Chapter 19

ASSASSINATION OF LEPELLETIER DE ST. FARGEAU.

FOOTNOTES:[381]Hist. Parl., vol. xxi., p. 314.[382]Résumé du Rapport du Commissaire Albertier, Hist. Parl., vol. xxi., p. 319.[383]One of Napoleon's first acts upon becoming First Consul was to show his appreciation of the heroism of Tronchet by placing him at the head of the Court of Cassation. "Tronchet," he said, "was the soul of the civil code, as I was its demonstrator. He was gifted with a singularly profound and correct understanding, but he could not descend to developments. He spoke badly, and could not defend what he proposed."—Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 192.[384]Lacretelle.[385]Lamartine, History of the Girondists, vol. ii., p. 342.[386]"The crowd in the galleries received with murmurs all votes that were not for death, and they frequently addressed threatening gestures to the Assembly itself. The deputies replied to them from the interior of the hall, and hence resulted a tumultuous exchange of menaces and abusive epithets. This fearfully ominous scene had shaken all minds and changed many resolutions. Vergniaud, who had appeared deeply affected by the fate of Louis XVI., and who had declared to his friends that he never could condemn that unfortunate prince, Vergniaud, on beholding this tumultuous scene, imagined that he saw civil war kindled in France, and pronounced sentence of death, with the addition, however, of Mailhe's amendment (which required that the execution should be delayed). On being questioned respecting his change of opinion, he replied that he thought he saw civil war on the point of breaking out, and that he durst not balance the life of an individual against the welfare of France."—Thiers's History of the French Revolution, vol. ii., p. 68.[387]"Robespierre was by no means the worst character who figured in the Revolution. He opposed trying the queen. He was not an atheist; on the contrary, he had publicly maintained the existence of a Supreme Being, in opposition to many of his colleagues. Neither was he of opinion that it was necessary to exterminate all priests and nobles, like many others. Robespierre wanted to proclaim the king an outlaw, and not to go through the ridiculous mockery of trying him. Robespierre was a fanatic, a monster; but he was incorruptible, and incapable of robbing or of causing the deaths of others, either from personal enmity or a desire of enriching himself. He was an enthusiast, but one who really believed that he was acting right, and died not worth a sou. In some respects Robespierre may be said to have been an honest man."—Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 590.[388]"Of those who judged the king many thought him willfully criminal; many that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of kings who would war against a generation which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the Legislature. I should have shut up the queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the king in his station, investing him with limited powers, which I verily believe he would honestly have exercised, according to the measure of his understanding."—Thomas Jefferson, Life by Randall, vol. i., p. 533. There were obviously insuperable objections to the plan thus suggested by Mr. Jefferson.

FOOTNOTES:

[381]Hist. Parl., vol. xxi., p. 314.

[382]Résumé du Rapport du Commissaire Albertier, Hist. Parl., vol. xxi., p. 319.

[383]One of Napoleon's first acts upon becoming First Consul was to show his appreciation of the heroism of Tronchet by placing him at the head of the Court of Cassation. "Tronchet," he said, "was the soul of the civil code, as I was its demonstrator. He was gifted with a singularly profound and correct understanding, but he could not descend to developments. He spoke badly, and could not defend what he proposed."—Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 192.

[384]Lacretelle.

[385]Lamartine, History of the Girondists, vol. ii., p. 342.

[386]"The crowd in the galleries received with murmurs all votes that were not for death, and they frequently addressed threatening gestures to the Assembly itself. The deputies replied to them from the interior of the hall, and hence resulted a tumultuous exchange of menaces and abusive epithets. This fearfully ominous scene had shaken all minds and changed many resolutions. Vergniaud, who had appeared deeply affected by the fate of Louis XVI., and who had declared to his friends that he never could condemn that unfortunate prince, Vergniaud, on beholding this tumultuous scene, imagined that he saw civil war kindled in France, and pronounced sentence of death, with the addition, however, of Mailhe's amendment (which required that the execution should be delayed). On being questioned respecting his change of opinion, he replied that he thought he saw civil war on the point of breaking out, and that he durst not balance the life of an individual against the welfare of France."—Thiers's History of the French Revolution, vol. ii., p. 68.

[387]"Robespierre was by no means the worst character who figured in the Revolution. He opposed trying the queen. He was not an atheist; on the contrary, he had publicly maintained the existence of a Supreme Being, in opposition to many of his colleagues. Neither was he of opinion that it was necessary to exterminate all priests and nobles, like many others. Robespierre wanted to proclaim the king an outlaw, and not to go through the ridiculous mockery of trying him. Robespierre was a fanatic, a monster; but he was incorruptible, and incapable of robbing or of causing the deaths of others, either from personal enmity or a desire of enriching himself. He was an enthusiast, but one who really believed that he was acting right, and died not worth a sou. In some respects Robespierre may be said to have been an honest man."—Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 590.

[388]"Of those who judged the king many thought him willfully criminal; many that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of kings who would war against a generation which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the Legislature. I should have shut up the queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the king in his station, investing him with limited powers, which I verily believe he would honestly have exercised, according to the measure of his understanding."—Thomas Jefferson, Life by Randall, vol. i., p. 533. There were obviously insuperable objections to the plan thus suggested by Mr. Jefferson.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE REIGN OF TERROR.

Charges against the Girondists.—Danton.—The French Embassador ordered to leave England.—War declared against England.—Navy of England.—Internal War.—Plot to assassinate the Girondists.—Bold Words of Vergniaud.—Insurrection in La Vendée.—Conflict between Dumouriez and the Assembly.—Flight of Dumouriez.—The Mob aroused and the Girondists arrested.—Charlotte Corday.—France risesen masseto repel the Allies.—The treasonable Surrender of Toulon.

Theexecution of the king roused all Europe against republican France. The Jacobins had gained a decisive victory over the Girondists, and succeeded in turning popular hatred against them by accusing them of being enemies of the people, because they opposed the excesses of the mob; of being the friends of royalty, because they had wished to save the life of the king; and of being hostile to the republic, because they advocated measures of moderation.[389]

Danton was now the acknowledged leader of the Jacobins. He had obtained the entire control of the mob of Paris, and could guide their terrible and resistless energies in any direction. With this potent weapon in his hand he was omnipotent, and his political adversaries were at his mercy. The Reign of Terror had now commenced. The Girondists made a heroic attempt to bring to justice the assassins of September, but the Jacobins promptly stopped the proceedings.

