Nation, which were to be placed in the Hall; as the Society of Friends of the Revolution in London had placed them in theirs.

"Cries of "Liberty forever! The Nation forever! The three Free Peoples of the Universe forever (Vivent les trois peuples libres de l'univers)!” are reëchoed with enthusiasm by the galleries and visitors: the expression, no less sincere than lively, of that ardour, of that love for Equality and Brotherhood, which Nature has engraved on the hearts of all men; and which nothing but the continued efforts of despots, in all classes, have managed to efface more or less.

'A Deputation of Ladies is introduced; Ladies accustomed to honour the galleries with their presence: they had solicited permission to offer a pledge of their enthusiasm for Liberty to the Constitutional Whig, who came lately to the National Assembly with the congratulation of this class of free Englishmen.

'The Deputation enters, amid the applauses of the meeting: a young Citizeness carries in her hand the Gift of these Ladies, lays it on the President's table, while the Lady-Deputies mount to the Tribune, to pronounce the following discourse.

'The Lady-speaker. We are not Roman Dames; we bring no jewels ; but a tribute of gratitude for the feelings you have inspired us with. A Constitutional Whig (Wigh), a Brother, an Englishman, formed, few days ago, the object of one of your sweetest unitings (étreintes). What a charm had that picture! Souls of sensibility were struck with it; our hearts are yet full of emotion (Applause). This day you afford to that Brother, and to yourselves, a new enjoyment: you suspend to the dome of our temple three Flags, American, English, French.

'From all sides. The Three Nations, Vivent les trois nations! Vive la Liberté !

'Lady-speaker. The union of the Three free Peoples is to be cemented: forbid not us also, Messieurs, to contribute towards that. Your pure feelings prescribe it for us as a duty. Messieurs, accept a garland.And you, English Brother accept another from the hands of innocence: it is the work of sisterhood; friendship gives it you. Receive also, O good Patriot, in the name of the French Citoyennes who are here, this Ark of Alliance, which we have brought for our brethren the Constitutional Whigs (Wighs): within it are enclosed the Map of France, divided into eighty-three departments; the Cap of Liberty (Applause); the Book of the French Constitution; a Civic Crown; some Ears of Wheat (Applause); three Flags; a National Cockade; and these words in the two languages, To live free or die.

"The whole Hall. To live free or die!

'Lady-speaker. Let this immortal homage done to Liberty be, for the English and the French, a sacred pledge of their union. Forget not to

tell our brothers how you have received it. Let it be deposited with the brotherliest ceremonial! Invite all Englishmen to participate in this family act. Let it be precious to them as Nature herself.-Tell your wives, repeat to your children, that innocent maids, faithful spouses, tender mothers, after having done their household duties, and contributed to make their families and husbands happy, came and made this offering to their Country. Let one cry of gladness peal over Europe; let it roll across the waters to America. Hark! Amid the echoes, Philadelphia

and the Far West repeat like us, Liberty forever!

'The whole Hall. Liberty forever!

Lady-speaker. Tyrants! your enemies declare themselves. Nations will no longer battle with each other; straitly united, they will possess all Languages, and make of them but one Language. Strong in their Freedom they will be inseparable forever.—

'Universal applauses: the Hall resounds long with cries, repeated by the Galleries and the Society, of Vive la Nation, vive la Liberté! The Three Nations! The Patriot Women!

'M. de la Source, Vice-president. Since Nature has willed that the world should owe to you its sweetest moments, this enthusiasm of yours with which you fill all hearts shall never be lost, never forgotten in the flight of ages: it stands engraved on our hearts in indelible characters. -(Then turning to the Deputies of the Whigs) As for you, Brothers, tell your countrymen what we are; tell them that in France the women too can love their country and show themselves worthy of Liberty; tell them that the union, of which you see the emblems, shall be imperishable as the Free Peoples are; that we have henceforth only one sort of bonds, the bonds which unite us to the Free, and that these shall be eternal as virtue.

'The Whig Deputy. Mesdames and M. le Président, I really am not prepared to make a speech' (how true to the "leg-of-mutton or postprandial style"!)—' for really I did not expect such a reception; but I hope you will excuse me. I have written to England, I have described the reception I met with here: I have had answers, but not from our Society, because that requires time; the Society must meet first and then answer.—I wish it were in my power' (postprandially!) 'to express what my heart feels. This feeling towards you is not the work of a day, but indeed that of a year (!), for in August last, our Society wrote to M. Pétion, who, however, assures me that the Letter never reached him; and therefore-'1

-and so on, in the postprandial style; bringing down matters to the solid business-level again. Few readers, it is

1 Tome xii. p. 379.

VOL. IV.

B

to be expected, have witnessed on the unelastic stage of mere Earth anything so dramatic as this.

We terminate with a scene of a very different complexion, though but some few months farther on, that is to say in September 1792! Félémhesi (anagram for Méhée Fils), in his Vérité toute entière, a Pamphlet really more veracious than most, thus testifies, after a good deal of preambling:

'I was going to my post about half-past two' (Sunday the 2d of September, tocsins all ringing, and Brunswick just at hand); 'I was passing along the Rue Dauphine; suddenly I hear hisses. I look, I observe four hackney-coaches, coming in a train, escorted by the Fédérés of the Departments.

