reports, therefore, found ready acceptance, and Paine was left to his fate.

Quite justified under the circumstances, was the reproachful letter which Paine, after his release from prison, addressed to Washington. The latter's indifference to the fate of Paine-without whose work during the Revolution Washington would probably have died an obscure magistrate in an English colony-did not in the end hurt Paine, but it cast an unfortunate shadow on Washington's reputation.

There have been many conjectures as to how Paine, almost alone among his fellow prisoners, escaped the guillotine. Possibly the almost mortal illness into which he fell when the Terror was at its very height contributed to save him. Carlyle, in his French Revolution, has given popularity to a fanciful explanation of Paine's escape, an explanation in which Paine himself apparently placed some credence:

"But in this set of Tumbrils (the carts in which the victims were dragged to the guillotine) there are two other things notable; one notable person, and one want of a notable person. The notable person is Lieutenant-General Loiserolles, a nobleman by birth, and by nature; laying down his life here for his son. In the prison of SaintLazaire, the night before last, hurrying to the gate to hear the deathlist, he caught the name of his son. The son was asleep at the moment. 'I am Loiserolles,' cried the old man; at Tinville's bar an error in the Christian name is little; small objection was made. The want of the notable person, again, is that of Deputy Paine! Paine has sat in the Luxembourg since January; and seemed forgotten; but Fouquier had pricked him at last. The turnkey, list in hand, is marking with chalk the outer doors of tomorrow's Fournee. Paine's outer door happened to be open, turned back on the wall; the turnkey marked it on the side next him, and hurried on; another turnkey came, and shut it; no chalk mark now visible, the Fournee went without Paine. Paine's life lay not there."

However this may be, Paine had devoted friends within the prison. In the Preface to the second part of The Age of Reason, he speaks of his gratitude to Doctor Markoski, the physician of the Luxembourg, and others whom he met within its walls. It is probable that there was some collusion among his friends in the prison, which was responsible for his cell being repeatedly passed by.

It is true that after the fall of Robespierre there was found among his papers a document calling for a decree of accusation against Thomas Paine, "pour l'interêt de l'Amérique autant que de la France. But it is now known, as we have already indicated, that

Robespierre (contrary to Paine's own belief) was not really responsible for his predicament, and as a matter of fact had no personal hostility to him; otherwise, Paine would have been released immediately after the fall of Robespierre. It seems clear that Robespierre had suspicions of Morris's duplicity, and of his pro-English sympathies; certainly he knew very well that to guillotine Paine would have thrown royalist England into hysterics of joy. Still, he feared to offend Morris, the official representative of President Washington, by letting Paine go free.

After Robespierre went to the guillotine, Morris's influence contrived to keep Paine in prison, lest by his release the plot might be revealed. But at last James Monroe was sent out to replace Morris as American minister. For a long time Morris succeeded in keeping Monroe from being recognized by the French authorities: but finally he was permitted to take over the duties of his position, and lost no time in demanding Paine's freedom. as an American citizen. Still there was delay, and it was not until Morris had gained the security of the Swiss frontier (on an irregular passport) and was on his way to England to bask in aristocratic drawing-rooms, that the door of the prison opened and Paine came forth a free man.

An extract from a letter written to Paine while still in prison, by Monroe, later President of the United States, is significant. He said:

"It is unnecessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen-I speak of the great mass of the people-are interested in your welfare. They have not forgotten the history of their own revolution, and the difficult scenes through which they passed: nor do they review its several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained and I trust never will stain, our national character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered important services in our own revolution, but as being, on a more extensive scale, the friend of human rights, and a distinguished and able advocate in favor of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine the Americans are not and cannot be indifferent."

A painful ulcer in the side had developed during Paine's imprisonment. On his final release, the Monroes took him into their own house and nursed him back to health.

Invited again into the Convention, Paine responded cheerfully to the invitation, in order, as he said, "to show that I could bear an injury without permitting it to injure my principles or my disposition. It is not because right principles have been violated that they are to be abandoned."

Paine, through his wide acquaintance and official connections in France, was of incalculable service to the United States legation and to the American colony in Paris from this time to the close of the century. After the recall of Monroe3 and during the long interval before the appointment of a successor, Paine was a sort of unofficial American minister-and, as usual, received nothing for his service.

In January, 1797, Paine, who had been the first to write of the "Religion of Humanity," became one of the founders of the Church of Theophilanthropy in Paris, the cardinal principle of which was love of God expressed in love of man, and which aimed to promote ethical culture. A beautiful form of worship was devised, in which the spiritual literature of the Hindus and Chinese was given a share of recognition. The inaugural sermon, at the first public meeting of the society, was delivered by Paine. After an interesting career of some years, during which it enjoyed official recognition, Theophilanthropy was suppressed when Napoleon negotiated the concordat with the Pope in 1801.