The aristocracy of birth was now effectually crushed, and the Jacobins commenced a warfare against the aristocracy of wealth and character. An elegant mansion, garments of fine cloth, and even polished manners, exposed one to the charge of being an aristocrat, and turned against him the insults of the rabble. Marat was particularly fierce, in his journal, against the aristocracy of the burghers, merchants, and statesmen.

Upon the arrival of the courier in London conveying intelligence of the execution of the king, M. Chauvelin, the French embassador, was ordered to leave England within twenty-four hours.

"After events," said Pitt, "on which the imagination can only dwell with horror, and since an infernal faction has seized on the supreme power in France, we could no longer tolerate the presence of M. Chauvelin, who has left no means untried to induce the people to rise against the government and the laws of this country."

The National Convention at once declared war against England.[390]Pitt, with almost superhuman energy, mustered the forces of England and Europe for the strife. In less than six months England had entered into atreaty of alliance with Russia, Prussia, Austria, Naples, Spain, and Portugal, for the prosecution of the war; and had also entered into treaties by which she promised large subsidies to Hesse Cassel, Sardinia, and Baden. England thus became the soul of this coalition, which combined the whole of Europe, with the exception of Venice, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey, against France. These combined armies were to assail the Republic by land, while the invincible fleet of England was to hurl a storm of shot and shells into all her maritime towns.

France, at this time, had but one hundred and fifty-nine vessels of war all told. England had four hundred and fifteen, and her ally, Holland, one hundred. Most of these were large ships, heavily armed; and, consequently, England had but little fear that any French armies could reach her isles.[391]Parliament voted an extraordinary supply of £3,200,000 ($16,000,000). One hundred and thirty-one thousand Austrians, one hundred and twelve thousand Prussians, and fifty thousand Spaniards were speedily on the march to assail France at every point on the frontier.[392]

The Royalists in La Vendée rose in arms against the Republic, and unfurled the white banner of the Bourbons. France was now threatened more fearfully than ever before with external and internal war. The Convention, controlled by the Jacobins and appalled by the danger, decreed a levy of three hundred thousand men to repel the assailants, and also organized an extraordinary revolutionary tribunal, invested with unlimited powers to arrest, judge, and punish any whom they should deem dangerous to the Republic. Violence filled the land, terror reigned every where, and even Robespierre was heard to exclaim, "I am sick of the Revolution."

Dumouriez had driven the Austrians out of Belgium and the Netherlands, and was at the head of an army of about seventy-five thousand men. Disgusted with the anarchy which reigned in France, he formed the bold design of marching upon Paris with his army, dispersing the Convention, abolishing the Republic, reinstituting a constitutional monarchy by establishing the Constitution of 1791, and by placing a king, probably the son of the Duke of Orleans, subsequently Louis Philippe, upon the throne. The Jacobins, goaded by these accumulating dangers—all Europe assailing France from without, and Royalists plotting within—were prepared for any measures of desperation. The Girondists, with unavailing heroism, opposed the frantic measures of popular violence, and the Jacobins resolved to get rid of them all by a decisive blow. The assassins of September were ready to ply the dagger, under the plea that murder was patriotism. A plan was formed to strike them all down, in the Convention, on the night of the 10th of March. But the Girondists, informed of the plot, absented themselves from the meeting and the enterprise failed. The bold spirit of the Girondists was avowed in the words of Vergniaud:

"We have witnessed," said he, "the development of that strange system of liberty in which we are told 'You are free, but think with us, or we willdenounce you to the vengeance of the people; you are free, but bow down your head to the idol we worship, or we will denounce you to the vengeance of the people; you are free, but join us in persecuting the men whose probity and intelligence we dread, or we will denounce you to the vengeance of the people.' Citizens! we have reason to fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, will devour successively all its children, and only engender despotism and the calamities which accompany it."

The Province of La Vendée contained a population of about three hundred thousand. It was a rural district where there was no middle class. The priests and the nobles had the unlettered peasantry entirely under their influence. Three armies were raised here against the Republic, of about twelve thousand each. Royalists from various parts of the empire flocked to this region, and emigrants were landed upon the coast to join the insurgents. For three years a most cruel and bloody war was here waged between the Royalists and the Republicans.

The intelligence of this formidable insurrection increased the panic of the Convention. A law was passed disarming all who had belonged to the privileged class, and declaring those to be outlaws who should be found in any hostile gathering against the Republic. The emigrants were forbidden to land in France under the penalty of death. Every house in the kingdom was to inscribe upon its door the names of all its inmates, and was to be open at all times to the visits of the Vigilance Committee.

Dumouriez sullied his character by surrendering to the Austrians several fortresses, and agreeing with them that he would march upon Paris and restore a monarchical government to France. The Austrians trusted that he would place upon the throne the young son of Louis XVI., though it was doubtless his intention to place there the young Duke of Chartres (Louis Philippe), who would be the representative of popular ideas.

The Jacobin Club sent a deputation of three of its members to the camp, to sound the views of Dumouriez. The general received them with courtesy, but said, with military frankness,

"The Convention is an assembly of tyrants. While I have three inches of steel by my side that monster shall not exist. As for the Republic, it is an idle word. I had faith in it for three days. There is only one way to save the country; that is, to re-establish the Constitution of 1791 and a king."

"Can you think of it!" one of the deputation exclaimed; "the French view royalty with horror. The very name of Louis is an abomination."

"What does it signify," replied Dumouriez, "whether the king be called Louis, or Jacques, or Philippe?"

"And what are your means to effect this revolution?" they inquired.

"My army," Dumouriez proudly replied. "From my camp or from the stronghold of some fortress they will express their resolve for a king."

"But your plan will peril the lives of the rest of the royal family in the Temple."

"If every member of that family in France or at Coblentz should perish," Dumouriez replied, "I can still find a chief. And if any farther barbarities are practiced upon the Bourbons in the Temple I will surround Paris with my army and starve the Parisians into subjection."

The deputation returned to Paris with their report, and four commissioners were immediately dispatched, accompanied by the Minister of War, to summon Dumouriez to the bar of the Convention. Dumouriez promptly arrested the commissioners and sent them off to the Austrians, to be retained by them as hostages.

DUMOURIEZ ARRESTING THE ENVOYS.

The Convention immediately offered a reward for the head of Dumouriez, raised an army of forty thousand men to defend Paris, and arrested all the relatives of the officers under Dumouriez as hostages.

