warfare. The same may also be said of the provincial kings. There appears to have been no such thing known in that age as a Salic law for the exclusion of women from a participation in the affairs of government; for we find numerous instances of kingdoms being swayed and armies led into action by the gentler sex, notably the celebrated Meave, the Queen of Connaught, and the darling heroine of Irish fiction.

The provincial kingdoms were divided into _Mor Tuaths_, each of which comprised several _Tuaths_, and these again were sub‐divided into _Bailé Biatachs Caethramhadhs_, or quarters; _Seisreachs_, or ploughlands; and _Bailé‐boes_, or cow‐lands, each of the latter containing about sixty acres. According to a poem of the VIth or VIIth century, there were in Ireland at that epoch 184 Tuaths; 5,520 Bailé Biatachs; 22,080 Quarters; 66,240 Plough‐lands; and 132,480 Ballyboes—equal to about 7,948,000 acres. The lowest rank in the nobility was that of _Flath_, or lord of a _Tuath_; the highest in the commons were the _Bo‐aires_, or farmers who, though they held lands from the _Flath_, were freemen, entitled to all the rights and privileges of witnesses, jurors, bails, and local courts. Next beneath them were the _saer_ and _daer Ceiles_, or free and base tenants. As there were no towns or villages of any importance, the rules of the agrarian laws were applied to all classes, and hence skilled workmen, such as goldsmiths, blacksmiths, dyers, and other mechanics, were, equally with the smaller tenant farmers, called free _Ceiles_, holding by contract from the _Flaths_, and paying in labor or kind a determined equivalent. The base _Ceiles_ were of two kinds—one who held lands by uncertain tenure, or as tenants at will; and the other, who performed personal service as mercenary soldiers or laborers upon the mensal lands of the lord. “Though the free _Ceiles_ were all freemen,” says Sullivan, “and consequently possessed some political rights, it is evident that the extent of those rights differed. In some cases they must have been confined to bearing arms and obtaining a share of the common land. All _Ceiles_, whether free or base, had certain definite rights in the territory, such as the right to have a habitation and the usufruct of the land; but besides these were several other classes, who possessed either very few rights, or occupied so low a position in the social scale as to have been practically in a state of complete servitude; these were the _Bothachs_, _Sencleithes_, and _Fuidirs_.” The _saer_ or free _Bothachs_ were simply occupiers of cabins, and the _daer Bothachs_ were menials; while the _Sencleithes_ included all sorts of poor dependents, generally the descendants of strangers, mercenaries, or prisoners of war. The _Fuidirs_, to whom S. Patrick in his captivity belonged, were absolutely serfs attached to the land, and in some respects the property of the chief. It was only a _Flath_, however, who was entitled to retain those belonging to the three servile classes; and where the condition grew out of mutual compact, it could be ended by either at any time. Prisoners of war, malefactors, and non‐paying debtors, similar to peons, were of course excluded from this privilege. Those various classes and sub‐divisions did not constitute perpetual castes; on the contrary, a member of the lowest order, through lapse of time, undisturbed possession, and the accumulation of property, could ascend, not only to the highest place in the commons, but enter the charmed circle of aristocracy itself.

It must not be supposed, however, that the entire ownership of the soil was vested in the _Mor‐Flaths_, or great chiefs; in fact, they only owned their proper estate and the mensal lands attached to their office, upon which were employed their _Ceiles_ and _Fuidirs_, who tilled the farms and paid rent by supplying their masters’ tables, and by other tributes. In like manner the subordinate _Flaths_ and _Airés_ held their own proper lands in fee, paying their superior a tax, or _Bes‐Tigi_, in acknowledgment of his authority, and exacting labor and service in turn from their _Bothachs_, _Sencleithes_, and base _Fuidirs_. The remainder of the land belonged to the freemen of the _Tuath_ in common, subject only to the dominion of the chief, though on certain conditions the usufruct could be devised or alienated. “In process of time,” says Sullivan, “estates were carved out of this public land, as appanages of offices, as rewards for public services, or by lapsing into prescription. The holders of such estates were the _Aires_, and as such were in an especial manner the _Céiles_ of the _Rig_. The king, with the consent of his council, might, however, grant a portion of it as allodium at once. It is probable that Magh Aié, now the plains of Boyle, in Roscommon, was public land.” Around the duns or fortified residences of the chiefs their retainers and menials built their wattled huts for the sake of convenience and protection, and thus were formed the nuclei of so many towns and villages still marked on the map of Ireland, of the names of which _Dun_ forms a part; just as in later times the early Irish Christians crowded round the churches and monasteries, and, thus forming new communities, took the names of their patrons with the prefix _Kil_, derived from _Cill_, church. Another class of subjects, artisans, farmers, and teachers, were to be found in the neighborhood of the courts of law and permanent places for elections, who, forming corporations or guilds, gradually laid the foundation of boroughs and privileged towns, under the management of _Brugfers_, or magistrates.

