“ On the 7th of January 1794 Robespierre, who on a former occasion had defended Camille when in danger at the hands of the National Convention, in addressing the Jacobin club counselled not the expulsion of Desmoulins, but the burning of certain numbers of the Vieux Cordelier. Camille sharply replied that he would answer with Rousseau,—“burning is not answering,” and a bitter quarrel thereupon ensued. By the end of March not only were Hébert and the leaders of the extreme party guillotined, but their opponents, Danton, Desmoulins and the best of the moderates, were arrested. ”

“ By its erudite, brilliant and courageous examination of the rights of king, of nobles, of clergy and of people, it attained a wide and sudden popularity; it secured for the author the friendship and protection of Mirabeau, and the studied abuse of numerous royalist pamphleteers. Shortly afterwards, with his vanity and love of popularity inflamed, he pandered to the passions of the lower orders by the publication of his Discours de la lanterne aux Parisiens which, with an almost fiendish reference to the excesses of the mob, he headed by a quotation from St John, Qui male agit odit lucem. ”

“ In March 1789 Desmoulins began his political career. Having been nominated deputy from the bailliage of Guise, he appeared at Laon as one of the commissioners for the election of deputies to the States-General summoned by royal edict of January 24th. Camille heralded its meeting by his Ode to the States-General. It is, moreover, highly probable that he was the author of a radical pamphlet entitled La Philosophie au peuple français, published in 1788, the text of which is not known. His hopes of professional success were now scattered, and he was living in Paris in extreme poverty. ”