Dumouriez now found that he had not a moment to lose. Perils were accumulating thick around him. There were many indications that it might be difficult to carry the army over to his views. On the 4th of April, as he was repairing to a place of rendezvous with the Austrian leaders, the Prince of Coburg and General Mack, a battalion of soldiers, suspecting treachery, endeavored to stop him. He put spurs to his horse and distanced pursuit, while a storm of bullets whistled around his head. He succeeded, after innumerable perils, in the circuitous ride of a whole day, in reaching the head-quarters of the Austrians. They received him with great distinction, and offered him the command of a division of their army. After two days' reflection, he said that it was with the soldiers of France he had hoped to restore a stable government to his country, accepting the Austrians only as auxiliaries; but that as a Frenchman he could not march against France at the head of foreigners. He retired to Switzerland. The Duke of Chartres (Louis Philippe), in friendlessness and poverty, followed him, and for some time was obliged to obtain a support by teaching school.

The Jacobins now accused their formidable rivals, the Girondists, of being implicated in the conspiracy of Dumouriez. Robespierre, in a speech of the most concentrated and potent malignity, urged that France had relieved herself of the aristocracy of birth, but that there was another aristocracy, that of wealth, equally to be dreaded, which must be crushed, and that the Girondists were the leaders of this aristocracy. This was most effectually pandering to the passions of the mob, and directing their fury against the Girondists. The Girondists were now in a state of terrible alarm. They knew the malignity of their foes, and could see but little hope for escape. They had overturned the throne of despotism, hoping to establish constitutional liberty: they had only introduced Jacobin phrensy and anarchy. Immense crowds of armed men paraded the streets of Paris, surrounded the Convention, and demanded vengeance against the leaders of the Gironde.[393]

The moderate Republicans, enemies of these acts of violence, striving to stem the torrent, endeavored to carry an act of accusation against Marat. He was charged with having encouraged assassination and carnage, of dissolving the National Convention, and of having established a power destructive of liberty.

Marat replied to the accusation by summoning the mob to his aid. They assembled in vast, tumultuous throngs, and the tribunal, overawed, after the trial of a few moments, unanimously acquitted him. This was the 24th of April. The mob accompanied him back to his seat in the Convention. He was borne in triumph into the hall in the arms of his confederates, his brow encircled by a wreath of victory.

"Citizen President," shouted one of the burly men who bore Marat, "we bring you the worthy Marat. Marat has always been the friend of the people, and the people will always be the friends of Marat. If Marat's head must fall, our heads must fall first."

As he uttered these words he brandished a battle-axe defiantly, and the mob in the aisles and crowded galleries vehemently applauded. He then demanded permission for the escort to file through the hall. The president, appalled by the hideous spectacle, had not time to give his consent before the whole throng, men, women, and boys, in rags and filth, rushed pell-mell into the hall, took the seats of the vacant members, and filled the room with indescribable tumult and uproar, shouting hosannas to Marat. The successful demagogue could not but boast of his triumph. Ascending the tribune, he said,

"Citizens! indignant at seeing a villainous faction betraying the Republic, I endeavored to unmask it and toput the rope about its neck. It resisted me by launching against me a decree of accusation. I have come off victorious.The faction is humbled, but not crushed. Waste not your time in decreeing triumphs. Defend yourselves with enthusiasm."

MARAT'S TRIUMPH.

Robespierre now demanded an act of accusation against the Girondists. Resistance was hopeless. The inundation of popular fury was at its flood, sweeping every thing before it. The most frightful scenes of tumult took place in the Convention, members endeavoring by violence to pull each other from the tribune.[394]

The whole Convention was now in a state of dismay, eighty thousand infuriate men surrounding it with artillery and musketry, declaring that the Convention should not leave its hall until the Girondists were arrested. The Convention, in a body, attempted to leave and force its way through the crowd, but it was ignominiously driven back. Under these circumstances it was voted that the leaders of the Girondists, twenty-two in number, should be put under arrest. This was the 2d of June, 1793.[395]

The Jacobins, having thus got rid of their enemies, and having the entire control, immediately decided to adopt a new Constitution, still more democratic in its character; and a committee was appointed to present one within a week. But the same division which existed in the Convention between the Jacobins and the Girondists existed all over France. In many of the departments fierce battles rose between the two parties.

In the mean time the Allies were pressing France in all directions. The Austrians and Prussians were advancing upon the north; the Piedmontese threading the passes of the maritime Alps; the Spaniards were prepared to rush from the defiles of the Pyrenees, and the fleet of England threatened every where the coast of France on the Mediterranean and the Channel.[396]

With amazing energy the Convention aroused itself to meet these perils. A new Constitution, exceedingly democratic, was framed and adopted. Every Frenchman twenty-one years of age was a voter. Fifty thousand souls were entitled to a deputy. There was but a single Assembly. Its decrees were immediately carried into execution.[397]

Danton, Robespierre, and Marat were now the idols of the mob of Paris and the real sovereigns of France. All who ventured opposition to them were proscribed and imprisoned. Members of the Republican or Girondist party every where, all over France, were arrested, or, where they were sufficiently numerous to resist, civil war raged.

At Caen there was a very beautiful girl, Charlotte Corday, twenty-five years of age, highly educated and accomplished. She was of spotless purity of character, and, with the enthusiasm of Madame Roland, she had espoused the cause of popular constitutional liberty. The principles of the Girondist party she had embraced, and the noble leaders of that party she regarded almost with adoration.

When she heard of the overthrow of the Girondists and their imprisonment, she resolved to avenge them, and hoped that, by striking down the leader of the Jacobins, she might rouse the Girondists scattered over France to rally and rescue liberty and their country. It was a three days' ride in the diligence from Caen to Paris. Arriving at Paris on Thursday the 11th of July, she carefully inspected the state of affairs, that she might select her victim, but confided her design to no one.

Marat appeared to her the most active, formidable, and insatiable in his proscription. She wrote him a note as follows:

"Citizen: I have just arrived from Caen. Your love for your country inclines me to suppose you will listen with pleasure to the secret events of that part of the Republic. I will present myself at your house. Have the goodness to give orders for my admission, and grant me a moment's private conversation. I can point out the means by which you can render an important service to France."

She dispatched this note from her hotel, the Inn de la Providence in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, went to the Palais Royal and purchased a large sheath knife, and, taking a hackney-coach, drove to the residence of Marat, No. 44 Rue de l'Ecole de Médecine. It was Saturday night. Marat was taking a bath and reading by a light which stood upon a three-footed stool. He heard the rap of Charlotte, and called aloud to the woman who, as servant and mistress, attended him, and requested that she might be admitted.