There were several degrees of rank among these officials. Some, whose duty was confined to the regulation of copartnerships in farms and the fixing of metes and bounds; others who held courts in their own houses, entertained guests, and presided over the election of the chiefs and their _Tanistes_. This class belong to the _Airé_ rank, and every freeman had the right to vote at the assembly of the _Tuath_, and appear as a witness, juror, or bail in court. The _Brughfer_ of a province held six different courts, and superintended the choice of the provincial king and his successor. On these occasions the voters were all of the _Flath_ rank, and were supposed to represent their clans or _Finés_. This term, though literally meaning a house or family, was in law used in three different senses: first, as applied to all relations by consanguinity to the seventeenth degree, who were entitled to inherit property, as well as being liable for fines and mulcts; secondly, to the lord and his dependents; and, thirdly, to all the inhabitants of a _Tuath_, no matter of what condition. So, also, the word _Cland_, or clan, which, in its restricted meaning, was applied only to the nobles and their immediate families, was in its territorial application interpreted to signify all the people of the same district, who usually assumed the surname of the chief, though no relationship existed between him and them. There is therefore no more reason to suppose that an O’Brien or a Murphy of to‐day is descended from the victor of Clontarf or the traitor of Ferns, than that his ancestors were _Fuidirs_ under either of those kings. In fact, family names were only generally introduced into Ireland in the XIth century.

With few exceptions, the punishment of crime under the ancient laws of the country was by fine, so that jails and penitentiaries were unknown. This fine, or _eric_, was paid by the criminal, or by his _Finé_ or clan, to the party aggrieved or his representative, and upon failure thereof the culprit was reduced to the condition of a _Fuidir_. The servile classes, who had no goods, could not, of course, be fined or further degraded; but their lords were compelled to respond in damages, and in case of injury done to his defenceless tenants the landlord was entitled to compensation. In the _Senchus Mor_, “every nice offence bears its comment,” according to the enormity of the crime and the rank of plaintiff and defendant; so, in one sense at least, every man in Erinn may be said to have had his price. The courts in which those _erics_ were levied seemed to have been organized on a very just plan, and their procedure exhibits marked germs of our present jury system—or trial by a certain number of neighbors and equals.

Minor causes were tried in the courts of the _Tuaths_ or _Aires_, but greater ones were determined at the provincial assemblies, which appear to have exercised both legislative and judicial functions. The absence of cities or stationary places of barter was supplied by the institution of vast provincial fairs, held at stated times and in central localities. The most famous of these were that of _Tailté_ in Meath, _Ailech_ in Derry, and _Carman_ at Wexford. The latter, which took place in August of every third year, was the most extensive, as well as the most ancient; its origin lying far back in the mythical ages, and its discontinuance dating so late as the XIth century. For some strange reason these great national fairs were invariably held in pagan cemeteries, and in ante‐Christian times were always commenced with games and funeral ceremonies, closing with horse‐racing, martial and athletic sports. According to the ancient chronicle, there were three markets at each fair, viz.:

“A market for food and clothes; a market for live‐stock, cows and horses, etc.; a market of foreigners and exiles, selling gold and silver, etc. The professors of every art, both the noble arts and the base arts, and non‐ professionals, were there, selling and exhibiting their compositions and their professional works to kings, and rewards were given for every work of art that was just or lawful to be sold or exhibited or listened to.”

The most important business of the assembly, however, consisted of the making of new laws and the revision of old ones for the province for the three succeeding years; and, as the _Rig_ and his officers were always in attendance, the hearing and decision of serious causes on appeal from the inferior courts. In the presence of the sovereign and his court the greatest order and decorum were enjoined, and whoever was found to disturb the public peace by violence or fraud was summarily condemned to death; the offence being in some sort adjudged treason, and not condonable by _eric_ fine. The time not devoted to law‐making, trials, and traffic was occupied in amusement and various sorts of pastimes; and if the ancient people of Erinn had as much relish for fun and frolic as their descendants, we can well imagine what mirth, sociability and interchange of opinions must have prevailed among such a light‐hearted multitude, whose only opportunity for enjoyment and mutual recognition occurred every third year. An old poem, “which,” says O’Curry, “I believe to have been contemporary with the last celebration of the feast, if not of even a more ancient date,” thus enumerates the different classes of persons who attended on such occasions, and the intellectual wares they brought with them for the delectation of the gathering:

“Trumpets, _Cruits_,(114) wide‐mouthed horns,
_Cusigs Timpanists_, without weariness,
Poets and petty rhymesters;

“Fenian tales of Find(115)—an untiring entertainment—
Destructions, cattle‐preys, courtships,
Inscribed tablets and books of trees,(116)
Satires and sharp‐edged runes;

“Proverbs, maxims, royal precepts,
And the youthful instruction of Fithal;
Occult poetry, topographical etymologies,
The precepts of Cairpri and of Cormac;

“The Feasts, and the great Feast of Teamar;
Fairs, with the fair of Emania,
Annals there are verified,
Every division into which Erin was divided.”

