190 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

used to appear, and the growing power of a ferociousoligarchy. He denounced the weakness of the conven-tion, and the tyranny exercised over it by a few ambi-tious and resolute men, in a letter to his constituents,which was denounced and sent for examination to thecommittee of public safety. From this moment the jaco-bins marked him out also for a victim; and the ex-ca-puchin Chabot denounced him for having written againstthe new constitution of 1793, which superseded the onehe had drawn up : he was summoned to the bar, anda decree of arrest passed against him.

The sanguinary characters and tenets of the leadingjacobins had already made him say that no one wassure of six months of life, and he considered the decreeof arrest synonymous to a sentence of death. lie es-caped pursuit, and concealed himself. A generouswoman, before unknown to him, and who has neverrevealed her name to the world, gave him refuge inher house. Denounced on the 3d of October, as Brissot ’saccomplice, there was no doubt that had he been takenhe had shared the fate of the deputies who wereguillotined in the month of November; but his placeof concealment was not suspected, and he remained inditat safe ty till the August of the following year. During this50 , l° n g seclusion, he projected occupation in writing. Atfirst, he meditated detailing the history of his politicalcareer; but he reflected that his many labours for hiscountry were irrefragable documents; and, more at-tached to opinions which he considered pregnant withthe welfare of mankind, than do facts which were butthe evanescent forms of change, he applied himself todeveloping his theories in an “ Historical Sketch of theProgress of the Human Mind.” This is his most ce-lebrated work. It is full of error and even of into-lerance ; still the clearness of the views, the enthusiasmwith which he developes them, the order, precision,and the originality of his theories, render it remarkable.He glances over the past, and argues that each suc-ceeding epoch in the history of mankind has brought