Marat was a man of the most restless activity. Eagerly he inquired respecting the proscribed at Caen and of others who were opposed to Jacobin rule. Charlotte, while replying coolly, measured with her eye the spot she should strike with the knife. As she mentioned some names, he eagerly seized a pencil and began to write them down, saying,

"They shall all go to the guillotine."

"To the guillotine?" exclaimed Charlotte, and, instantly drawing the knife from her bosom, plunged it to the handle directly in his heart.

The miserable man uttered one frantic shriek of "Help!" and fell back dead into the water. The paramour of Marat and a serving-man rushed in, knocked Charlotte down with a chair, and trampled upon her. A crowd soon assembled. Without the slightest perturbation she avowed the deed. Her youth and beauty alone saved her from being torn in pieces. Soldiers soon arrived and conveyed her to prison.

"The way to avenge Marat," exclaimed Robespierre from the tribune in tones which caused France to tremble, "is to strike down his enemies without mercy."

The remains of the wretched man, whom all the world now execrates, were buried with the highest possible honors. His funeral at midnight, as all Paris seemed to follow him to his grave in a torch-light procession, was one of the most imposing scenes of the Revolution.

On Wednesday morning Charlotte was led to the Revolutionary Tribunal in the Palace of Justice. She appeared there dignified, calm, and beautiful. The indictment was read, and they were beginning to introduce their witnesses, when Charlotte said,

"These delays are needless. It is I that killed Marat."

There was a moment's pause, and many deplored the doom of one so youthful and lovely. At last the president inquired, "By whose instigation?"

"By that of no one," was the laconic reply.

"What tempted you?" inquired the president.

"His crimes," Charlotte answered; and then, continuing in tones of firmness and intensity which silenced and overawed all present, she said,

"I killed one man, to save a hundred thousand; a villain, to save theinnocent; a savage wild beast, to give repose to my country. I was a Republican before the Revolution. I never wanted energy."[398]

CHARLOTTE CORDAY ARRESTED.

She listened to her doom of immediate death with a smile, and was conducted back to the prison, to be led from thence to the guillotine. A little after seven o'clock on this same evening a cart issued from the Conciergerie, bearing Charlotte, in the red robe of a murderess, to the guillotine. A vast throng crowded the streets, most of whom assailed her with howls and execrations. She looked upon them with a serene smile, as if she were riding on an excursion of pleasure. She was bound to the plank. The glittering axe glided through the grove, and the executioner, lifting her severed head, exhibited it to the people, and then brutally struck the cheek.

Robespierre and Danton, the idols of the mob, now divided the supreme power between them. The organization of a revolutionary government was simply the machine by means of which they operated.

On the 10th of August there was another magnificent festival in Paris to commemorate the adoption of the Jacobin Constitution. The celebrated painter David arranged the fête with great artistic skill, and again all Paris, though on the verge of ruin, was in a blaze of illumination and in a roar of triumph. The Austrian armies were now within fifteen days' march of Paris, and there was no organized force which could effectually arrest their progress. But the fear of the old Bourbon despotism rallied the masses to maintain, in preference, even the horrors of Jacobin ferocity. The aristocrats crushed thepeople; the Jacobins crushed thearistocrats. The populace naturally preferred the latter rule.

And now France rose, as a nation never rose before. At the motion of Danton it was decreed on the 23rd of August,

"From this moment until when the enemy shall be driven from the territory of the French Republic,all the Frenchshall be in permanent requisition for the service of the armies. The young men shall go forth to fight. The married men shall forge the arms and transport the supplies. The women shall make tents and clothes, and attend on the hospitals. The children shall make lint out of rags; the old men shall cause themselves to be carried to the public places, to excite the courage of the warriors, to preach hatred of kings and love of the Republic."

MARCH OF VOLUNTEERS.

All unmarried men or widowers without children, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, were to assemble at appointed rendezvous and march immediately. This act raised an army of one million two hundred thousand men. The men between twenty-five and thirty were to hold themselves in readiness to follow. And those between thirty and sixty were to be prepared to obey orders whenever they should be summoned to the field. There is sublimity, at least, in such energy.

All France was instantly converted into a camp, resounding with preparations for war. In La Vendée the friends of the Bourbons had rallied. The Convention decreed its utter destruction, the death of every man, conflagration of the dwellings, destruction of the crops, and the removal of the women and children to some other province, where they should be supported at the expense of the government. It was sternly resolved that no mercy whatever should be shown to Frenchmen who were co-operating with foreigners to rivet anew upon France the chains of Bourbon despotism. These decrees were executed with merciless fidelity. The illustrious Carnot, who, to use his own words, "had the ambition of the three hundred Spartans, going to defend Thermopylæ," organized and disciplined fourteen armies, and selected for them able leaders.

EXECUTION IN LA VENDÉE.

While matters were in this condition, the inhabitants of Marseilles, Lyons, and Toulon rose, overpowered the Jacobins, and, raising the banner of the Bourbons, invited the approach of the Allies. Toulon was the naval arsenal of France, a large French fleet crowded its port, and its warehouses were filled with naval stores. Lord Hood, with an English squadron, was cruising off the coast. The Royalists, Admiral Troyoff at their head, gave the signal to the English, and basely surrendered to them the forts, shipping, and stores. It was a fearful loss to the Revolutionists. Lord Hood, the British admiral, immediately entered with his fleet, took possession, and issued a proclamation in which he said,

"Considering that the sections of Toulon have, by the commissionerswhom they have sent to me, made a solemn declaration in favor of Louis XVII. and a monarchical government, and that they will use their utmost efforts to break the chains which fetter their country, and re-establish the Constitution as it was accepted by their defunct sovereign in 1789, I repeat by this present declaration that I take possession of Toulon, and shall keep it solely as a deposit for Louis XVII., and that only till peace is re-established in France."[399]

An army of sixty thousand men was sent against rebellious Lyons. The city, after a prolonged siege and the endurance of innumerable woes, was captured. The Convention decreed that it should be utterly destroyed, and that over its ruins should be reared a monument with the inscription, "Lyons made war upon Liberty: Lyons is no more!" The cruelties inflicted upon the Royalists of this unhappy city are too painful to contemplate. The imagination can hardly exaggerate them. Fouché and Collot d'Herbois, the prominent agents in this bloody vengeance, were atheists. In contempt of Christianity, they ordered the Bible and the Cross to be borne through the streets on an ass; the ass was compelled to drink of the consecrated wine from the communion-cup. Six thousand of the citizens of Lyons perished in these sanguinary persecutions, and twelve thousand were driven into exile. The Revolutionary Tribunal was active night and day condemning to death. One morning a young girl rushed into the hall, exclaiming,

"There remain to me, of all our family, only my brothers. Mother, father, sisters, uncles—you have butchered all. And now you are going to condemn my brothers. In mercy ordain that I may ascend the scaffold with them."

