That formidable apparition has left a name in the memory of men; he should be called Revolution,--his name is Mirabeau! III THE TRIBUNE From the moment that that man put his foot upon that platform, that platform was transformed.

The French tribune was founded.
The French tribune! A volume would be necessary to tell all that that word contains.

The French tribune has been, these sixty years, the open mouth of human intelligence.

Of human intelligence, saying everything, combining everything, blending everything, fertilizing everything: the good, the bad, the true, the false, the just, the unjust, the high, the low, the horrible, the beautiful, dreams, facts, passion, reason, love, hate, the material, the ideal; but, in a word--for that is the essence of its sublime and eternal mission--making darkness in order to draw from it light, making chaos to draw from it life, making the revolution to draw from it the republic.
What has taken place upon that tribune, what it has seen, what it has done, what tempests have raged around it, _to_ what events it has given birth, what men have shaken it with their clamour, what men have made it sacred with their truths--how recount this?
After Mirabeau,--Vergniaud, Camille Desmoulins, Saint-Just, that stern young man, Danton, that tremendous tribune, Robespierre, that incarnation of the great and terrible year! From it were heard those ferocious interruptions.

"Aha!" cries an orator of the Convention, "do you propose to cut short my speech ?" "Yes," answers a voice, "and your neck to-morrow." And those superb apostrophes.