BABER

baber, or babar (1483-1530), a famous conqueror of india and founder of the so-called mogul dynasty. his name was zahir ud-din-mahomet, and he was given the surname of baber, meaning the tiger. born on the 14th of february 1483, he was a descendant of timur, and his father, omar sheik, was king of ferghana, a district of what is now russian turkestan. omar died in 1495, and baber, though only twelve years of age, succeeded to the throne. an attempt made by his uncles to dislodge him proved unsuccessful, and no sooner was the young sovereign firmly settled than he began to meditate an extension of his own dominions. in 1497 he attacked and gained possession of samarkand, to which he always seems to have thought he had a natural and hereditary right. a rebellion among his nobles robbed him of his native kingdom, and while marching to recover it his troops deserted him, and he lost samarkand also. after some reverses he regained both these places, but in 1501 his most formidable enemy, shaibani (sheibani) khan, ruler of the uzbegs, defeated him in a great engagement and drove him from samarkand. for three years he wandered about trying in vain to recover his lost possessions; at last, in 1504, he gathered some troops, and crossing the snowy hindu kush besieged and captured the strong city of kabul. by this dexterous stroke he gained a new and wealthy kingdom, and completely re-established his fortunes. in the following year he united with hussain mirza of herat against shaibani. the death of hussain put a stop to this expedition, but baber spent a year at herat, enjoying the pleasures of that capital. he returned to kabul in time to quell a formidable rebellion, but two years later a revolt among some of the leading moguls drove him from his city. he was compelled to take to flight with very few companions, but his great personal courage and daring struck the army of his opponents with such dismay that they again returned to their allegiance and baber regained his kingdom. once again, in 1510, after the death of shaibani, he endeavoured to obtain possession of his native country. he received considerable aid from shah ismael of persia, and in 1511 made a triumphal entry into samarkand. but in 1514 he was utterly defeated by the uzbegs and with difficulty reached kabul. he seems now to have resigned all hopes of recovering ferghana, and as he at the same time dreaded an invasion of the uzbegs from the west, his attention was more and more drawn towards india. several preliminary incursions had been already made, when in 1521 an opportunity presented itself for a more extended expedition. ibrahim, emperor of delhi, had made himself detested, even by his afghan nobles, several of whom called upon baber for assistance. he at once assembled his forces, 12,000 strong, with some pieces of artillery and marched into india. ibrahim, with 100,000 soldiers and numerous elephants, advanced against him. the great battle was fought at panipat on the 21st of april 1526, when ibrahim was slain and his army routed. baber at once took possession of agra. a still more formidable enemy awaited him; the rana sanga of mewar collected the enormous force of 210,000 men, with which he moved against the invaders. on all sides there was danger and revolt, even baber's own soldiers, worn out with the heat of this new climate, longed for kabul. by vigorous measures and inspiriting speeches he restored their courage, though his own heart was nearly failing him, and in his distress he abjured the use of wine, to which he had been addicted. at kanwaha, on the 10th of march 1527, he won a great victory and made himself absolute master of northern india. the remaining years of his life he spent in arranging the affairs and revenues of his new empire and in improving his capital, agra. he died on the 26th of december 1530 in his forty-eighth year. baber was above the middle height, of great strength and an admirable archer and swordsman. his mind was as well cultivated as his bodily powers; he wrote well, and his observations are generally acute and accurate; he was brave, kindly and generous. full materials for his life are found in his _memoirs_, written by himself (translated into english by leyden and erskine (london, 1826); abridged in caldecott, _life of baber_ (london, 1844). see also lane-poole, _baber_ (rulers of india series), 1899. [v.03 p.0093] babeuf, francois noel (1760-1797), known as gracchus babeuf, french political agitator and journalist, was born at saint quentin on the 23rd of november 1760. his father, claude babeuf, had deserted the french army in 1738 and taken service under maria theresa, rising, it is said, to the rank of major. amnestied in 1755 he returned to france, but soon sank into dire poverty, being forced to earn a pittance for his wife and family as a day labourer. the hardships endured by babeuf during early years do much to explain his later opinions. he had received from his father the smatterings of a liberal education, but until the outbreak of the revolution he was a domestic servant, and from 1785 occupied the invidious office of _commissaire a terrier_, his function being to assist the nobles and priests in the assertion of their feudal rights as against the unfortunate peasants. on the eve of the revolution babeuf was in the employ of a land surveyor at roye. his father had died in 1780, and he was now the sole support, not only of his wife and two children, but