more than one of the personages assembled there. Woe was imprinted on the visages of many of these; a reckless hilarity lighted up the countenances of a few of the younger men, but most of them retained their ordinary cheerfulness and vivacity unimpaired and unexaggerated; and all, without exception, appeared to preserve the lofty and chivalrous demeanour which might be deemed hereditary in their families, and had, at all events, become a second nature. For me to have appeared otherwise than myself in such a society, would have been derogatory to my pretensions-so in a few moments I fell in with the spirit of the assemblage, and, shutting my eyes to the gloomy accessories, strove to imagine myself once more in one of the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain.

One

What struck me as most singular, though in keeping with the name of this hall, was, that many of the ladies present wore as ornaments, either on their heads, round their necks, or on their bosoms, pieces of jewellery significant in their forms of the horrors that surrounded and awaited them. exhibited a chain and padlock bracelet, another a dagger through her hair, and a third a skull and cross-bones as a brooch. A shudder ran through me as I observed this grim pleasantry associated with death; and though I learned at last to look upon these emblems with indifference-nay, with something less than indifference, as you shall hear yet it took some time to reconcile me to the fashion.

Levasseur stuck close to my elbow, and watched the effect of what I witnessed, as it depicted itself upon my countenance. He gave me credit more than once for my steadiness of nerve under circumstances so trying and so novel, and at the same time satisfied my curiosity every now and then, by recounting anecdotes and incidents relating to the more remarkable of the personages who approached and receded from us.

"There; do you see that reserved, downcast-looking body, with the tonsure of a monk only half overgrown by the locks of a sans-culotte? He seems to think that society is a mistake, now that it is likely to lose him so soon. That is the ci-devant Abbé Fauchet, who will probably remove his gravity from hence to the Conciergerie in a

day or two. He figures, you know, among the Girondin worthies, who seem so indignant that their turn should come at last for the guillotine." "What! a Girondin?" exclaimed I; "are they actually in the room?"

"To be sure. The noblesse admits them on the score of their youth and approaching dissolution. See, here we have another of them, for they are gregarious. He is hobbling up on his crutches to cheer up Fauchet. That is Sillery; a jolly dog to the last.'

"Where is Vergniaud?" I whispered, unable to repress the interest I felt in the theme of all tongues.

"We must go further up the room to reach him," replied Levasseur. "He and Ducos have contrived to excite pretty nearly as violent a fureur amongst the grandes dames as they formerly did chez les dames de la halle; and can never manage to get even in prison a moment's peace, or what they would call peace; that is, solitude."

I could scarcely refrain from a smile at this wild travesty of the classic sentiment, and advanced into the hall until I reached the circle, in the midst of which stood Vergniaud, Ducos, and Fonfréde. For a moment I could not help feeling a flush of triumph at seeing these firebrands themselves the victims of their own exterminating frenzy. The next, I stood spell-bound like the rest, listening to such a flow of eloquence from the lips of the principal speaker as no experience of my life had ever prepared me for. It was not the excited extravagance of mere declamation you so often listen to, full of florid luxuriance upon a dead level, like a tropical forest. Vergniaud spoke like a philosopher and a man of the world as well as an orator. Every exalted theme he discussed by turns; and when the poetic youth, Ducos, illustrating the subject Vergniaud had last touched upon, namely, the miseries of France and the unhappy dangers into which young and gifted spirits had been drawn by their patriotism, uttered, with the fervour of a martyr, that fine sentiment of Corneille's

"La plus douce esperance est de perdre l'espoir,"

the eye of the speaker bent upon him with an expression of sympathising affection, which seemed to go to the hearts of

the listening group around, and certainly disarmed mine for the moment of some of its prejudices.

"Come, come," cried Levasseur, jogging my elbow, "it will not do to have you embrace the Gironde contre cour. Were Madame Roland here to-night indeed, there might be some excuse for you. She, alas! has taken a most extraordinary and unaccountable aversion to me, do you know; and, when I appear here, seldom honours us with her presence. But, see, away goes Vergniaud turning on his heel, and after him sails that most aristocratic provincial neighbour of yours, the Marquise de la Cour Cheverny, in a flood of ancestral tears. Young Montmorenci follows her, with a vinaigrette and heart at her service. Ah! you see, Vicomte, they cannot bar the Faubourg out, after all!"

Here Levasseur laughed softly, with the discreet hilarity of an habitué of these prison festivities.