The Feast of _Teamair_, or Tara, here alluded to as having constituted one of the subjects of the recitations at _Carman_, was also triennial, but of a different nature, and involving much higher occupations than those of the provincial fairs or feasts. It was an assembly of the subordinate kings and the nobles for elective, legislative, and judicial purposes; but, though nominally held every three years, was in reality celebrated as often as a new king was to be crowned, a general public law to be promulgated, or when some extraordinary occasion demanded the presence of the chiefs and _Rigs_ before the supreme monarch. Again, many years are known to have elapsed without an assembly or _Feis_, owing to the existence of internal dissensions or foreign invasions. This assembly is said to have owed its origin to _Tuathal_ the Legitimate, and it is certain that it only ceased to be held when Tara was abandoned as a royal residence in the VIIth century. The court of the _Ard‐Rig_ on such occasions was not only attended by the provincial magnates and, in pagan times, by the chief Druids, but by their followers, poets, doctors, and historians, with their respective household guards. It was a knowledge of this custom, doubtless, that led S. Patrick to select the hill of Tara as the place, and the assembly of the _Feis_ as the fitting occasion, upon which to disclose to the darkened minds of the whole people the splendid truths of Christianity.

The palace and adjoining houses of ancient Tara, judging by the extensive traces of their foundations yet remaining, must have been built on a very large scale; but as they were constructed entirely of wood, the buildings proper have long since disappeared. Still, we have accounts, more or less authentic, that collectively they were able to afford shelter and accommodation to many thousands of visitors, and that the barracks alone allowed quarters for twenty‐four thousand soldiers. Of the style of architecture of the king’s house we have no description, save that it was rectangular, and that its principal room or hall, which was used for deliberations as well as for feasts, was profusely ornamented with carvings in gold, silver, and bronze. Before the introduction of Christianity all buildings were of wood, some square or rectangular, others oval or round. Those of the higher classes were made of solid logs, but the smaller farmers and laborers dwelt in huts made of interlaced wattles or twigs, the interstices closed by mortar made with wet earth and straw. Stone structures were unknown before S. Patrick’s time; for, though lime was used as a wash for the interior and exterior of houses, its employment as a cement dates from the Christian ages. Hence there are no pagan ruins to be found in the country. The Round Towers, now proven beyond doubt to have been church belfries, are the most ancient stone memorials existing. It may be also remembered that the Druids had no such places of worship as temples or covered sanctuaries, and whatever rites they performed must have been celebrated in the open air. Indeed, our knowledge of those mysterious people and of their equally occult religious system is merely of a negative character; for, as O’Curry says:

“We only know that they worshipped idols from such examples as
that of the idol gods taken into the Druid’s bed, so as to
influence his visions, as described in Cormac’s _Glossary_, and
that of the invocation of the idols in the case of the _Teinm
Laeghdha_; and we know that in certain ceremonies they made use of
the yew‐tree, the quicken or roan‐tree, and of the black‐thorn, as
in the instance of the ordeal or test of a woman’s character by
means of fire made of these sacred woods. That the people of
ancient Erinn were idolaters is certain, for they certainly adored
the great idol called _Crom Cruagh_, in the plain called _Magh
Slecht_, as I showed on a former occasion. But it is remarkable
that we find no mention of any connection between this idol and
the Druids, or any other class of priests or special idol‐servers.
We have only the record of the people, generally, assembling at
times to do honor to the idol creation. As little, unfortunately,
do we know of the organization of the order of the Druids, if they
were indeed an order. They certainly were not connected as such
with the orders of learned men or profession of teachers, such as
before explained. The Druids were often, however, engaged in
teaching, as has been seen; and it would appear that kings and
chiefs, as well as learned men, were also frequently Druids,
though how or why I am not in a position to explain with certainty
at present.... I have refrained from suggesting any theory of my
own on the subject. This negative conclusion, nevertheless, I will
venture to draw from the whole: that, notwithstanding the
singularly positive assertions of many of our own as well as of
English writers upon the subject, there is no ground whatever for
believing the Druids to have been the priests of any special
positive worship; none whatever for imputing to them human
sacrifices; none whatever for believing that the early people of
Erinn adored the sun, moon, or stars, nor that they worshipped
fire; and still less foundation for the ridiculous inventions of
modern times (inventions of pure ignorance), concerning honors
paid to brown bulls, red cows, or any other cows, or any of the
lower animals.”

Next in rank and social importance, if not the equals or superiors of the Druids, were the _Ollamhs_, or doctors, the _Files_, or poets, and the _Brehons_ or judges. In the earliest ages these three classes were all included under the term _Fileadh_, poets, who not only professed philosophy, such as it then was, but recorded history and chronology in verse, and expounded the laws so preserved, in the various local courts and tribunals. A tendency, however, to mystify and confuse the statutes of Tuathal and his successors, led to the expulsion of the children of song from the forum, while the offices about the sovereign, when grave matters were to be considered, fell to the lot of the philosophers. This latter class had also an especial charge of educational matters, and usually superintended personally the training of the children of the _Rigs_ and chiefs. The _Ard‐Rig_, the provincial kings, and the _Flaths_ had their own philosophers, poets, and judges, with their special duties assigned them. Of the first, besides making and preserving regular records, “they were bound by the same laws,” says O’Curry, “to make themselves perfect masters of that history in all its details, and to teach it to the people by public recitals, as well as to be legal referees upon all subjects in dispute concerning history and the genealogies.” No person could be a _Brehon_ without first becoming an _Ollamh_, and twelve years’ study was required for that honor. But the poets, like their tribe in every land and age, were the nobly honored and the most privileged of any order in the government. They flattered kings and satirized them with impunity, charmed the masses with the melody of their songs and the fertility of their imagination; but, while they were generally on the side of popular liberty in their verses, they were always to be found at the tables of the nobles, where good cheer and rich largesses awaited them. However, as their poems were the only vehicles through which the history, traditions, and even laws of the nation could possibly have been transmitted to us, we owe them too much to blame their amiable weaknesses. Like the teacher, when the _File_ travelled about the country he was accompanied by his pupils, and every hospitality was shown to him and them, partly from love of his calling, and not seldom through dread of his satires. Many instances are recorded in popular tales of the dire effects of the poet’s wrath, of which sickness, loss of property and reputation, were among the least.

