court of the palace, where five carts, surrounded by an immense crowd, awaited them. The moment they emerged from the Conciergerie the Girondists burst into the Marseil laise, laying stress on these verses, which contained a double meaning

"Contre nous de la tyrannie

L'étendard sanglant est levé.”

From this moment they ceased to think of themselves, in order to think of the example of the death of republicans they wished to leave the people. Their voices sank at the end of each verse, only to rise more sonorous at the first line of the next verse. Each cart contained four, with the exception of the last, in which lay the body of Valazé. His head, shaken by the concussion over the stones, swayed to and fro before his friends, who were forced to close their eyes to avoid seeing his livid features, but who still joined in the strain. On their arrival at the scaffold they all embraced, in token of community in liberty, life, and death, and then resumed their funereal chaunt. All died without weakness. Sillery, with irony, after ascending the platform, he walked round, saluting the people as though to thank them for his glory and death. The hymn became feebler at each fall of the axe, one voice still continued it, that of Vergniaud, executed the last. Like his companions, he did not die, but passed away in enthusiasm, and his life, commenced by immortal orations, ended by a hymn to the eternity of the Revolution.

One cart bore away their bodies, and one grave, by the side of that of Louis XVI., received them.

Some years afterwards, in searching the archives of the parish of La Madeleine, the bill of the gravedigger of the Commune was found, with the order of the president on the national treasury for its payment. "Twenty-two deputies of the Gironde; the coffins, 147 francs; expenses of interment, 63 francs; total, 210 francs."

Such was the price of the shovels full of earth that covered the founders of the republic. Never did Eschylus or Shakspeare invent a more bitter derision of fate than this bill of a gravedigger, demanding and receiving his pay for having alternately buried all the monarchy and all the republic of a mighty nation.

XXV. Such were the last moments of these men; they had, during their short life, all the illusions of hope; they had in death the greatest happiness which Heaven reserves for great minds, that martyrdom that rejoices in itself, and which elevates to the sanctity of a victim the man who perishes for his conscience and his country. It would be superfluous to judge them; they have been judged by their life and death. They committed three errors: the first in not having boldly proclaimed the republic before the 10th of August, at the opening of the Legislative Assembly; the second, in having conspired against the constitution of 1791, and by this means forcing the national sovereignty to act as a faction, taken part of the death of the king, and forced the Revolution to employ cruel means; the third was in the time of the Convention, having sought to govern when they should have given battle.

They had three virtues which amply atoned for their defects in the eyes of posterity. They adored liberty, they founded the republic, that precocious truth of future governments, and they died for having refused blood to the people. Their age condemned them to death, and the future has glorified and pardoned them. They died because they would not permit liberty to sully herself, and on their memory will be engraved that inscription which Vergniaud, their voice, wrote with his own hand on the wall of his dungeon "Death rather than dishonour." "Potius mori quam fœdari."

Scarcely had their heads rolled on the scaffold than a gloomy and sanguinary hue spread itself, instead of the lustre. of their party, over the Convention. Youth, beauty, illusion, genius, eloquence,-all seemed to disappear with them. Paris. might have said with Lacedæmon, after the loss of her youth in battle, "The country has lost its flower; liberty has lost its prestige; the republic has lost its spring."

Whilst the twenty-two Girondists perished thus at Paris, Pétion, Buzot, Barbaroux, and Guadet wandered, hunted like wild beasts, in the forests and caves of the Gironde. Madame Roland awaited her fate in a dungeon of the prison of the Abbaye. Dumouriez plotted in exile to escape his remorse; and La Fayette, who had been faithful to liberty at least, expiated in the subterranean cells of the fortress of

Olmutz the crime of having been its apostle, and of still professing it even in his chains.

BOOK XLVIII.

I. THE Convention, after having punished treason in the person of Custine, royalty in the Queen, and federalism in the Gironde, wished to strike at the eventuality of a future dynasty, and surround the republic with the corpses of her past, present, and future foes. They remembered the Duc d'Orléans, so long their accomplice, and now their victim.