Her prayer of anguish was refused, and the poor child threw herself into the Rhone.

The Royalist insurrection in La Vendée, after a long and terrible conflict, was crushed out. No language can describe the horrors of vengeance which ensued. The tale of brutality is too awful to be told. Demons could not have been more infernal in mercilessness.

"Death by fire and the sword," writes Lamartine, "made a noise, scattered blood, and left bodies to be buried and be counted. The silent waters of the Loire were dumb and would render no account. The bottom of the sea alone would know the number of the victims. Carrier caused mariners to be brought as pitiless as himself. He ordered them, without much mystery, to pierce plug-holes in a certain number of decked vessels, so as to sink them with their living cargoes in parts of the river.

"These orders were first executed secretly and under the color of accidents of navigation. But soon these naval executions, of which the waves of the Loire bore witness even to its mouth, became a spectacle for Carrier and for his courtiers. He furnished a galley of pleasure, of which he made a present to his accomplice Lambertye, under pretext of watching the banks of the river. This vessel, adorned with all the delicacies of furniture, provided with all the wines and all the necessaries of feasting, became the mostgeneral theatre of these executions. Carrier embarked therein sometimes himself, with his executioners and his courtesans, to make trips upon the water. While he yielded himself up to the joys of love and wine on deck, his victims, inclosed in the hold, saw, at a given signal, the valves open, and the waves of the Loire swallow them up. A stifled groaning announced to the crew that hundreds of lives had just breathed their last under their feet. They continued their orgies upon this floating sepulchre.

MASSACRES IN LYONS.

"Sometimes Carrier, Lambertye, and their accomplices rejoiced in the cruel pleasure of this spectacle of agony. They caused victims of either sex, in couples, to mount upon the deck. Stripped of their garments, they boundthem face to face, one to the other—a priest with a nun, a young man with a young girl. They suspended them, thus naked and interlaced, by a cord passed under the shoulders through a block of the vessel. They sported with horrible sarcasms on this parody of marriage in death, and then flung the victims into the river. This cannibal sport was termed 'Republican Marriages.'"

DROWNING VICTIMS IN THE LOIRE.

Robespierre, informed of these demoniac deeds, recalled Carrier, but he did not dare to bring an act of accusation against the wretch, lest he should peril his own head by being charged with sympathy with the Royalists. It is grateful to record that Carrier himself was eventually conducted, amid the execrations of the community, to the scaffold.[400]

The prisons of Paris were now filled with victims. Municipal instructions, issued by Chaumette, catalogued as follows those who should be arrested as suspected persons: 1. Those who, by crafty addresses, check the energy of the people. 2. Those who mysteriously deplore the lot of the people, and propagate bad news with affected grief. 3. Those who, silent respecting the faults of the Royalists, declaim against the faults of the Patriots. 4. Those who pity those against whom the law is obliged to take measures. 5. Those who associate with aristocrats, priests, and moderates,and take an interest in their fate. 6. Those who have not taken an active part in the Revolution. 7. Those who have received the Constitution with indifference and have expressed fears respecting its duration. 8. Those who, though they have done nothing against liberty, have done nothing for it. 9. Those who do not attend the sections. 10. Those who speak contemptuously of the constituted authorities. 11. Those who have signed counter-revolutionary petitions. 12. The partisans of La Fayette, and those who marched to the charge in the Champ de Mars.

There were but few persons in Paris who were not liable to be arrested, by the machinations of any enemy, upon some one of these charges. Many thousands were soon incarcerated. The prisons of the Maire, La Force, the Conciergerie, the Abbaye, St. Pelagie, and the Madelonettes were crowded to their utmost capacity. Then large private mansions, the College of Duplessis, and finally the spacious Palace of the Luxembourg were converted into prisons, and were filled to suffocation with the suspected. In these abodes, surrendered to filth and misery, with nothing but straw to lie upon, the most brilliant men and women of Paris were huddled together with the vilest outcasts. After a time, however, those who had property were permitted to surround themselves with such comforts as their means would command. From these various prisons those who were to be tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal were taken to the Conciergerie, which adjoined the Palace of Justice, where the tribunal held its session. A trial was almost certain condemnation, and the guillotine knew no rest. Miserable France was now surrendered to the Reign of Terror. The mob had become the sovereign.

FOOTNOTES:[389]Mignet, p. 192.[390]"The Convention, finding England already leagued with the coalition, and consequently all its promises of neutrality vain and illusive, on the 1st of February, 1793, declared war against the King of Great Britain and the Stadtholder of Holland, who had been entirely guided by the cabinet of St. James's since 1788."—Mignet, vol. i., p. 195.[391]Lamartine, History of the Girondists, vol. ii., p. 395.[392]"It was in Spain, more particularly, that Pitt set intrigues at work to urge her to the greatest blunder she ever committed—that of joining England against France, her only maritime ally."—Thiers, vol. ii., p. 82.[393]In reference to the terrific conflict between the privileged classes and the enslaved people, Prof. Smyth writes, "My conclusion is that neither the high party nor the low have the slightest right to felicitate themselves on their conduct during this memorable revolution. No historian, no commentator on these times can proceed a moment, but on the supposition that, while he is censuring the faults of the one, he is perfectly aware of the antagonistic faults of the other; that each party is to take its turn; and that the whole is a dreadful lesson of instruction both to the one and the other.I have dwelt with more earnestness on the faults of the popular leaders, because their faults are more natural and more important; because the friends of freedom (hot and opinionated though they be) are still more within the reach of instruction than are men of arbitrary temperament, than courts and privileged orders, who are systematically otherwise."—Prof Smyth, Fr. Rev., vol. iii., p. 245.The story of the French Revolution has too often been told in this spirit, veiling the atrocities of the oppressors and magnifying the inhumanity of the oppressed. While truth demands that all the violence of an enslaved people, in despair bursting their bonds, should be faithfully delineated, truth no less imperiously demands that the mercilessness of proud oppressors, crushing millions for ages, and goading a whole nation to the madness of despair, should be also impartially described.[394]In the Convention, each one who addressed the body ascended to a desk on the platform, called the tribune.[395]Thiers, vol. ii., p. 194.[396]The Allies acted without union, and, under disguise of a holy war, concealed the most selfish views. The Austrians wanted Valenciennes; the King of Prussia, Mayence; the English, Dunkirk; the Piedmontese aspired to recover Chambéry and Nice; the Spaniards, the least interested of all, had nevertheless some thoughts of Roussillon.—Thiers, vol. ii., p. 217.[397]"As the Constitution thus made over the government to the multitude, as it placed the power in a disorganized body, it would have been at all times impracticable, but at a period of general warfare it was peculiarly so. Accordingly, it was no sooner made than suspended."—Mignet.[398]Procès de Charlotte Corday (Hist. Parl., vol. xxviii., p. 311, 338).[399]After the death of Louis XVI. the Royalists considered the young Dauphin, then imprisoned in the tower, as the legitimate king, with the title of Louis XVII.[400]Carrier was heard to say one day, while breakfasting in a restaurant, that France was too densely populated for a republic, and that it was necessary to kill off at least one third of the inhabitants before they could have a good government. It is estimated that fifteen thousand were massacred in La Vendée at his command.