In connection with the courts we find two classes of paid advocates, one the _Ebe_, attorney, and the other the _Aighne_, or counsellor. When it is remembered that slander and libel were offences severely punished in the Brehon courts by _eric_ fine, we can admire the grim humor which discriminated against the attorneys, who, as the wise law‐givers of old argued, being professional libellers of other men, had no right to exact a fine when their own characters were assailed.

The custom of fosterage, about which so much unfavorable comment has been made by modern ill‐informed writers, is fully and clearly explained by O’Curry, who classes it as a part of the educational system of the country, and not, as some erroneously suppose, the partial desertion of children by their parents. In Lecture XVII. he asserts:

“We have ample proof that this fosterage was not a mere
indiscriminate custom among all classes of the people, nor in any
case one merely confined to the bare physical nurture and rearing
of the child, which in early infancy was committed to the care of
a nurse and her husband; but that the fosterhood was generally
that of a whole family or tribe, and that in very many cases it
became a bond of friendship and alliance between two or more
tribes, and even provinces. In those cases the fosterers were not
of the common class, poor people glad to perform their nursing for
mere pay, and whose care extended to physical rearing only. On the
contrary, it is even a question, and one not easily settled,
whether the term nursing, in the modern acceptation of the word,
should be applied at all to the old Gaelic fosterage, and whether
the term pupilage would not be more appropriate.... The old Gaelic
fosterage extended to the training and education, not only of
children up to the age of fourteen, but sometimes of youths up to
that of seventeen years.”

One of the chief duties of the foster‐father was the military training of the young chieftains. This consisted principally of the management of the horse, either in pairs for the chariot or singly for riding, the use of the casting spear and sling, and the sword exercise. Of strategy the ancient Irish soldiers had no idea, and very little of tactics; so that their battles were hand‐to‐hand combats, and therefore bloody and generally decisive. Their weapons of bronze or iron, many fine specimens of which we examined years ago in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, still exhibit evidences of high finish and excellent temper. We do not find any mention of cavalry in the accounts handed down to us of the various battles fought in the earlier centuries, and very slight allusions to defensive armor. Ornaments of gold and other precious metals, such as crowns, collars, torque rings, and shield‐bosses, were worn in great profusion and variety, not only by nobles and generals, but by ordinary officers; in fact, so gorgeous are the poets’ descriptions of the decorations of their favorite heroes that we might be inclined to accuse them of gross exaggeration had we not also been shown some magnificent antiques of this description, in a perfect state of preservation, by the gentlemen of the academy during several visits made to that depository of Irish antiquities. Some of these valuable decorations are made of native ore, but by far the greater number were manufactured out of the spoils of war—the plunder wrested from the adjacent islands and the coast of France by the numerous expeditions that were fitted out in Ireland in the three or four centuries preceding S. Patrick’s mission.

The dress of the higher classes was, it seems, equally magnificent, and each rank was distinguished, not only by the peculiar shape of its garments, but by the number of colors allowed to be worn. Thus, servants had one color; farmers, two; officers, three; women, four; chiefs, five; _ollamhs_ and _files_, six; kings and queens, seven; and, according to the ancient records, bishops of the Christian Church were afterwards allowed to use all these combined. Red, brown, and crimson, with their shades and compounds, were the colors generally used; green, yellow, blue, and black sometimes, but not frequently. Prof. Sullivan, in that part of his introduction treating of the various dye‐stuffs used in ancient Ireland, takes occasion to dissipate some popular errors with regard to national colors. He says:

“Garments dyed yellow with saffron are constantly spoken of by
modern writers as characteristic of the Irish. There is no
evidence, however, that saffron was at all known by the ancient
Irish, and _Lenas_ or _Inars_ of a yellow color are only mentioned
two or three times in the principal tales. From what has been
shown in the _Lectures_ and in this _Introduction_ about the color
of the ancient Irish dress, it will be evident that there was no
national as distinguished from clan color for the _Lena_; a
saffron‐dyed one, if at all used in ancient times, would be
peculiar to a single clan.”