This prince was imprisoned, with two of his sons, in the fortress Saint Jean, at Marseilles, and suffering in the dungeons of this state prison all the tortures of captivity. Interrogated, for the first time, on the 7th May, by the president of the Revolutionary Tribunal of des Bouches du Rhône, on his connection with Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Dumouriez, and his plots of re-establishing and usurping the throne, the Duc d'Orléans refuted his accusers. He replied in the language of a sincere republican, who sacrifices his ambition to his opinions, his rank to his duty, his blood to his country. He recounted what he had done, and named the proofs of his patriotism. These proofs were equally striking and sinister. The publication, in a garbled form, of his examination, gave rise to a controversy in the Paris papers, which, whilst defending the prince, rendered him a greater object of attention to the Jacobins. The Girondists, his enemies, involved him in their fall. For some weeks past the severity of his detention had relaxed; he was allowed to see his sons, the Duc de Montpensier and the Duc de Beaujolais, and to take his meals with them. These young princes, almost children, innocent from their age, and guilty from their name, were confined in the same fortress as their father, but in separate apartments. The public papers and a few letters were allowed to reach the prince, and gave him new hope. On learning the death of Marat, Buzot, Barbaroux, and Pétion, his most inveterate foes, he believed that the more equitable Montagne would recall him to their

party. Montagnard, alike irreproachable in his acts and his heart, he could not deem that they would immolate the earliest and the most disinterested of the republicans.

II. The 15th October, the Paris papers announced at Marseilles that the Convention had decreed the trial of the Duc d'Orléans. The prince was at table with his sons. "So much the better," said he; "this must finish one way or another. Embrace me, my children; this is a glorious day in my life. And of what," continued he, "can they accuse me?" He opened the paper, and read the accusation. "This accusation is founded on nothing," cried he; "it has been solicited by great scoundrels; but no matter, let them do their worst, I defy them to find any thing against me. Come, my children, let us look on it as good news, and continue our repast."

The next day the commissioners arrived from Paris, and flattered the prince that his approaching trial would prove his certain justification and freedom.

Security and joy filled the heart of the father and children. But on the 23d of October the prince entered his son's the Duc de Montpensier's apartment, at five o'clock in the morning, and tenderly embraced him: "I am come to bid you farewell," said he, bathing the face of his son with his tears. "I wished," continued he, "to depart without bidding you farewell, for this is always a painful moment, but I could not resist my desire to see you for a moment. Adieu, my child, console yourself and your brother, and think of the joy we shall both feel when we meet again." He then again embraced his son, and quitted the room. The two brothers passed the day in mutually strengthening each other against the anguish of a separation, which left them orphans in the power of tyrannical gaolers.

III. The prince, attended by a single valet-de-chambre, named Gamache, and accompanied by the commissioners of the Convention, took the road to Paris, escorted by a strong detachment of gens d'armes. He travelled slowly, and slept at the large towns. At Auxerre he stopped to dine, and one of the commissioners despatched a note to the Convention, to announce the hour of the arrival of the prince at Paris, and to ask in what prison he was to be confined. At the barrier of Paris a man got into the carriage, and ordered the postil

lions to drive to the Conciergerie. The prince alighted in the court of the Palais de Justice, which was thronged with spectators, curious to behold him. He was placed in a chamber adjoining that in which Marie Antoinette passed her last moments. His faithful servant was allowed to remain with him; and when the commissioners withdrew,—“ Well," said the duke to Gamache, "you have followed me even in a dungeon. I thank you, Gamache; let us hope that we shall not always be in prison." He wished to write to his children, but feared his letters would be opened and read. The name of his sons and daughter were constantly on his lips. Voidel, his defender, had free access to him, and conferred with the members of the Committee of General Safety, and repeatedly assured him of his acquittal.

During the four days that preceded his trial the prince displayed the utmost illusion or indifference as to his fate, like a man to whom life is a burden and death a relief. The 6th of November the Duc d'Orléans appeared before the tribunal; the accusation was as vague and chimerical as that of the Girondists; and the peremptory and concise answers of the prisoner afforded no pretext for condemnation. Interrogated by Hermann, whether he had not voted the death of the tyrant with the ambitious premeditation of succeeding him, "No," replied he, "I obeyed my heart and conscience." He heard his sentence as he would have heard that of another, and only observed in a sarcastic tone to his judges, "Since you were determined to condemn me, you should have found more specious pretexts, for you will never persuade any one that you believed me really guilty of the treason of which you have declared me 'guilty."" Then looking steadily at the cidevant Marquis d'Antonelle, the former confidant of his revolutionary actions, and now president of the jury that sentenced him to death, "And you, too," said he, reproachfully, "you who know me so well." Antonelle cast down his eyes. "Au reste," continued the prince; "since my fate is decided, I demand-not to be forced to languish there until to-morrow (pointing with his hand towards the Conciergerie), but to be led to instant execution."

IV. Two priests, the Abbé Lambert, and the Abbé Lothringer, the same who had visited the Girondists the night previous to their execution, awaited in the large dungeon