CHAPTER XIII.

THÉROIGNE DE MERICOURT. (1789-1793.)

THERE still exists an engraved portrait of the beautiful, brave, and unfortunate Liegoise, who, on the 5th of October, commenced so grandly by gaining over the Flanders regiment to break the support of royalty, and who, on the 20th August, was among the first to enter the chateau, sword in hand, and receive a crown from the hand of the conquerors. Unhappily this portrait, drawn at the Salpêtrière, when she was crazy, but feebly recalls the heroic beauty which ravished the hearts of our fathers, causing them to see in a woman the figure of Liberty.

The round and firm head (a true Liegoise type), the black eye, rather large, and severe, had not lost its fire. Passion, and traces of the violent love by which this girl lived and died, still remain in it-love of man? no! (though it seems

a strange thing to say, judging from such a life), the love of the ideal, the love of Liberty and the Revolution.

The eye of the poor girl nevertheless is not haggard; it is full of bitterness, reproach and sorrow, at the remembrance of so great an ingratitude. Nevertheless, it has been harshly treated by time as well as by unhappiness. The large features have assumed something of coarseness. Excepting the black hair, inclosed in a handkerchief, all is in disorder; the naked bosom, her last remaining beauty, preserves its pure, firm, and virginal form, as if to testify that this unfortunate creature, prodigal to the passions of others, had herself used life but little.

In order to understand this woman, her country must be well explained: the Walloon country, from Tournay to Liege, especially the latter, our excitable little France de Meuse advancing as an avant-garde into the midst of the German population of the Low Countries. I have related its glorious history in the fourteenth century, when so many times broken, but never vanquished, this heroic population of a town was in combat with an empire, when three hundred Liegoise, in

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Théroigne was the daughter of a well to do farmer, who had given her some education, joined

a strange thing to say, judging from such a life), the love of the ideal, the love of Liberty and the Revolution.

The eye of the poor girl nevertheless is not haggard; it is full of bitterness, reproach and sorrow, at the remembrance of so great an ingratitude. Nevertheless, it has been harshly treated by time as well as by unhappiness. The large features have assumed something of coarseness. Excepting the black hair, inclosed in a handkerchief, all is in disorder; the naked bosom, her last remaining beauty, preserves its pure, firm, and virginal form, as if to testify that this unfortunate creature, prodigal to the passions of others, had herself used life but little.

In order to understand this woman, her country must be well explained: the Walloon country, from Tournay to Liege, especially the latter, our excitable little France de Meuse advancing as an avant-garde into the midst of the German population of the Low Countries. I have related its glorious history in the fourteenth century, when so many times broken, but never vanquished, this heroic population of a town was in combat with an empire, when three hundred Liegoise, in

one night, forced a camp of forty thousand in order to kill Charles the Bold (Histoire de France, vol. vi.). I have told how a Walloon, a worker of iron, of Meuris, saved the city of Nantes, in our wars of 1793, by a devotion which recalls that of the three hundred, and how La Vendée destroyed herself for the good of France.

In order to understand Théroigne, the condition of the town of Liege, this martyr to liberty at the commencement of the Revolution, must be well defined. Slave of an atrocious tyranny, slave of priests, she was free for two years only to fall again under the dominion of her bishop, re-established by Austria. Crowds of Liegoise, taking refuge in Paris, breathed on our armies their fury and valor, and were not less noted in our clubs by their inflammatory eloquence; they were our brothers and our children. Perhaps the most touching fête of the Revolution was that of the Commune, when the archives of Liege were solemnly adopted, and carried in procession through Paris before being received in its bosom at the Hôtel de Ville.

Théroigne was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, who had given her some education, joined