'Each of these coaches contained four persons: they were individuals' (priests) arrested in the preceding domiciliary visits. Billaud-Varennes, Procureur-Substitute of the Commune, had just been interrogating them at the Hôtel-de-Ville; and now they were proceeding towards the Abbaye, to be provisionally detained there. A crowd is gathering; the cries and hisses redouble: one of the prisoners, doubtless out of his senses, takes fire at these murmurs, puts his arm over the coach-door, gives one of the Fédérés a stroke over the head with his cane. The Fédéré, in a rage, draws his sabre, springs on the carriage-steps, and plunges it thrice-over into the heart of his aggressor. I saw the blood come out in great jets. "Kill every one of them; they are scoundrels, aristocrats!" cry the people. The Fédérés all draw their sabres, and instantly kill the three companions of the one who had just perished. I saw, at this moment, a young man in a white nightgown stretch himself out of that same carriage: his countenance, expressive but pale and worn, indicated that he was very sick; he had gathered his staggering strength, and though already wounded, was crying still, "Grâce, grâce, Mercy, pardon !" but in vain ;-a mortal stroke united him to the lot of the others.

"This coach, which was the hindmost, now held nothing but corpses; it had not stopped during the carnage, which lasted about the space of two minutes. The crowd increases, crescit eundo; the yells redouble. The coaches are at the Abbaye. The corpses are hurled into the court; the twelve living prisoners dismount to enter the committee-room. Two are sacrificed on alighting; ten succeed in entering. The committee had not had time to put the slightest question, when a multitude, armed with pikes, sabres, swords and bayonets, dashes in, seizes the accused, and kills them. One prisoner, already much wounded, kept hanging by the skirts of a Committee-member, and still struggled against death.

"Three yet remained; one of whom was the Abbé Sicard, Teacher of the Deaf and Dumb. The sabres were already over his head, when Monnot, the watchmaker, flung himself before them, crying, "Kill me rather, and not this man, who is useful to our country!" These words, uttered with the fire and impetuosity of a generous soul, suspended death. Profiting by this moment of calm, Abbé Sicard and the other two were got conveyed into the back part of the room.'

Abbé Sicard, as is well known, survived; and the narrative which he also published exists,-sufficient to prove, among other things, that ‘Félémhesi' had but two eyes, and his own share of sagacity and heart; that he has misseen, miscounted, and, knowingly or unknowingly, misstated not a little,—as one poor man, in these circumstances, might. Félémhesi continues, we only inverting his arrangement somewhat:

'Twelve scoundrels, presided by Maillard, with whom they had probably combined this project beforehand, find themselves "by chance among the crowd; and now, being well known one to another, they unite themselves "in the name of the sovereign people," whether it were of their own private audacity, or that they had secretly received superior orders. They lay hold of the prison-registers, and turn them over; the turnkeys fall a-trembling; the jailor's wife and the jailor faint; the prison is surrounded by furious men; there is shouting, clamouring: the door is assaulted, like to be forced; when one of the Committeemembers presents himself at the outer gate, and begs audience: his signs obtain a moment of silence; the doors open, he advances, gets a chair, mounts on it, and speaks: "Comrades, friends," said he, "you are good patriots; your resentment is just. Open war to the enemies of the common good; neither truce nor mercy; it is a war to the death! I feel, like you, that they must all perish. And yet, if you are good citizens, you must love justice. There is not one of you but would shudder at the notion of shedding innocent blood." "Yes, yes!" reply the people." Well, then, I ask of you if, without inquiry or investigation, you fling yourselves like mad tigers on your fellowmen—?” Here the speaker is interrupted by one of the crowd, who, with a bloody sabre in his hand, his eyes glancing with rage, cleaves the press, and refutes him in these terms: "Tell us, Monsieur le Citoyen, explain to us, then, would the sacrés gueux of Prussians and Austrians, if they were at Paris, investigate for the guilty? Would they not cut to the right and left as the Swiss on the Tenth of August did? Well! I am no speaker, I cannot stuff the ears of any one: but I tell you, I have a wife

and five children, whom I leave with my Section here, while I go and fight the enemy; and it is not my bargain that the villains in this Prison, whom other villains outside will open the door to, shall go and kill my wife and children in the meanwhile! I have three boys, who I hope will be usefuler to their country one day than these rascals you want to save. Any way, you have but to send them out; we will give them arms, and fight them number for number. Die here or die on the frontiers, I am sure enough to be killed by these villains, one day; but I mean to sell them my life; and, be it I, be it others, the Prison shall be purged of these sacrés gueux-là." "He is right!" responds the general cry.'-And so the frightful 'purgation' proceeds.

'At five in the afternoon, Billaud-Varennes, Procureur-Substitute, arrives; he had-on his sash, and the small puce coat and black wig we are used to see on him: walking over carcasses, he makes a short harangue to the people, and ends thus: "People, thou art sacrificing thy enemies; thou art in thy duty." This cannibal speech lends them new animation. The killers blaze-up, cry louder than ever for new victims: -how to stanch this new thirst of blood? A voice speaks from beside Billaud; it was Maillard's voice: "There is nothing more to do here; let us to the Carmes!" They run thither: in five minutes more, I saw them trailing corpses by the heels. A killer (I cannot say a man), in very coarse clothes, had, as it would seem, been specially commissioned to despatch the Abbé Lenfant; for, apprehensive lest the prey might be missed, he takes water, flings it on the corpses, washes their bloodsmeared faces, turns them over, and seems at last to ascertain that the Abbé Lenfant is among them.'1

This is the September Massacre, the last Scene we can give as a specimen. Thus, in these curious records of the Histoire Parlementaire, as in some Ezekiel Vision become real, does Scene after Scene disclose itself, now in rose-light, now in sulphurous black, and grow ever more fitful, dream-like,— till the Vendémiaire Scene come, and Napoleon blow-forth his grape-shot, and Sansculottism be no more!

Touching the political and metaphysical speculations of our two Editors, we shall say little. They are of the sort we lamented in Mignet, and generally in Frenchmen of this day a jingling of formulas;-unfruitful as that Kalmuck prayer! Perhaps the strangest-looking particular doctrine

1 Vol. xviii. p. 169.