The _Lena_ here spoken of was an inner garment which hung down to the knees like a modern kilt, usually made of linen, and sometimes interwoven with threads of gold. In addition to this were worn a shirt, or _Leine_; a cloak (_Brat_); an _Inar_, or jacket; _Triubhas_, or trowsers; a _Bor_, or conical hat; and _Cuarans_, or shoes made of raw‐hide. The costume of the women differed little from that of the men, except that they discarded the _triubhas_, and wore their _lenas_ and _leines_ longer. “They were, however,” says Sullivan, “distinguished from the men by wearing a veil, which covered the head. This veil was the _Caille_, which formed an essential part of the legal contents of a lady’s work‐bag. In a passage from the laws, quoted in the _Lectures_, it is called ‘a veil of one color’; as if variegated ones were sometimes used.... The white linen cloth still worn by nuns represents exactly both the Irish _Caille_ and the German _Hulla_.” In many other respects, besides the matter of dress, women were placed on a footing nearly equal to that of men in those remote times; and if their liberal and respectful treatment may be considered one of the tests of civilization, the old Gaels were in refinement far in advance of any other race in pagan Europe, and indeed of many of our own times. We find women not only taking part in public affairs as rulers and generals, but as Druidesses, judges, poets, and teachers. At Tara and the great provincial fairs a separate portion of the grounds was assigned them, so that they could observe the games and enjoy the amusements without interruption; while in the homes of the _Rigs_ and chiefs the best rooms, and sometimes an entire building, called _Grianan_, or sunny house, was exclusively reserved for their use. Most of the principal places in the country, such as the locations of the great fairs and the sites of royal palaces, were named in their honor, as well as the mountains and rivers and other objects in nature suggestive of symmetry, beauty, and elegance. We also read in the _Senchus Mor_ several very minute and stringent laws protecting their rights of person and property, assigning their dowry before marriage and their separate ownership of property afterwards. They were, in fact, to a great extent pecuniarily independent of their husbands; and though polygamy was tolerated and divorce allowed in pagan times, they were so hedged in by restrictions and conditions that it is more than probable little advantage was taken of the latitude thus afforded both parties.

Being almost exclusively an agricultural people, with very little commerce with the outward world, the food of the ancient Irish was confined to the natural productions of the soil, flesh‐meat, milk, and fish. Wheat, spelt‐ wheat, barley, and oats were produced in abundance, while cattle were so plentiful and so general an article of traffic that in the absence of coin they formed the currency of the country, and in them fines were paid and taxes levied. Butter, milk, and cheese were luxuries, but vegetables, such as leeks, onions, and water‐cresses, were to be found growing in the garden of the lowest _Fuidir_. Beer, likewise, appears to have been the popular drink. Imported wine and native mead, distilled from honey, were considered the aristocratic beverages of the period. That large quantities of the latter were consumed at the triennial feasts there can be no doubt, judging from the tales of the poets; and it was on occasions when it was circling round the board that the _Cruits_ (harps), _Timpans_, or violins, and _Cruiscach_, or pipes, the three principal musical instruments of the Gaels, came into play. The poets, too, were there to sing their songs of love and war, and the historians to recite the traditions of the tribes of Erinn. It is not positively known whether the pagan Irish had a written language or alphabet. O’Curry is disposed to believe they had, while Sullivan is of opinion that letters and writing were introduced with Christianity, and that previous to S. Patrick’s time all teaching in the ancient schools was oral, and the genealogies and histories were committed to memory and transmitted from father to son. They both, however, agree that there was a system of writing known only to the initiated, now called _Ogham_, which was inscribed on prepared wood, and engraved on monuments and tombstones, many of which latter, though still well preserved, are illegible to the best antiquarian scholars. The ancient Gaels, like their descendants, had a special reverence for their dead, and indulged in protracted wakes, as well as extensive funerals. In pagan days their funeral ceremonies were most elaborate, but in Christian times these gave way to the solemn offices of the church. Each person was buried according to his rank while living; the corpse was deposited deep in the ground, and a cairn or mound of earth and stone was erected over the grave to mark the spot. We have no reason to suppose that they had even the faintest notion of a future life or of the immortality of the soul, their mythology limiting the supernatural to celebrated _Tuatha da Danians_, real personages, who had left the surface to inhabit the bowels of the earth, and to fairies, the “good people” of the modern peasantry.

Those, then, were the people, computed to have been about three millions in number in his time, to whom S. Patrick preached the New Law, and whose complete conversion and subsequent undying attachment to Catholicity have puzzled as well as confounded the enemies of the church. Though pagans, they were neither barbarous nor over‐superstitious, and their ready appreciation and acceptance of God’s mysterious and elaborate Word is the best proof that their hearts were pure and their minds active and comprehensive.

Robespierre.

