stateliest Temples for it, and reverend Hierarchies, and give it the tithe of their substance; it was worth living for and dying for."

THE KINGSHIP.

"Neither was that an inconsiderable moment when wild armed men first raised their Strongest aloft on the buckler-throne, and with clanging armor and hearts said solemnly: 'Be thou our Acknowledged Strongest!' In such Acknowledged Strongest (well-named King, Konning, Can-ning, or Man that was Able), what a Symbol shone now for them-significant with the destinies of the world! A Symbol of true Guidance in return for loving Obedience; properly, if he knew it, the prime want of man. A Symbol which might be called sacred; for is there not, in reverence for what is better than we, an indestructible sacredness? On which ground, too, it was well said, there lay in the Acknowledged Strongest a divine right; as surely there might be in the Strongest, whether Acknowledged or not,—considering Who it was that made him strong.

"And so, in the midst of confusions and unutterable incongruities (as all growth is confused), did this of Royalty, with Loyalty environing it, spring up; and grow mysteriously, subduing and assimilating (for a principle of Life was within it); till it also had grown world-great, and was among the main facts of our modern existence. Such a fact that a Louis Fourteenth, for example, could answer the expostulatory Magistrate with his 'L'État, c'est moi (The State? I am the State); and be replied to with silence and abashed looks.

"So far had accident and forethought; had your Louis Elevenths, with the leaden Virgin in their hat

band, and torture-wheels and conical oubliettes (maneating!) under their feet; your Henri Fourths, with their prophesied social millennium, 'when every peasant should have his fowl in the pot,' and, on the whole, the fertility of this most fertile Existence (named of Good and Evil), --brought it, in the matter of Kingship. Wondrous! concerning which may we not again say, that in the huge mass of Evil, as it rolls and swells, there is ever some Good, working imprisoned; working toward deliverance and triumph?"

The "History of the French Revolution," as told by Carlyle, properly begins with the death of Louis XV. The king's disease was the small-pox, caught from one of his obscure mistresses; but this was further aggravated by certain other nameless disorders.

THE DEATH-BED OF LOUIS XV.

"Frightful to all men is Death; from of old named King of Terrors. Our little compact home of an Existence, where we dwelt complaining, yet as in a home, is passing, in dark agonies, into an Unknown of Separation, Foreignness, unconditioned Possibility. The Heathen Emperor asks of his soul: 'Into what place art thou now departing?' The Catholic King must answer: 'To the Judgment-bar of the Most High God!'-Yes, it is a summing up of life; a final settling, and giving-in the 6 account of the deeds done in the body': they are done now; and lie there unalterable, and to bear their fruits, as long as Eternity shall last.

"Louis XV. had always the Kingliest abhorrence of Death. Unlike that Duke of Orleans, who honestly be

lieved that there was no Death, he, if the Court Newsmen can be believed, started up once on a time, glowing with sulphurous contempt and indignation on his poor Secretary, who had stumbled on the words, feu roi d'Espagne (the late King of Spain). 'Feu roi, Monsieur !' - Monseigneur,' hastily answered the trembling but adroit man of business,' C'est un titre qu'ils prennent ('tis a title they take).' Louis was not so happy; but he did what he could. He would not suffer Death to be spoken of; avoided the sight of churchyards, funeral monuments, and whatsoever could bring it to mind. It is the resource of the Ostrich; who hard-hunted sticks his foolish head in the ground, and would fain forget that his foolish unseeing body is not unseen too. Or sometimes, with a spasmodic antagonism, significant of the same thing, and of more, would go: or stopping his court carriages, would send into the churchyards, and ask, 'how many new graves there were to-day,' though it gave his poor Pompadour the ugliest qualms.

"But figure his thought when Death is now clutching at his own heart-strings; unlooked for, inexorable! Yes, poor Louis, Death has found thee. No palace walls or life-guards, gorgeous tapestries or gilt buckrams of stiffest ceremonial could keep him out; but he is here, here at thy very life-breath, and will extinguish it. Thou, whose whole existence was a Chimera and Scenic Show, at length becomest a Reality: sumptuous Versailles bursts asunder, like a Dream, into a void Immensity; Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangor round thy soul: the pale Kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter naked, all unkinged, and await what is appointed thee! Unhappy man, there as thou turnest, in dull agony, what a thought is thine!

"Purgatory and Hellfire, now all too possible, in the prospect in the retrospect,-alas, what thing didst thou do that were not better undone; what mortal didst thou generously help; what sorrow hadst thou mercy on? Do the 'five hundred thousand' ghosts who sank shamefully on so many battlefields from Rossbach to Quebec, that thy Harlot might take revenge for an epigramı,—— crowd thee in this hour? Thy foul Harem; the curses of mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters? Miserable man! thou hast done evil as thou couldst.' Thy whole existence seems one hideous abortion and mistake of Nature; the use and meaning of thee not yet known. Wert thou a fabulous Griffin, devouring the works of men; daily dragging virgins to thy cave;-clad also in scales that no spear would pierce: no spear but Death's? A Griffin not fabulous, but real! Frightful, O Louis, seem these moments for thee.-We will pry no further into the horrors of a sinner's deathbed."

66

If, instead of one small volume, we were to have made three large ones, we should have filled a quarter of one of them with extracts from this History of the French Revolution." We must, however, find space for the account of the great celebration on July 14, 1790, in the Champ de Mars, when, as was fondly believed by all men, king and people were to be made one, and the Golden Age to come back again to earth. For this Fête of the Federation the Champ de Mars was to be made into a vast open-air theatre or amphitheatre, wherein three hundred thousand performers might play their parts with the whole

universe as spectators, visible or invisible ; and the day for the performance had been fixed:

PAID WORK IN THE CHAMP DE MARS.

"Meanwhile to Paris, ever going and returning, day after day, and all day long, toward that Field of Mars, it becomes painfully apparent that the spade-work there cannot be got done in time. There is such an area of it; three hundred thousand square feet: for from the Ecole Militaire (which will need be done up in wood with balconies and galleries) westward to the Gate by the River (where also shall be wood in triumphal arches), we count some thousand yards of length; and for the breadth, from the umbrageous Avenue of eight rows, on the South side, to that corresponding one on the North, some thousand feet more or less. All this is to be scooped out, and wheeled up in slope along the sides: high enough; for it must be rammed down there, and shaped stair-wise into as many as 'thirty ranges of convenient seats,' firmn-trimmed with turf, covered with enduring timber;-and then our huge pyramidal Fatherland's-Altar, Autel de la Patrie, in the centre, also to be raised and stair-stepped. Force-work with a vengeance; it is a World's Amphitheatre! There are but fifteen days good and at this languid rate it might take half as many weeks. What is singular too, the Spademen seem to work lazily; they will not work double-tides even for offer of more wages, though their tide is but seven hours; they declare angrily that the human tabernacle requires occasional rest."

The people began to surmise that the slowness of the work was somehow caused by the "Aristo