"Levasseur! Levasseur! be serious, I entreat of you. This is not the place for such levity!"

My remonstrance was prompted by the entrance of two persons.

One of them was an elderly lady, the other a young one. As soon as they had entered, an ecclesiastic of dignified demeanour, whose face I did not see at the time, but who seemed to have been expecting them, moved over towards them, as if to afford them the protection their sex and unprotected condition had need of in such an assemblage as this.

They were dressed differently from the rest of the company, who most of them contrived still to adorn themselves in what might be called, by courtesy, the fashion of the day, even as far as paint, patches, and powder, to say nothing of the ominous jewellery they wore. A sepulchral simplicity marked these ladies. The elder wore a plain grey robe, and a plain cap covering her grey locks. The younger was in spotless white, with an extraordinary weight of what is called black hair, but which in northern nations is more frequently dark brown, drawn away from her brow, and falling in shadows of lustrous intricacy upon her neck and shoulders. It would be a vain task to describe her face. At the time, I could not have even made the attempt; and if I afterwards knew her marble complexion and Grecian fea

features by heart, it was in that moment but a wonderful and radiant embodiment of loveliness that I saw, penetrating without definite outlines the tissues of my imagination. At the instant she entered, a rich voice from amongst the company was just giving the minor motive of the then favourite aria by Gluck, "Che faro ;" and that form, to my excited fancy, seemed to start out of the melody, as if born of grief and loveliness; so that when the strain ended, Iexpected to see her, too, vanish with the song, and leave memory like an echo ringing in my heart. lt was not till the sounds had been lost in the deepening hum of voices that I could utter

"My friend-who-what are these?" "I knew you would be on wires as soon as Alphonsine entered," exclaimed my companion, without fully answering my question. "She has turned our heads here already, and must, if she has a fair trial, soften the heart even of the great Rhadamanthus of the Hotel de Ville."

I felt this levity to be more than out of place to be revolting. Still, I must not, I knew, judge the unhappy throng around me by the rules of a world from which they were, most of them, for ever shut out. Accordingly, I contented myself with repeating my ques

tion.

"These are aunt and niece," replied he. "Noble, and all that-the St. Lucs. The elder lady's husband, Alphonsine's uncle, has already had his last promenade upon the fatal cart. These two are charged with compli cité,' and when their turn comes will, no doubt, follow in procession, unless they have better success than Custine's daughter. Meanwhile, let us make the most of them. They lend salt to our "pleurs," and do all that mortals-or immortals can to reconcile us to iron bars and stone walls. You must not be known not to know them. Come along, the Archbishop must give place for this once."

So saying, and without affording me time to collect my thoughts, he dragged me by the arm up to the ladies, who seemed already to have gathered a respectful and sympathising circle about them. He made his obeisance with a deferential courtesy, strangely contrasted-to me, who had just heard the remarks he had made with his true sentiments; and was proceeding to in

troduce me, when just at that moment I caught a glimpse of the clergyman that had at first joined them, and, to my surprise, discovered him to be the archbishop of the province to which I belonged, the excellent and loyal M. de Montblanc. Our mutual recognition was at once pleasurable and painful. I threw myself at his feet, and the excellent prelate shed tears over my youthful captivity. When I raised myself up, I observed the eyes of the younger of the two ladies resting upon me with a mournful expression, and, turning towards Levasseur, saw upon his countenance the last traces of a smile, which he had not intended to have left lingering there so long. As it was, he took my hand, and gallantly kneeling before the two ladies, presented, with an extravagance of gesture looking very like a caricature of the ancien régime, Citoyen le Vicomte de Martigny!

The Archbishop seized my other hand, and, without seeming to notice the overstrained acting of my companion, spoke my name over again, adding some words of delicate commendation-dictated, I felt, more by his kindness, and the interest he had evinced in my family, than by any deserts of mine.

I look back with astonishment at the intensity of the glow which I felt pervading my whole soul-at the magnificence of the conflagration kindled within me by the consciousness felt at the instant and in its full energy, that now, at the portals of the grave as it were, I had for the first time met with the fulfilment of my destiny, the substance of that shadow of love my whole previous life had been one vain pursuit of. It is possible, young man, that no human being in a less desperate emergency could have all the aspirations of his nature so completely and instantaneously embodied before him. Life was condensed, as we believed, from years into hours. The world was compressed within the boundaries of our prison. Our career was to be accomplished in a few actions, for which we scarcely had time. Our destiny was cooped up in a few fierce feelings, crowding to rend their barriers within our breasts. I received the image before me into my heart as a revelation from heavena great light, which I only knew to be light, too dazzling for me to look at.