The father of the great revolutionary demagogue was an advocate at Arras, a peaceful citizen, who had nothing about him in character or manners to suggest that he was to be the parent of the monster known to history as the tiger‐man. Nay, so little of ferocity was there about the worthy advocate that, when his wife died, he nearly went melancholy‐mad for grief, and in his despair left his native town, and took to wandering about France, then beyond it to Germany and England, where he finally died. There are, it is true, some ill‐natured local chronicles extant which pretend that it was not so much grief as debt that drove the disconsolate widower into exile; and this harsh and unpoetic version is supported by the fact of his having, by his flight, abandoned to loneliness and utter destitution the three little children, two boys and a girl, whom the wife he so bitterly lamented had left to his paternal care. Maximilien Marie Isidore, the eldest of the three, was born on the 6th of April, 1760. The solitary position and the poverty of the deserted children attracted the compassion of some kind persons of the town, and notably that of the _curé_ of the parish, who sent Maximilien to school, where soon, by dint of hard work and intelligence, the boy shot ahead of all his class fellows, and justified the predictions of friends that he would make a name for himself in whatever trade or calling he embraced. The Bishop of Arras, Mgr. de Conzié, was also interested in the little fellow; his industry and desolate poverty making a claim on the prelate’s paternal notice. He used his influence with the abbot of the famous Abbey of Waast to grant Maximilien one of the abbatial _bourses_ at the College of Louis le Grand, in Paris. The very first steps in life of the future persecutor of priests and religion were thus guided by the hand of the church, his poverty enriched, his orphanhood fathered, by her charity. The Abbé Proyart, then president of Louis le Grand, continued to the poor provincial student the fostering kindness of those worthy ecclesiastics who had placed him under his charge. Maximilien was also at this time largely assisted and most kindly befriended by the Abbé de la Roche, a canon of Notre Dame, who, all through the period of the young man’s studies in Paris, kept watch over him, and showed him the most sincere and delicate affection. When at the age of nineteen, Maximilien left the college, the Abbé de la Roche used his influence to secure the vacant _bourse_ for the younger brother, Augustin Robespierre, and succeeded. Maximilien was called to the bar very soon after leaving Paris, and began at once to excite attention by his talent as a speaker. The first mention we find of his forensic success is in 1783, when he was engaged in a case against the corporation of St. Omer, a small town near Arras, in behalf of a gentleman who had erected a lightning‐conductor on his house, and been prosecuted on account of it, and condemned by the corporation. He appealed to the higher court of Arras. Robespierre pleaded his cause, and won a triumphant reversal of the first verdict. We find a note of this incident in the _Memoires de Bachaumont_: “The cause about the _paratonnerre_ has been before our court three days, and has been pleaded by M. de Robespierre, a young lawyer of extraordinary merit; he has displayed in this affair—which was, in fact, the cause of art and science against prejudice—a degree of eloquence and sagacity that gives the highest idea of his talents. He had a complete triumph; on the 31st day of May the court reversed the sentence, and permitted M. de Boisvale to re‐erect his _paratonnerre_.” Robespierre was just three‐and‐twenty at this date. He is styled _de_ Robespierre by the writer, and had assumed the _particule noble_ at a much earlier date; he is entered at college with it, and at the bar, and was elected to the States‐General as _de_ Robespierre. The pretentious prefix cost him dear, as we shall see; it afforded a poisoned shaft to Camille Desmoulins long after the Regenerator of the people had erased the feudal particle from his signature. But these were sunny days, when he might use it with impunity, and even to some advantage. The young advocate was courted and admired, and made welcome in clubs and drawing‐ rooms; he wrote essays and won prizes from learned societies, thus establishing a literary as well as legal reputation. He even aspired to be a poet, and addressed sonnets to ladies of fashion at Arras, which gained him the smiles of the Ariadnes and Arachnes that he sang to, and caused him to be rallied as a squire of dames. This time of merry dalliance, however, soon came to an end, and graver ambitions began to open out before Robespierre. He was elected member of the States‐General. M. Dumont, the distinguished journalist, gives a lively description of the figure made by the “avocat, de Robespierre,” in one of the earliest sittings of that Assembly: “The clergy, for the purpose of surprising the Tiers Etat into a union of the orders, sent a deputation to invite the Tiers to a conference on the distresses of the poor. The Tiers saw through the design, and, not willing to acknowledge the clergy as a separate body, yet afraid to reject so charitable and popular a proposition, knew not what answer to make, when one of the deputies, after concurring in the description of the miseries of the people, rose and addressed the ecclesiastical deputation: ‘Go tell your colleagues that, if they are so anxious to relieve the people, they should hasten to unite themselves in this hall with the friends of the people. Tell them no longer to retard our proceedings and the public good by contumacious delays, or to try to carry their point by such stratagems as this. Rather let them, as ministers of religion, as worthy servants of their Master, renounce the splendor which surrounds them, the luxury which insults the poor. Dismiss those insolent lackeys who attend you; sell your gaudy equipages, and convert those odious superfluities into food for the poor.’ At this speech, which interpreted so well the passions of the moment, there arose, not applause—that would have appeared like a bravado—but a confused murmur of approbation much more flattering. Every one asked who was the speaker. He was not known, but in a few minutes his name passed from mouth to mouth; it was one which afterwards made all France tremble—it was _Robespierre_!”

One is at a loss which to admire most in this brilliant _sortie_, the skill and power of the speaker in playing on the passions of his hearers, or the dastardly ingratitude which led him to use the eloquence he owed in so large a measure to the clergy for the purpose of stigmatizing his best benefactors. The first time Robespierre’s voice was raised in the tribune it was to vituperate the men to whom he owed his education, almost, it may be said, his existence. The reward of this treachery was not delayed; he electrified his audience, and henceforth became known to fame, though not yet to infamy. It is only just to Robespierre to admit that when he entered on his public life, his character was unstained by any of the vices which it developed later; he was in private life held to be virtuous, and suspected of no vice beyond the honorable one of ambition. Probably he would have lived and died amongst his fellow‐citizens without earning a worse reputation than the rest of them, if this latent ambition had not led him to seek to rise above them, and if his ability had not seconded the aspiration. Even in his demagogic career he kept his reputation for integrity, and gained the surname of the Incorruptible. Incorruptible by money he certainly was, while the instinct of either cowardice or sagacity induced him to disavow all personal ambition. Power was what he thirsted for; wealth and pageant he despised. These principles, aided by his fiery talent as any orator and his shrewd knowledge of the times, soon lifted him above all competitors, and made him a kind of uncrowned monarch long before he became so in reality as dictator of the republic. It is interesting to note the various decrees he passed while reigning in the National Assembly. One of the first was the turning of the Church of S. Geneviève into a Pantheon for the ashes of great men, and the inauguration of the paganized Christian temple by the entombing of Mirabeau’s remains there. Then we see him ardent in endeavoring to carry the abolition of capital punishment—an instance of that strange paradox so common to Frenchmen, who shrink with morbid sentimentality from inflicting death on the vilest malefactor by the hand of justice, while so ready to shed the blood of innocent men without remorse, nay, with exultation, the moment their passions are roused.