FOOTNOTES:

[389]Mignet, p. 192.

[390]"The Convention, finding England already leagued with the coalition, and consequently all its promises of neutrality vain and illusive, on the 1st of February, 1793, declared war against the King of Great Britain and the Stadtholder of Holland, who had been entirely guided by the cabinet of St. James's since 1788."—Mignet, vol. i., p. 195.

[391]Lamartine, History of the Girondists, vol. ii., p. 395.

[392]"It was in Spain, more particularly, that Pitt set intrigues at work to urge her to the greatest blunder she ever committed—that of joining England against France, her only maritime ally."—Thiers, vol. ii., p. 82.

[393]In reference to the terrific conflict between the privileged classes and the enslaved people, Prof. Smyth writes, "My conclusion is that neither the high party nor the low have the slightest right to felicitate themselves on their conduct during this memorable revolution. No historian, no commentator on these times can proceed a moment, but on the supposition that, while he is censuring the faults of the one, he is perfectly aware of the antagonistic faults of the other; that each party is to take its turn; and that the whole is a dreadful lesson of instruction both to the one and the other.I have dwelt with more earnestness on the faults of the popular leaders, because their faults are more natural and more important; because the friends of freedom (hot and opinionated though they be) are still more within the reach of instruction than are men of arbitrary temperament, than courts and privileged orders, who are systematically otherwise."—Prof Smyth, Fr. Rev., vol. iii., p. 245.The story of the French Revolution has too often been told in this spirit, veiling the atrocities of the oppressors and magnifying the inhumanity of the oppressed. While truth demands that all the violence of an enslaved people, in despair bursting their bonds, should be faithfully delineated, truth no less imperiously demands that the mercilessness of proud oppressors, crushing millions for ages, and goading a whole nation to the madness of despair, should be also impartially described.

The story of the French Revolution has too often been told in this spirit, veiling the atrocities of the oppressors and magnifying the inhumanity of the oppressed. While truth demands that all the violence of an enslaved people, in despair bursting their bonds, should be faithfully delineated, truth no less imperiously demands that the mercilessness of proud oppressors, crushing millions for ages, and goading a whole nation to the madness of despair, should be also impartially described.

[394]In the Convention, each one who addressed the body ascended to a desk on the platform, called the tribune.

[395]Thiers, vol. ii., p. 194.

[396]The Allies acted without union, and, under disguise of a holy war, concealed the most selfish views. The Austrians wanted Valenciennes; the King of Prussia, Mayence; the English, Dunkirk; the Piedmontese aspired to recover Chambéry and Nice; the Spaniards, the least interested of all, had nevertheless some thoughts of Roussillon.—Thiers, vol. ii., p. 217.

[397]"As the Constitution thus made over the government to the multitude, as it placed the power in a disorganized body, it would have been at all times impracticable, but at a period of general warfare it was peculiarly so. Accordingly, it was no sooner made than suspended."—Mignet.

[398]Procès de Charlotte Corday (Hist. Parl., vol. xxviii., p. 311, 338).

[399]After the death of Louis XVI. the Royalists considered the young Dauphin, then imprisoned in the tower, as the legitimate king, with the title of Louis XVII.

[400]Carrier was heard to say one day, while breakfasting in a restaurant, that France was too densely populated for a republic, and that it was necessary to kill off at least one third of the inhabitants before they could have a good government. It is estimated that fifteen thousand were massacred in La Vendée at his command.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

EXECUTION OF MARIE ANTOINETTE AND MADAME ELIZABETH.

Marie Antoinette in the Temple.—Conspiracies for the Rescue of the Royal Family.—The young Dauphin torn from his Mother.—Phrensy of the Queen.—She is removed to the Conciergerie.—Indignities and Woes.—The Queen led to Trial.—Letter to her Sister.—The Execution of the Queen.—Madame Elizabeth led to Trial and Execution.—Fate of the Princess and the Dauphin.

Thepopulace now demanded the head of Marie Antoinette, whom they had long been taught implacably to hate.[401]We left her on the 21st ofJanuary in the Temple, overwhelmed with agony. Swoon succeeded swoon as she listened to the clamor in the streets which accompanied her husband to the guillotine. The rumbling of the cannon, on their return, and the shouts ofVive la Républiquebeneath her windows announced that the tragedy was terminated. The Commune cruelly refused to allow her any details of the last hours of the king, and even Clery, his faithful servant, was imprisoned, so that he could not even place in her hands the lock of hair and the marriage ring which the king had intrusted to him.

Many conspiracies were formed for the rescue of the royal family, which led to a constant increase of the rigors of their captivity. The queen refused to resume her walks in the garden as she could not endure to pass the door of the king's apartment. But, after long seclusion, for the sake of the health of her children she consented to walk with them each day, for a few moments, on the platform of the tower. The Commune immediately ordered the platform to be surrounded with high boards, so that the captives might not receive any tokens of recognition from their friends.

