Sieyes was another native of Frejus, that renegade priest, to whom is
attributed the ferocious saying, when called on to give his vote on the
condemnation of Louis XVI., "La mort--sans phrases." Some few years after
the Directory sent Sieyes as ambassador to Berlin. He invited a prince of
the blood royal of Prussia to dine at the embassy with him; but the prince
took the invitation and scored across it his answer:--

"Non--sans phrases."

Napoleon as national recompense to Sieyes for the services he had rendered
to France, and to himself personally, gave him the estate of Crosne. This
gave rise to the epigram--

"Bonaparte a Sieyes a fait present de Crosne,
Sieyes a Bonaparte a fait present du trone."

But after all, it is chiefly as the birthplace of Agricola, that true model
of a Roman soldier of the best description, that Frejus interests us most.
His father, Julius Graecinus, had fallen a victim to Caligula, because he
refused to undertake the prosecution of a man the Emperor was determined
to destroy, and there is some reason to suspect that Agricola himself was
sacrificed to the suspicions and envy of Domitian. Like most good and
honourable men, he had a good mother, whose virtues Tacitus records.

When Agricola was proconsul of Britain, his rule was mild, and he took
pains to win the confidence of the provincials. He it was who drew a chain
of forts from sea to sea between the Tyne and Solway, to protect the
reclaimed subjects of the southern valleys from the untamed barbarians who
roved the Cheviots and the Pentlands. He was not merely a conqueror, but an