To this period, and indeed as a part of the Theophilanthropic movement, belongs the well-known pamphlet entitled. "Agrarian Justice," which is still an important document in the literature of the land question. In it he said:

"There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land office, from whence the first title deeds should issue.

"Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance. without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before."

In the same pamphlet he proposed a system of old age pensions. and other social reforms, which in part at least have now been adopted in the most progressive countries, such as England, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina. He specifically advocated a plan for creating in every country a national fund "to pay to every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, to enable him or her to begin the world, and also 3 The result of malicious falsehoods concocted by Morris.

ten pounds sterling, per annum, during life, to every person now living, at the age of fifty years, to enable them to live in old age without wretchedness, and to go decently out of the world."

As proof of his belief in the justice of his plan, he declared that besides standing ready to bear his share of the expense necessary to establish this fund in his own country, the United States, he would voluntarily contribute 100 pounds towards the establishment of a similar fund in France, and a like amount for the same purpose in England.

Again, he said:

"It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are capable of good. I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it."

The star of Napoleon was now rising, the Convention had lapsed into futility and was dissolved, the Constitution on which Paine had labored so indefatigably was shelved, and the Directory temporarily ruled France. Soon Napoleon, after his military victories in Italy, became First Consul and sole ruler.

Napoleon recognized Paine's genius and consulted him from time to time on matters of importance. He even stooped to the language of adulation. He slept, he averred, with a copy of The Rights of Man under his pillow, and he insisted that a statue of gold ought to be erected in Paine's honor. It is understood that Paine finally incurred Bonaparte's disfavor through an act of mercy to a family of political refugees. He was warned that if it happened again he would be immediately expelled from France. In any event, l'aine must have quickly realized that the Corsican was no friend of Republican government. that he represented nobody but himself, and was aiming to make himself ultimately Emperor of Europe. Tempus abire aderat: it was time for Paine to depart.

America, as he himself said, was the land of his literary birth, the country to whose service he had devoted the best years of his life: there his heart had always dwelt, and there, he added with feeling, he had ever intended "to close the scene of my life.”

He had made arrangements to leave for America with the Monroes, early in 1797, and had actually accompanied them to Havre;

but on arriving there he saw, as he later wrote, so many "british frigates" patrolling the waters outside the harbor, that he considered it prudent to turn back; and it was well that he did, for the vessel on which he purposed embarking was searched for him.

In 1801, Paine's friend and ardent admirer, Thomas Jefferson, became President of the United States. Knowing of Paine's desire to return to America and the danger of his taking passage on a private vessel, Jefferson offered to place a ship of the United States navy at his disposal. Paine was grateful for the offer, but owing to the abuse which was now being heaped upon him by the orthodox mob on account of the publication of The Age of Reason, he preferred not to place his friend, the President, in an embarrassing position. But he was determined to return to America, and at last decided to take his chances on a common craft.

In 1802 Paine had spent a full ten years in France-ten years of service and sacrifice, of toil, imprisonment, almost mortal illness, amid the horrors of the great Revolution, that awful birth-labor in which a new era was struggling blindly for life. His hair, once of jet-like blackness, was now white. He was an old man-he was sixty-five.

All during those ten tempestuous years in Paris, his thoughts had been wont to wing their way across the Atlantic. From the bloody cobblestones of the Place de la Revolution and the dreadful guillotine, it brought blessed peace and surcease from sorrow to turn in memory to the quiet, smiling lawns of Jersey; to be once again in spirit with his old friends in Bordentown-with Colonel Kirkbride, honest John Hall, Captain Nicholson, Mrs. Nicholson, and his favorite Kitty, now Mrs. Few, wife of the Senator from Georgia. Again in fancy he cantered astride his faithful horse, Button, along the sunny lanes leading from Morrisania and out upon the broad road to Trenton. The nostalgia for America was growing ever stronger within him.

So now he prepared to depart from Paris, forever. There were many adieus to be said among the little coterie of friends who had gathered round him in the French capital, particularly M. and Mme. Bonneville and their children (one of them his godson), all of whom worshipped him.

It is pleasant to know that Paine did not have to start on his long homeward journey alone. Great souls, in times of stress, are never altogether deserted; and Paine, even with the world against him, at no time lacked devoted disciples. Thomas (Clio) Rickman, a younger