For four months Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, and the children had the consolation of condoling with each other in their misery. But on the night of the 4th of July the clatter of an armed band was heard ascending the tower, and some commissioners tumultuously entered her chamber. They read to her a decree announcing that her son, the dauphin, was to be taken from her and imprisoned by himself. The poor child, as he listened to the reading of this cruel edict, was frantic with terror. He threw himself into his mother's arms and shrieked out,

"Oh! mother, mother, do not abandon me to those men. They will kill me as they did papa."

The queen, in a delirium of agony, grasped her child and placing him upon the bed behind her, with eyes glaring like a tigress, bade defiance to the officers, declaring that they should tear her in pieces before they should take her boy. Even the officers were overcome by her heart-rending grief, and for two hours refrained from taking the child by violence. The exhausted mother at length fell in a swoon, and the child was taken, shrieking with terror, from the room. She never saw her son again.

A few weeks of woe passed slowly away, when, early in August, she was awakened from her sleep just after midnight by a band of armed men who came to convey her to the prison of the Conciergerie, where she was to await her trial. The queen had already drained the cup of misery to the dregs, and nothing could add to her woe. She rose, in the stupor of despair, and began to dress herself in the presence of the officers. Her daughter and Madame Elizabeth threw themselves at the feet of the men, and imploredthem not to take the queen from them. They might as well have plead with the granite blocks of their prison.

Pressing her daughter for a moment convulsively to her heart, she covered her with kisses, spoke a few words of impassioned tenderness to her sister, and then, as if fearing to cast a last look upon these objects of her affection, hurried from the room. In leaving she struck her forehead against the beam of the low door.

"Did you hurt yourself?" inquired one of the men.

"Oh no!" was her reply, "nothing now can farther harm me."

A carriage was waiting for her at the door. Escorted bygens d'armesshe was conducted, through the gloom of midnight, to the dungeon where she was to await her condemnation.

MARIE ANTOINETTE IN THE CONCIERGERIE.

The world-renowned prison of the Conciergerie consists of a series of subterranean dungeons beneath the floor of thePalais de Justice. More gloomy tombs the imagination can hardly conceive. Down the dripping and slimy steps the queen was led, by the light of a tallow candle, until, through a labyrinth of corridors, she approached the iron door of her dungeon. The rusty hinges grated as the door was opened, and she was thrust in. Two soldiers accompanied her, with drawn swords, and who were commanded, in defiance of all the instincts of delicacy, not to allow her to be one moment absent from their sight. The one candle gave just light enough to reveal the horrors of her cell. The floor was covered with mud, and streams of water trickled down the stone walls. A miserable pallet, with a dirty covering of coarse and tattered cloth, a small pine table, and a chair constituted the only furniture. So deep was the fall from the saloons of Versailles.

Here the queen remained for two months, her misery being slightly alleviated by the kind-heartedness of Madame Richard, the wife of the jailer, who did every thing the rigorous rules would admit to mitigate her woes. With her own hand she prepared food for the queen, obtained for her a few articles of furniture, and communicated to her daily such intelligence as she could obtain of her sister and her children. The friends of the queen were untiring in their endeavors, by some conspiracy, to effect her release. A gentleman obtained admittance to the queen's cell, and presented her with a rose, containing a note hidden among its petals. One of thegens d'armesdetected the attempt; and the jailer and his wife, for their suspected connivance, were both arrested and thrown into the dungeons.

Other jailers were provided for the prison, M. and Madame Bault; but they also had humane hearts, and wept over the woes of Marie Antoinette. The queen's wardrobe consisted only of two robes, one white, one black, and three chemises. From the humidity of her cell these rapidly decayed, with her shoes and stockings, and fell into tatters. Madame Bault was permitted to assist the queen in mending these, but was not allowed to furnish any new apparel. Books and writing materials were also prohibited. With the point of her needle she kept a brief memorandum of events on the stucco of her walls, and also inscribed brief lines of poetry and sentences from Scripture.

On the 14th of October the queen was conducted from her dungeon to the halls above for trial. Surrounded by a strong escort, she was led to the bench of the accused. Her accusation was that she abhorred the Revolution which had beheaded her husband and plunged her whole family into unutterable woe.

The queen was dressed in the garb of extreme poverty. Grief had whitened her hair, and it was fast falling from her head. Her eyes were sunken, and her features wan and wasted with woe.

"What is your name?" inquired one of the judges.

"I am called Marie Antoinette of Lorraine, in Austria," answered the queen.

"What is your condition?" was the next question.

"I am widow of Louis, formerly King of the French," was the reply.

"What is your age?"

"Thirty-seven."

The long act of accusation was then read. Among other charges was the atrocious one of attempting, by depravity and debauchery, to corrupt her own son, "with the intention of enervating the soul and body of that child, and of reigning, in his name, over the ruin of his understanding."

The queen recoiled from this charge with a gesture of horror, and, when asked why she did not reply to the accusation, she said,

"I have not answered it because there are accusations to which nature refuses to reply. I appeal to all mothers if such a crime be possible."

The trial continued for two days. When all the accusations had been heard, the queen was asked if she had any thing to say. She replied,

"I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains. Take it; but do not make me suffer long."

TRIAL OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.

At four o'clock on the morning of the 16th she listened to her sentence condemning her to die. In the dignity of silence, and without the tremor of a muscle, she accepted her doom. As she was led from the court-room to her dungeon, to prepare for her execution, the brutal populace, with stampings and clappings, applauded the sentence. Being indulged with pen and paper in these last hours, she wrote as follows to her sister:

"October 16th, half past four in the morning."I write you, my sister, for the last time. I have been condemned, not to an ignominious death—that only awaits criminals—but to go and rejoin your brother. Innocent as he, I hope to show the same firmness as he did in these last moments. I grieve bitterly at leaving my poor children; you know that I existed but for them and you—you who have, by your friendship, sacrificed all to be with us. In what a position do I leave you. I have learned, by the pleadings on my trial, that my daughter was separated from you. Alas! my poor child. I dare not write to her. She could notreceive my letter. I know not even if this may reach you. Receive my blessing for both."I hope one day, when they are older, they may rejoin you and rejoice in liberty at your tender care. May their friendship and mutual confidence form their happiness. May my daughter feel that, at her age, she ought always to aid her brother with that advice with which the greater experience she possesses and her friendship should inspire her. May my son, on his part, render to his sister every care and service which affection can dictate. Let my son never forget the last words of his father. I repeat them to him expressly.Let him never attempt to avenge our death."

"October 16th, half past four in the morning.