It passed in, blinding me on its way. I could scarcely say what it was I worshipped.

This powerful heart-stroke carried with it the reciprocating conviction which alone could make the sensation endurable. I felt that the shock was mutual-that the electric current of passion could not rend one bosom so completely, without a corresponding rift in the other. To have doubted this would have been death. And, as

after knowledge showed me that these subtle influences, while they transcend reason, act in strict conformity with it, so now, in very truth, I had divined aright in the midst of my bewilderment. Oh, mighty force of one master passion! Terrific and fatal power, which lightens and blasts at the same moment, according to what inscrutable law are thy thunderbolts turned loose amongst mankind? To what end was it, mighty Creator! if not to vindicate thy superseded worship, that the swift and merciful axe cut off the authors of our woes, while upon us was wreaked the slow vengeance which has cast her bones here, and still binds me fast to life, like a malefactor chained to the oar which strains without liberating him?

The wretched man, as he alluded to the fate of the woman appearing to be thus idolised, had seized my arm, and when he shrieked the word "here," pointed with his skinny finger to the ground at our feet-which caused me to start up-but the next moment set me upon endeavouring, in the midst of my excitement, to form some conjecture as to the cause of his haunting this spot, coupling what he had now uttered with some expressions used previously. I immediately perceived, . however, that there was not enough revealed as yet to justify any plausible surmise, so I turned once more in the attitude of anxious attention towards the exhausted narrator, on whose forehead big drops of sweat stood out.

Let us hasten on, my son. Hasten as I may, I cannot make my relations as rapidly as time flew. Nearly four months had gone over our heads as prisoners in the Luxembourg, and still, though the Angel of Death entered those gloomy dungeons day after day, laying his finger of blood upon victim after victim right and left of us, upon our shoulders his touch had not yet descended. We had survived, as it

seemed to us, whole generations of mankind. From the young and gifted Girondins, and the regicide Orleans, to the very turnkeys themselves, all had been swept off to the guillotine, and new victims and new goalers were still brought in to pass their probation for the scaffold. The festivities with which we had affected to make a microcosm of the precincts of our prisonhouse, had died with the projectors of them. To us, and with new-comers, it became flat and wearisome, this attempt to re-enact gaieties which only reminded us of our losses. In the Conciergerie, it is true, those who had been brought so far on their way to the grave still made wild sport of their last hours, in the dead of each night rehearsing the ghastly tragedy they were to perform on the morrow. Suppressed laughter floated through the empty corridors, and troubled the sleep of the conscience-ridden goalers, making them lie closer, as they half believed that the ghosts of headless tenants were rejoicing at the ample repasts preparing for the tomb they had descended into. But here we had neither hope nor despair enough for such things. Life for us had become a dream-a sepulchral shadow, under which silence alone flourished. The discipline having become stricter, we could not indeed have indulged in all the relaxations once open to us; but the stringency of their rules was an unnecessary severity. Our spirits had descended to the level of their requisitions before ever they had been devised.

A question, I know, by this time suggests itself to you-how did all this act upon the feelings and affections of two individuals thrown together as spectators of such horrors? A curious speculation, no doubt. It was the fire mighty to separate the gold from the dross. We bore the test. Happiness hovered over us both like a commiserating angel, not quite daring to alight upon us, but without once winging its way out of sight. To me, no period of life, before or since, has equalled that in felicity. For her, I believe, I may answer with equal confidence. If the chamber of life was dark and vaulted, there was a window through which each could look into a world, and deem it its own. The barriers which shut out heaven and earth, had left to us our eyes, and left us together. Into these luminaries we looked for light, and saw in them

perspectives, heights, depths, distances, glories, sufficient for the amplest aspirations of two beings like us joined, fused now, in the furnace of adversity, into one. We had sworn upon a token I had given her one devised in accordance with the spirit of the strange and half-sepulchral world we lived in-the token I have already exhibited to you

-to be true to each other until divided by its stroke. The vow was intended to strengthen our hearts, and fortify them against the worst fate we apprehended-though not the worst that awaited us. I had no hope, no wish, no thought, beyond where I was. She pastured upon my looks; and though her paleness had become mortal, her flush hectic, and the gleam of her eyes meteoric, nothing boded that she was not blessed, and might not be immortal, in her present condition.