of his mother, brothers and sisters. in the circumstances it is not surprising that he was the life and soul of the malcontents of the place. he was an indefatigable writer, and the first germ of his future socialism is contained in a letter of the 21st of march 1787, one of a series--mainly on literature--addressed to the secretary of the academy of arras. in 1789 he drew up the first article of the _cahier_ of the electors of the _bailliage_ of roye, demanding the abolition of feudal rights. then, from july to october, he was in paris superintending the publication of his first work: _cadastre perpetuel, dedie a l'assemblee nationale, l'an 1789 et le premier de la liberte francaise_, which was written in 1787 and issued in 1790. the same year he published a pamphlet against feudal aids and the _gabelle_, for which he was denounced and arrested, but provisionally released. in october, on his return to roye, he founded the _correspondant picard_, the violent character of which cost him another arrest. in november he was elected a member of the municipality of roye, but was expelled. in march 1791 he was appointed commissioner to report on the national property (_biens nationaux_) in the town, and in september 1792 was elected a member of the council-general of the department of the somme. here, as everywhere, the violence of his attitude made his position intolerable to himself and others, and he was soon transferred to the post of administrator of the district of montdidier. here he was accused of fraud for having substituted one name for another in a deed of transfer of national lands. it is probable that his fault was one of negligence only; but, distrusting the impartiality of the judges of the somme, he fled to paris, and on the 23rd of august 1793 was condemned _in contumaciam_ to twenty years' imprisonment. meanwhile he had been appointed secretary to the relief committee (_comite des subsistances_) of the commune of paris. the judges of amiens, however, pursued him with a warrant for his arrest, which took place in brumaire of the year ii. (1794). the court of cassation quashed the sentence, through defect of form, but sent babeuf for a new trial before the aisne tribunal, by which he was acquitted on the 18th of july. babeuf now returned to paris, and on the 3rd of september 1794 published the first number of his _journal de la liberte de la presse_, the title of which was altered on the 5th of october to _le tribun du peuple_. the execution of robespierre on the 28th of july had ended the terror, and babeuf--now self-styled "gracchus" babeuf--defended the men of thermidor and attacked the fallen terrorists with his usual violence. but he also attacked, from the point of view of his own socialistic theories, the economic outcome of the revolution. this was an attitude which had few supporters, even in the jacobin club, and in october babeuf was arrested and sent to prison at arras. here he came under the influence of certain terrorist prisoners, notably of lebois, editor of the _journal de l'egalite_, afterwards of the _ami du peuple_, papers which carried on the traditions of marat. he emerged from prison a confirmed terrorist and convinced that his utopia, fully proclaimed to the world in no. 33 of his _tribun_, could only be realized through the restoration of the constitution of 1793. he was now in open conflict with the whole trend of public opinion. in february 1795 he was again arrested, and the _tribun du peuple_ was solemnly burnt in the theatre des bergeres by the _jeunesse doree_, the young men whose mission it was to bludgeon jacobinism out of the streets and cafes. but for the appalling economic conditions produced by the fall in the value of _assignats_, babeuf might have shared the fate of other agitators who were whipped into obscurity. it was the attempts of the directory to deal with this economic crisis that gave babeuf his real historic importance. the new government was pledged to abolish the vicious system by which paris was fed at the expense of all france, and the cessation of the distribution of bread and meat at nominal prices was fixed for the 20th of february 1796. the announcement caused the most wide-spread consternation. not only the workmen and the large class of idlers attracted to paris by the system, but _rentiers_ and government officials, whose incomes were paid in _assignats_ on a scale arbitrarily fixed by the government, saw themselves threatened with actual starvation. the government yielded to the outcry that arose; but the expedients by which it sought to mitigate the evil, notably the division of those entitled to relief into classes, only increased the alarm and the discontent. the universal misery gave point to the virulent attacks of babeuf on the existing order, and at last gained him a hearing. he gathered round him a small circle of his immediate followers known as the _societe des egaux_, soon merged with the rump of the jacobins, who met at the pantheon; and in november 1795 he was reported by the police to be openly preaching "insurrection, revolt and the constitution of 1793." for a time the government, while keeping itself informed of his activities, left him alone; for it suited the directory to let the socialist agitation continue, in order to frighten the people from joining in any royalist movement for the overthrow of the existing regime. moreover the mass of the _ouvriers_, even of extreme views, were