Louis XVI. he voted for his death, without appeal or postponement. He attempted to prevent the creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal, but when called to the first Committee of Public Safety he worked on it energetically to organize the armies. On the 3rd of February 1793 he had decreed the emission of 800 millions of assignats, for the expenses of the war. His courageous intervention in favour of the Girondists on the 2nd of June 1793 served Robespierre as a pretext to prevent his re-election to the Committee of Public Safety. But Cambon soon came to the conclusion that the security of France depended upon the triumph of the Mountain, and he did not hesitate to accord his active co-operation to the second committee. He took an active share in the various expedients of the government for stopping the depreciation of the assignats. He was responsible, especially, for the great operation known as the opening of the Grand Livre (August 24), which was designed to consolidate the public debt by cancelling the stock issued under various conditions prior to the Revolution, and issuing new stock of a uniform character, so that all fund-holders should hold stock of the revolutionary government and thus be interested in its stability. Each fund-holder was to be entered in the Great Book, or register of the public debt, for the amount due to him every year. The result of this measure was a rise in the face value of the assignats from 27% to 48% by the end of the year. In matters of finance Cambon was now supreme; but his independence, his hatred of dictatorship, his protests against the excesses of the Revolutionary Tribunal, won him Robespierre’s renewed suspicion, and on the 8th Thermidor Robespierre accused him of being anti-revolutionary and an aristocrat. Cambon’s proud and vehement reply was the signal of the resistance to Robespierre’s tyranny and the prelude to his fall. Cambon soon had reason to repent of that event, for he became one of those most violently attacked by the Thermidorian reaction. The royalist pamphlets and the journals of J. L. Tallien attacked him with fury as a former Montagnard. He was charged with being responsible for the discredit of the assignats, and even accused of malversations. On the 21st of February 1795 the project which he presented to withdraw four milliards of assignats from circulation, was rejected, and on the 3rd of April he was excluded from the committee of finance. On the 16th Germinal, Tallien procured a decree of accusation against him, but he was already in safety, taking refuge probably at Lausanne. In any case he does not seem to have remained in Paris, although in the riot of the 1st Prairial some of the insurgents proclaimed him mayor. The amnesty of the 4th Brumaire of the year IV. (the 5th of October 1795), permitted him to return to France, and he withdrew to his estate of Terral near Montpellier, where, during the White Terror, he had a narrow escape from an attempt upon his life. At first Cambon hoped to find in Bonaparte the saviour of the republic, but, deceived by the 18th Brumaire, he lived throughout the whole of the empire in peaceful seclusion. During the Hundred Days he was deputy for Hérault in the chamber of representatives, and pronounced himself strongly against the return of the Bourbons, and for religious freedom. Under the Restoration the “amnesty” law of 1816 condemned him as a regicide to exile, and he withdrew to Belgium, to St Jean-Ten-Noode, near Brussels, where he died on the 15th of February 1820. (R. A.*)
See Bornarel, Cambon (Paris).
CAMBON, PIERRE PAUL (1843–), French diplomatist,
was born on the 20th of January 1843. He was called to the
Parisian bar, and became private secretary to Jules Ferry in the
prefecture of the Seine. After ten years of administrative work
in France as secretary of prefecture, and then as prefect successively
of the departments of Aube (1872), Doubs (1876), Nord
(1877–1882), he exchanged into the diplomatic service, being
nominated French minister plenipotentiary at Tunis. In 1886
he became French ambassador to Madrid; was transferred to
Constantinople in 1890, and in 1898 to London. He was decorated
with the grand cross of the Legion of Honour, and became a
member of the French Academy of Sciences.
His brother, Jules Martin Cambon (1845–), was called to the bar in 1866, served in the Franco-Prussian War and entered the civil service in 1871. He was prefect of the department of Nord (1882) and of the Rhone (1887–1891), and in 1891 became governor-general of Algeria (see Guyot, L’œuvre de M. Jules Cambon, Paris, 1897), where he had served in a minor position in 1874. He was nominated French ambassador at Washington in 1897, and in that capacity negotiated the preliminaries of peace on behalf of the Spanish government after the war with the United States. He was transferred in 1902 to Madrid, and in 1907 to Berlin.
CAMBORNE, a market town in the Camborne parliamentary
division of Cornwall, England, on the Great Western railway,
13 m. E.N.E. of Penzance. Pop. of urban district (1901), 14,726.
It lies on the northward slope of the central elevation of the
county, and is in the neighbourhood of some of the most productive
tin and copper mines. These and the manufacture of
mining machinery employ most of the inhabitants. The parish
church of St Martin contains several monuments and an ancient
stone altar bearing a Latin inscription. There are science and art
and mining schools, and practical mining is taught in South
Condurrow mine, the school attracting a large number of students.
It was developed from classes initiated in 1859 by the Miners’
Association, and a three years’ course of instruction is provided.
Camborne (Cambron, Camron) formed a portion of the extensive manor of Tehidy, which at the time of the Domesday Survey was held by the earl of Mortain and subsequently by the Dunstanville and Basset families. Its interests were economically insignificant until the beginning of the 18th century when the rich deposits of copper and tin began to be vigorously worked at Dolcoath. It has been estimated that in 1788 this mine alone had produced ore worth £2,000,000 and in 1882 ore worth £5,500,000. As the result of the prosperity of this and other mines in the neighbourhood the population in 1860 was double that of 1830, six times that of 1770 and fifteen times that of 1660. Camborne was the scene of the scientific labours of Richard Trevithick (1771–1833), the engineer, born in the neighbouring parish of Illogan, and of William Bickford, the inventor of the safety-fuse, a native of Camborne. Three fairs on the feasts of St Martin and St Peter and on 25th of February were granted in 1708. The two former are still held, the last has been transferred to the 7th of March. A Tuesday market formed the subject of a judicial inquiry in 1768, but since the middle of the 19th century it has been held on Saturdays.
CAMBRAI, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Nord, 37 m. S.S.E. of Lille on the
main line of the Northern railway. Pop. (1906) 21,791. Cambrai
is situated on the right and eastern bank of the Scheldt (arms of
which traverse the west of the town) and at one extremity of the
canal of St Quentin. The fortifications with which it was formerly
surrounded have been for the most part demolished. The fosses
have been filled up and the ramparts in part levelled to make
way, as the suburbs extended, for avenues stretching out on all
sides. The chief survivals from the demolition are the huge
square citadel, which rises to the east of the town, the château de
Selles, a good specimen of the military architecture of the
13th century, and, among other gates, the Porte Notre-Dame, a
stone and brick structure of the early 17th century. Handsome
boulevards now skirt the town, the streets of which are clean and
well-ordered, and a large public garden extends at the foot of the
citadel, with a statue of Enguerrand de Monstrelet the chronicler.
The former cathedral of Cambrai was destroyed after the Revolution.
The present cathedral of Notre-Dame is a church of the
19th century built on the site of the old abbey church of St
Sépulchre. Among other monuments it contains that of Fénelon,
archbishop from 1695 to 1715, by David d’Angers. The church of
St Géry (18th century) contains, among other works of art, a
marble rood-screen of Renaissance workmanship. The Place
d’Armes, a large square in the centre of the town, is bordered on
the north by a handsome hôtel de ville built in 1634 and rebuilt
in the 19th century. The Tour St Martin is an old church-tower
of the 15th and 18th centuries transformed into a belfry. The
triple stone portal, which gave entrance to the former archiepiscopal
palace, is a work of the Renaissance period. The