The flight of the royal family to Varennes wrought a sudden and decisive change in the state of public affairs. Robespierre was just then at the summit of his reputation as an orator, admired as the most prominent figure in Mme. Roland’s coterie, which numbered all the cleverest men of the new school, though the gifted and ill‐starred centre of the group seems, even in the days of their closest friendship, to have resented Robespierre’s stubborn independence, which contrasted disagreeably with the unqualified adulation of his fellow‐devotees.

The abortive attempt of the unfortunate Louis to fly from a position which had become unbearable had set the match to the train which Robespierre and his Jacobin faction had so long been preparing. The question, hitherto whispered in ambiguous words, was now spoken boldly aloud: What was to be done with the king? Lafayette was for keeping him a prisoner in the Tuileries, he, meanwhile, acting as a sort of military viceroy; the Orleanist faction had another solution to offer; the Jacobins and the Girondists another. There was a stormy sitting at the Assembly. Brissot proposed that the people should like one man rally round the republican flag, and sign a petition for the abolition of the king. There arose in answer to this daring proposition a tempest of applause, terror, anger, and loyal indignation. The Assembly rejected it, and voted for maintaining the king. Robespierre rushed out of the hall, tearing his hair and crying out, “My friends, we are lost! The king is saved!” This was on the 15th of July. A meeting had been already called of the Jacobin Club for the 17th on the Champs de Mars for the purpose of expressing the national will. The club, on hearing the vote of the Assembly, kept up a farce of respect by issuing a counter‐order. But the sovereign people were hampered by no such mock scruples; they, in the person of Brissot, drew up a fresh petition, and invited all classes of their fellow‐citizens to attend at the appointed day on the Champs de Mars, where the altar of fatherland would be erected, and where all patriots could sign the petition towards the freedom of the country. A tragi‐comic incident marked the proceedings at an early hour. Two men were found hid under the “altar,” and detected in the act of boring a hole in it with a gimlet; they were forthwith dragged out and massacred on the spot, though the only evidence of guilt brought against them at the time, or afterwards, was that one of them had a wooden leg, and the other a basket of provisions. The mob were like dry powder that only wanted a spark to make it ignite, destroying and self‐ destructive. The wildest inferences were drawn from the discovery of the two unlucky eaves‐droppers: they were laying a mine to blow up the patriots assembled round the altar of fatherland; the absence of all appliances for this terrible purpose proved nothing; some cried out that they were spies in the king’s pay; others that they were secreted there as dupes to be murdered by Lafayette’s creatures as a pretext for beginning the massacres that followed. We even find Mme. Roland repeating some absurd notions of this kind; but nothing is too monstrous or too preposterous for prejudice to swallow. However, let the motives of the two men have been what they may, their murder was undoubtedly the signal for that onslaught of the troops which completely destroyed Lafayette’s tottering popularity, and compelled him to leave Paris for a command on the frontier. The real odium of the unpremeditated blood‐shedding fell, like every mistake of the time, on the king. On the 5th of February, 1792, Robespierre was named Public Accuser, and from this event dates the explosion of personal rivalry between him and Brissot. He never could forgive the latter having been chosen to draw up that famous petition of the Champs de Mars, and for keeping the ascendency which this fact gave him in the Assembly and in the Jacobin Club. But Robespierre did not long retain the subordinate position of Public Accuser; he hated the bondage of having to attend at fixed hours, and some months after his nomination he resigned and started a newspaper called the _Défenseur_. Blood and terror were henceforth the watchwords of the journalist‐patriot. He effected a sham reconciliation with Brissot and all other enemies, and the Judas kiss of hate and treachery went round.

Roland was named minister at this crisis; a clever and honest man, moderate, and, above all, the husband of Mme. Roland, his nomination was hailed with joy by all. Robespierre alone was furious at seeing the mediocre provincial farmer placed over his head. His jealous vengeance against Mme. Roland dated from this elevation of her husband. The success of his journal consoled him, meanwhile, for the delay of larger triumphs, while it procured him competence and independence, which were all he required. He lodged with a man named Duplay, a carpenter, who had a wife and two daughters. One of the latter became branded in connection with the name of her father’s tenant. Robespierre vindicated his surname of Incorruptible all through the period of his popular power, inasmuch as he was inaccessible to the temptation of money or any of the softer bribes which sometimes beguile hard, ambitious men into acts of mercy or passing tenderness.