The demeanour of Levasseur during the period we have come to, was puzzling. He made friends and intimates on all sides, and succeeded, by his appearance of sympathy and the pliancy of his character, in gaining the confidence of those most opposed to each other in station and opinion. He was always occupied, if not in the large common apartments, in the more secluded parts of the palace; and the very turnkeys appeared to exhibit towards him a deference which they refused to more exalted personages. As fresh arrests took place, the new comers found in him a ready and instant sympathiser, and when at last the summons of death came (for such everybody felt the removal to the Conciergerie to be), he took leave of the departing wretches with every demonstration of commiseration, frequently remarking to us how bitter a drop it was in the cup of his captivity that so many of those with whom he had formed the closest intimacy, were amongst the number thus selected for sacrifice. It became a common topic, indeed, with the survivors, this ill-omened peculiarity respecting him; and we should have been more ready, perhaps, under some superstitious feeling, to dissociate ourselves from his society, but for the dread that was uppermost with us all of having it supposed, by any withdrawal from each other, that we might be classed with those retiring and morose individuals whom he had himself taught us to suspect of being implicated with the police in their system of espionnage.

Alphonsine alone manifested a reserve towards Levasseur. I could not comprehend this; and occasionally rallied him upon it. He turned off the subject with a laugh; and only redoubled his assiduities in his usual sarcastic style, which won upon so many and amused all. As for me, I kept nothing from him-my heart was as open as the sun to his gaze.

The 10th of February, 1794, was the day fixed upon for our flight—yes, that was a thing arranged. Her aunt Madame de St. Luc, and the Archbishop, were to accompany us. Levasseur was to remain; but told us he had reason to calculate upon following us ere long. It is unnecessary to tell you how all this was brought about. Our names seemed to have been forgotten in the vast number of later arrests, and day after day had come, without placing us upon the list of the proscribed. What interest was made for us, it is as little needful that you should hear; you may believe it was powerful-and that it was woman's. With that one woman rested the generosity of the action, with the man whom she influenced, the treachery, if treachery it must be deemed. I am not called upon to tell you wonders unconnected with my own history; but I might well excite your astonishment. Well, let it pass. Had my distempered and gangrened fancy contented itself with accepting the manna from the hand of providence, without thrusting its own miserable devices between heaven and its bounty we might but, who knows? "Ceux qui ont avancé que tout est bien, ont dit une sottise; il fallait dire que tout est aux mieux."

A fierce hilarity buoyed up my spirits as the day approached. I had difficulty in keeping this under control in the presence of my fellow-prisoners. Alphonsine did not share in it. On the contrary, she was grave and pensive, and wept occasionally. She said she had a foreboding that she should never be as happy elsewhere as she had been within the walls of the Luxembourg. It was arranged that we should make our way to Tours, where the Archbishop possessed the means of concealing us until better times. We were to be married as soon as we arrived there; or, if this plan should not succeed, so soon as he could procure the material means of solemnising that sa

crament.

VOL. XLI.-NO. CCXLI.

Why was Alphonsine sad?-My mind was feverishly active. The times were wild. Our plan was desperate. Was she TRUE? Shall I try her? It was the suggestion of an instant. Another moment had decided me to put her to the proof. "She would leave happiness in the prison," were her words. Who was remaining behind? Why, of our intimates, only Levasseur. Infernal thought! How had this never occurred to me before? Nothing more likely. He was ever of our party. He would not speak of her. True, she avoided

him in my presence, and his very attentions were tinged with something of bitterness. But what of that? The thing was not plain, perhaps, but probable-probable. I will test him to the quick. He shall aid me in the business himself!

I was sitting in the depth of a window, with my back to the light, leaning against iron bars, pondering these things. Levasseur entered;-I sprang up, and laid a hand upon each of his shoulders

"Levasseur, mon garçon, we are off, if all succeeds, to-night, you know." "Well? Yes, you are."

"You are sorry, infernally sorry— eh ?"

"Yes; it will make a difference to me for a time."

"Oh, I know. Suppose we enliven the scene, to keep up your spirits ?" "Enliven the scene!-How?"

"Take a lesson from the Conciergerie; enact a drama, or something of the sort."

"I don't understand you, De Martigny. Don't let the people see you so ébloui, or they will suspect something." "Women are not always what they look."

"Sometimes they are better." "Sometimes, Levasseur, sometimes. Old Madame de St. Luc, for instance. -Eh?"