CARRF.L. ARMAND NICOLAS, was born at Roucu, on the 8th of August 1300. lie was the son of a draper in good circumstances In that city. At the age of seventeen he joined a regiment of cavalry, and the following year entered the military school of St..-Cyr. His political opinions had already taken the shape of principles, and these were so liberal, and so frankly enunciated, as to draw upon him, first the friendly remonstrance, and afterwards the censure of the governor, General d'Albignac, who was entirely denoted to the court. At the clues of 1319 he was made second lieutenant of the 29th regiment of infantry, which was scut to the garrison of I34fort in 1821. The con spiracy which bears the name of this town, and has become historical, broke out in the following January, and Carrel was one of the many *Morn drawn within Ito. vortex. But this time ho was neither molested nor discovered.
Spain being invaded in 1823 by the French army under the Duke of Angotilanse. Carrel took part with the Constitutionalists, and fought under Mina. "Some time after," says his friend the historian Rabb., "he was one of the Frenchmen who were obliged to lay down their arms and surrender after the capitulation of Lars in Catalonia; but this capitulation not having been ratified by the French govern. meat, he was arrested on his return to France, and tried by three emosasive courts-martial." After being twice sentenced to death, and twice escaping through legal informalities, and suffering thirteen months* imprisonment, he was tried a third time at Toulouse, and, being bogs:kW, be returned to Paris in 1825 almost penniless, having closed soloist him for ever that profession of arms to which his early Tee lest been devoted. Shortly after, he was engaged by Augustin Thierry, the author of the 'Conquest of England by the Normans, to act as hie meretary, sad be took notes and made extracts for the Last volume of that celebrated work. Introduced to the leading pub. be hers by Thierry, he now wrote several ' ItZsum6s,' or outlines ol Watery, and grew into notice among the literary celebrities of the tune. But his keen susceptibility could not endure even the gentle curt) of the kindest employer, so he resolved to try his fortune alone, lie left Thierry, and supported himself for several months by con. tribal* to the reviews and newqmpem The boldness of his thoughts, and the eloquence and originality of his style, were gradually making their hammiest on nun s minds. Dot his gains were mall, and at one time (1527) he opened a bookshop of his own, to endeavour te Wass.. his precarious l000me. It was in the little parlour behind that shop that be wrote the book which will survive him, his ' iiistorg of the Counterdterointion in England.' On the let of January 1t30 the ' National' appeared, with Thiers klignet, and Carrel as its editors. This journal took at onoo a mow lecided course of opposition to the government of Charles X.. and
Phowed an advocacy equally distinct in favour of the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Philippe: whence arose a suspicion, probably ground. leas, that the prince had furnished the capital. When the Polipase ministry issued the fatal ordinances of July, Carrel stood forward and wrote the first declaration of resistance in the ' National ,' and the next morning appeared the spirited protest, which was universally distributed, and called the nation to arms. "Carrel did not," says Louis Blanc, "mingle in the ranks of the combatants as one of the fighters, but he went about to the different groups, with a black switch in his hand, saying to them, Vous n'avez qu'un Waffle!' ' (' You have only one battalion')." He did not believe that a popular outbreak could succeed against regular soldiers, and his two previous oondemnations explain his reluctance to act rashly.
Ilia two colleagues being employed by the new government, from that time until his deplorable death in 1836, Carrel took up a position as a journalist, such as no man in any country had won before. During the short but powerful administration of Casimir Perrier in 1832, his spirit proved too strong for the government, and a new stretch of arbitrary power was prevented. Subsequently he was pro secuted by the crown, and heavy penalties levied on his journitl. Ito was several times imprisoned. On one occasion he spoke as advocate for a fellow.prisoner an the Chamber of Peers, when he startled the whole country by his invocation of the memory of Marshal Noy. After thie his name was on every tongue, and be became the idol of the popular party.
But the well.balanced mind of this writer was not made for either extreme : he resisted the despotism of government; but be shrunk still more from revolutionary violence. Surrounded by all the fretful spirits of the day, he gauged the different parties which were forming. and found that he did not belong to them. This sad conviction preyed upon his heart. "He shuddered," says a recent historian, "to see himself at the hoed of certain men whose very obedience was rude and imperative ; he distrusted their seal, and ascribed to them a longing for vengeance, and a pre-determined despotism, which his own moderation disclaimed." This despondency became gradually habitual, and, in such a state of mind, Carrel was too easily drawn into that unhappy newspaper quarrel with Emile de Girardin, the editor of the ' Freese,' which led to the duel that so abruptly closed his career. Mortally wouuded by a pistol-sbot, he expired at SL Mand6, on the 24th of July 1836, in his thirty-sixth year. Arago, &ranger, Cornemin, and a crowd of distinguished deputies and writers followed him to the pave. His bust, by the sculptor David, marks the spot where he lies ; but as yet no competent biography of this remarkable man has appeared.
(Rabbo, Unirersol Biography; Louis Blanc, Ten rears; Gaf6riE des Contemporains Illustres.)