"I write you, my sister, for the last time. I have been condemned, not to an ignominious death—that only awaits criminals—but to go and rejoin your brother. Innocent as he, I hope to show the same firmness as he did in these last moments. I grieve bitterly at leaving my poor children; you know that I existed but for them and you—you who have, by your friendship, sacrificed all to be with us. In what a position do I leave you. I have learned, by the pleadings on my trial, that my daughter was separated from you. Alas! my poor child. I dare not write to her. She could notreceive my letter. I know not even if this may reach you. Receive my blessing for both.

"I hope one day, when they are older, they may rejoin you and rejoice in liberty at your tender care. May their friendship and mutual confidence form their happiness. May my daughter feel that, at her age, she ought always to aid her brother with that advice with which the greater experience she possesses and her friendship should inspire her. May my son, on his part, render to his sister every care and service which affection can dictate. Let my son never forget the last words of his father. I repeat them to him expressly.Let him never attempt to avenge our death."

Having finished the letter, which was long, she folded it and kissed it repeatedly, "as if she could thus transmit the warmth of her lips and the moisture of her tears to her children." She then threw herself upon the pallet and slept quietly for two or three hours. A few rays of morning light were now struggling in through the grated bars of the window. The daughter of Madame Bault came in to dress her for the guillotine. She put on her white robe. A white handkerchief covered her shoulders, and a white cap, bound around her temples by a black ribbon, covered her hair.

It was a cold autumnal morning, and a chill fog filled the streets of Paris. At eleven o'clock the executioners led her from her cell. She cordially embraced the kind-hearted daughter of the concierge, and, having with her own hands cut off her hair, allowed herself to be bound, without a murmur, and issued from the steps of the Conciergerie. Instead of a carriage, the coarse car of the condemned awaited her at the gateway of the prison. For a moment she recoiled from this unanticipated humiliation, but immediately recovering herself she ascended the cart. There was no seat in the car, and, as her hands were bound behind her, she was unable to support herself from the jolting over the pavement. As she was jostled rudely to and fro, in the vain attempt to preserve her equilibrium, the multitudes thronging the streets shouted in derision. They had been taught to hate her, to regard her not only as the implacable foe of popular liberty, which she was, but as the most infamous of women, which she was not. "These," they cried, "are not your cushions of Trianon."

It was a long ride to the scaffold, during which the queen suffered all that insult, derision, and contumely can inflict. The procession crossed the Seine by thePont au Change, and traversed theRue St. Honoré. Upon reaching the Place of the Revolution the cart stopped for a moment near the entrance of the garden of the Tuileries. Marie Antoinette for a few moments contemplated in silence those scenes of former happiness and grandeur. A few more revolutions of the wheels placed her at the foot of the guillotine. She mounted to the scaffold, and inadvertently trod upon the foot of the executioner.

"Pardon me," said the queen, with as much courtesy as if she had been in one of the saloons of Versailles. Kneeling, she uttered a brief prayer, and then, turning her eyes to the distant towers of the Temple, she said,

"Adieu, once again, my children; I go to rejoin your father."

She was bound to the plank, and as it sank to its place the gleaming axeslid through the groove, and the head of the queen fell into the basket. The executioner seized the gory trophy by the hair, and, walking around the scaffold, exhibited it to the crowd. One long cry ofVive la République!arose, and the crowd dispersed.

While these fearful scenes were passing, Madame Elizabeth and the princess remained in the tower of the Temple. Their jailers were commanded to give them no information whatever. The young dauphin was imprisoned by himself.

Six months of gloom and anguish which no pen can describe passed away, when, on the night of the 9th of May, 1794, as Madame Elizabeth and the young princess, Maria Theresa, were retiring to bed, a band of armed men, with lanterns, broke into their room, and said to Madame Elizabeth,

"You must immediately go with us."

"And my niece?" anxiously inquired the meek and pious aunt, ever forgetful of self in her solicitude for others. "Can she go too?"

"We want you only now. We will take care of her by-and-by," was the unfeeling answer.

The saint-like Madame Elizabeth saw that the long-dreaded hour of separation had come, and that her tender niece was to be left, unprotected and alone, exposed to the brutality of her jailers. She pressed Maria Theresa to her bosom, and wept in uncontrollable grief. But still, endeavoring to comfort the heart-stricken child, she said,

"I shall probably soon return again, my dear Maria."

"No, you won't, citoyenne," rudely interrupted one of the officers. "You will never ascend these stairs again. So take your bonnet, and come down."

The soldiers seized her, led her down the stairs, and thrust her into a carriage. It was midnight. Driving violently through the streets, they soon reached the gateway of the Conciergerie. The Revolutionary Tribunal was, even at that hour, in session. The princess was dragged immediately to their bar. With twenty-four others of all ages and both sexes, she was condemned to die. Her crime was that she was sister of the king, and in heart hostile to the Revolution. She was led to one of the dungeons to be dressed for the scaffold. In this hour Christian faith was triumphant. Trusting in God, all her sorrows vanished, and her soul was in perfect peace.

With her twenty-two companions, all of noble birth, she was placed in the cart of the condemned, her hands bound behind her, and conducted to the guillotine. Madame Elizabeth was reserved to the last. One by one her companions were led up the scaffold before her, and she saw their heads drop into the basket. She then peacefully placed her head upon the pillow of death, and passed away, one of the purest and yet most suffering of earthly spirits, to the bosom of her God.

The young dauphin lingered for eighteen months in his cell, suffering inconceivable cruelties from his jailer, a wretch by the name of Simon, until he died on the 9th of June, 1795, in the tenth year of his age. Maria Theresa now alone remained of the family of Louis XVI. She had now been in prison more than two years. At length, so much sympathy was excited in behalf of this suffering child, that the Assembly consented to exchange her with the Austrian government for four French officers.

LOUIS XVII. IN PRISON.

On the 19th of December, 1795, she was led from the Temple, and, ample arrangements having been made for her journey, she was conducted, with every mark of respect and sympathy, to the frontiers. In the Austrian court, love and admiration encircled her. But this stricken child of grief had received wounds which time could never entirely heal. A full year passed before a smile could ever be won to visit her cheek. She subsequently married her cousin, the Duke of Angoulême, son of Charles X. With the return of the Bourbons she returned to her ancestral halls of the Tuileries and Versailles. But upon the second expulsion of the Bourbons she fled with them, and died, a few years ago, at an advanced age, universally respected. Such was the wreck of the royal family of France by the storm of revolution.

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