repelled by babeuf's bloodthirstiness; and the police agents reported that his agitation was making many converts--for the government. the jacobin club of the faubourg saint-antoine refused to admit babeuf and lebois, on the ground that they were "_egorgeurs_." with the development of the economic crisis, however, babeuf's influence increased. after the club of the pantheon was closed by bonaparte, on the 27th of february 1796, his aggressive activity redoubled. in ventose and germinal he published, under the _nom de plume_ of "lalande, soldat de la patrie," a new paper, the _eclaireur du peuple, ou le defenseur de vingt-cinq millions d'opprimes_, which was hawked clandestinely from group to group in the streets of paris. at the same time no. 40 of the _tribun_ excited an immense sensation. in this he praised the authors of the september massacres as "deserving well of their country," and declared that a more complete "september 2nd" was needed to annihilate the actual government, which consisted of "starvers, bloodsuckers, tyrants, hangmen, rogues and mountebanks." the distress among all classes continued to be appalling; and in march the attempt of the directory to replace the _assignats_ (_q.v._) by a new issue of _mandats_ created fresh dissatisfaction after the breakdown of the hopes first raised. a cry went up that national bankruptcy had been declared, and thousands of the lower class of _ouvrier_ began to rally to babeuf's flag. on the 4th of april it was reported to the government that 500,000 people in paris were in need of relief. from the 11th paris was placarded with posters headed _analyse de la doctrine de baboeuf_ (sic), _tribun du peuple_, of which the opening sentence ran: "nature has given to every man the right to the enjoyment of an equal share in all property," and which ended with a call to restore the constitution of 1793. babeuf's song _mourant de faim, mourant de froid_ (dying of hunger, dying of cold), set to a popular air, began to be sung in the cafes, with immense applause; and reports were current that the disaffected troops in the camp of grenelle were ready to join an _emeute_ against the government. the directory thought it time to act; the _bureau central_ had accumulated through its agents, notably the ex-captain georges [v.03 p.0094] grisel, who had been initiated into babeuf's society, complete evidence of a conspiracy for an armed rising fixed for floreal 22, year iv. (11th of may 1796), in which jacobins and socialists were combined. on the 10th of may babeuf was arrested with many of his associates, among whom were a. darthe and p. m. buonarroti, the ex-members of the convention, robert lindet, j. a. b. amar, m. g. a. vadier and jean baptiste drouet, famous as the postmaster of saint-menehould who had arrested louis xvi., and now a member of the council of five hundred. the _coup_ was perfectly successful. the last number of the _tribun_ appeared on the 24th of april, but lebois in the _ami du peuple_ tried to incite the soldiers to revolt, and for a while there were rumours of a military rising. the trial of babeuf and his accomplices was fixed to take place before the newly constituted high court of justice at vendome. on fructidor 10 and 11 (27th and 28th of august), when the prisoners were removed from paris, there were tentative efforts at a riot with a view to rescue, but these were easily suppressed. the attempt of five or six hundred jacobins (7th of september) to rouse the soldiers at grenelle met with no better success. the trial of babeuf and the others, begun at vendome on the 20th of february 1797, lasted two months. the government for reasons of their own made the socialist babeuf the leader of the conspiracy, though more important people than he were implicated; and his own vanity played admirably into their hands. on prairial 7 (26th of april 1797) babeuf and darthe were condemned to death; some of the prisoners, including buonarroti, were exiled; the rest, including vadier and his fellow-conventionals, were acquitted. drouet had succeeded in making his escape, according to barras, with the connivance of the directory. babeuf and darthe were executed at vendome on prairial 8 (1797). babeuf's character has perhaps been sufficiently indicated above. he was a type of the french revolutionists, excitable, warm-hearted, half-educated, who lost their mental and moral balance in the chaos of the revolutionary period. historically, his importance lies in the fact that he was the first to propound socialism as a practical policy, and the father of the movements which played so conspicuous a part in the revolutions of 1848 and 1871. see v. advielle, _hist. de gracchus babeuf et de babouvisme_ (2 vols., paris, 1884); p. m. buonarroti, _conspiration pour l'egalite, dite de babeuf_ (2 vols., brussels, 1828; later editions, 1850 and 1869), english translation by bronterre o'brien (london, 1836); _cambridge modern history_, vol. viii.; adolf schmidt, _pariser zustaende wahrend der revolutionszeit von 1789-1800_ (jena, 1874). french trans. by p. viollet, _paris pendant la revolution d'apres les rapports de la police secrete, 1789-1800_ (4 vols., 1880-1894); a. schmidt, _tableaux de la revolution francaise, &c._ (leipzig, 1867-1870), a collection of reports of the secret police on which the above work is based. a full report of the trial at vendome was published in four volumes at paris in 1797, _debats du proces, &c._ (w. a. p.)