In August, 1792, he suspended his labors as a journalist, and henceforth devoted his undivided energies and his whole time to the political events which were thickening around him. The last number of the _Défenseur_ contains an inflammatory appeal which is too significant of the man and the times to be omitted. It was decided that a convention should be elected to choose a new form of national government. The issue depended almost entirely on the character and principles of the members who should compose it. Robespierre determined at any and every cost to be one of the elected. It was his supreme opportunity; if he missed it, his career as a popular leader was broken, and he must sink back into the ranks of obscure mediocrities who had shot up from the mass of agitators like rockets, burning bright and fierce for a moment, and then subsiding in darkness. He had that instinct of genius which enables a man to read the temper of his time, and to this sanguinary temper he passionately addressed himself in the closing number of his paper:

“You must _prepare_ the success of this convention by the regeneration of the spirit of the people. Let us awake—all, all arise, all arm, and the enemies of liberty will hide themselves in darkness. Let the tocsin of Paris be re‐echoed in all the departments. Let the people learn at once to reason and to fight. You are now at war with all your oppressors, and you will have no peace till you have punished them. Far be from you that pusillanimous weakness or that cowardly indulgence which the tyrants so long satiated with the blood of the people now invoke when their own hour is come! Impunity has produced all their crimes and all your sufferings. Let them fall under the sword of the law. Clemency towards them would be real barbarity—an outrage on injured humanity.” This manifesto revealed the true aim and policy of Robespierre, and just gave the touch that was necessary to set the wheel revolving. Danton cried amen to it, and all the faction shouted amen in chorus. “We must dare, and dare again, and dare to the bitter end!” said Danton, and the word acted like a trumpet‐call to the bloodhounds of the revolution. The prisons of Paris were at this moment gorged with aristocrats awaiting their trial. The people shouted, Try them! The tocsin sounded, the prison‐doors were surrounded. Mock courts of justice were set up in the courtyards. Quickly, one by one, the prisoners are called out, questions are rapidly put and answered; the jury decides: “Let the prisoner be enlarged!” The _gendarmes_ seize him; they open the gate and “enlarge” him. He falls forward on a mass of glittering pikes and bayonets, and dies, cut to pieces. Soon the number of the butchered is so great that the amateur executioners have to pause and clear the space by piling up the corpses to one side before they resume their work. Every prison presents the same scene. At La Force a remnant of the Swiss Guard is called out. “They clasp each other spasmodically, gray veterans crying, ‘Mercy, gentlemen, mercy!’ But there is no mercy! They prepare to die like brave men. One of them steps forward. He had on a blue frock‐coat. He was about thirty. His stature was above the common, his look noble and martial. ‘I go first,’ he said, ‘since it must be so. Adieu!’ Then, dashing his hat behind him, ‘Which way?’ cried he to the brigands. ‘Show it me.’ They open the folding gate. He is announced to the multitude. He stands a moment motionless, then plunges forth among the pikes, and dies of a thousand wounds.”(117) The fair and saintly Princesse de Lamballe fell, butchered by the same pikes; her head paraded through the streets, her remains profaned by the most unheard‐of indignities. As it always happens in these storms of human souls, there were tones of a divine harmony to be heard striking through the hideous din. Old M. de Sombreuil is dragged out to die. His daughter, a tender girl in the first blush of maidenhood, rushes out, fearless and bold, clinging to him, and appeals to the tigers about to shed his blood: “O good friends! he is my father! He is no aristocrat! We hate aristocrats; tell me how I can prove it to you?” They fill a bowl full of the hot blood of an aristocrat just slain, and present it to her, saying: “Drink this, and we will believe thee and spare thy father.”

She drinks the loathsome draught, and clasps her father amidst the _Vivats_ of the mob. Alas! it was only a respite that the brave deed had gained for the beloved old man. He died by those same blood‐stained hands before the year was out. At the abbey a picture of rest and calm is to be seen: “Towards _seven_ on Sunday night, we saw two men enter, their hands bloody, and armed with sabres. A turnkey with a torch lighted them; he points to the bed of the unfortunate Swiss, Reding. Reding was dying. One of the men paused; but the other said: _Allons donc!_ (come along!) and lifted the dying man, and carried him on his back out to the street. He was massacred there. We looked at one another in silence; we clasped each other’s hands; we gazed on the pavement of our prison, on which lay the moonlight, checkered with shadows.... At _three in the morning_ we heard them breaking in one of the prison‐doors. We thought they were coming to kill us.... The Abbé Lenfant and the Abbé de Chapt‐Rastignac appeared in the pulpit of the chapel, which was our prison. They had got in by a door from the stairs. They said to us that our end was at hand; that we must compose ourselves and receive their last blessing. An electric movement, not to be described, threw us all on our knees, and we received it. These two white‐haired old men blessing us from their place above, death hovering over our heads—the moment is never to be forgotten.”(118) Half an hour later the two priests were dragged out and massacred, those whom they had strengthened with their last words to meet a like fate listening to their cries.

The massacres began on the 2d and lasted till the 6th, when Robespierre and Danton were elected to that legislative body called the Deputation of Paris, composed of twenty‐four members, the first name on the list being Robespierre, the last Philippe Egalité. It was on this occasion that the future regicide adopted the surname of Egalité, he being compelled to choose some appellation not obnoxious to the people.