and their orgies at the doors of the cells with the agents of the police. As they were sent there to get up a fresh conspiracy in the prisons, they were not long of accomplishing their purpose. A hundred and seventy were denounced at the Luxembourg alone. The spies, whose mission was soon discovered, were caressed, implored by the trembling prisoners, and received whatever little sums they had been able to secrete about their persons, to keep their names 41. The trial of these unhappy captives was as brief as during the massacres in the prisons. "Did you know of the conspiracy of the prisons, Dorival?"-"No." "I expected no other answer; but it will not avail you." To another, "Are not you an ex-noble ?"-"Yes." To a third, "Are you not a priest?""Yes, but I have taken the oath." "You have no right to speak; be silent." "Were not you architect to Madame?"-"Yes, but I was disgraced in 1788." "Had you not a father-in-out of the black list; but in vain.* The law in the Luxembourg?"-" Yes." names of such as they chose to deSuch were the questions which consti- nounce were made up in a list, called tuted the sole trial of the numerous ac- in the prisons "The Evening Journal,' cused; often no witnesses were called; and the public chariots were sent at their condemnations were pronounced nightfall to convey them to the Conalmost as rapidly as their names were ciergerie, preparatory to their trial on read out; the law of 22d Prairial had the following morning. When the undispensed with the necessity of taking fortunate captives heard the rolling of any evidence when the court were con- the wheels of the cars which were sent vinced by moral presumptions. The to convey them, the most agonising indictments were thrown off by hun- suspense prevailed in the prisons. They dreds at once, and the name of the in-flocked to the wickets of their corridors, dividual merely filled in; the judgments were printed with equal rapidity, in a room adjoining the court; and several thousand copies circulated through Paris by little urchins, exclaiming, amidst weeping and distracted crowds, "Here are the names of those who have gained prizes in the lottery of the holy guillotine!" The accused were executed soon after leaving the court, or at latest on the following afternoon. 42. Since the law of the 22d Prairial had been passed, the heads had fallen at the rate of thirty or forty a-day. "This is well," said Fouquier Tinville; "but we must get on more rapidly in the next decade; four hundred and fifty is the very least that must then be served up." To facilitate this immense increase, spies were sent into the prisons in order to extract from the unhappy wretches their secrets, and designate to the public accuser those who might first be selected. Those infamous wretches soon became the terror of the captives. They were enclosed as suspected persons; but their real mission was soon apparent from their insolence, their consequential airs, the preference shown them by the jailers, VOL. III. placed their ears on the bars to hear the list, and trembled lest their names should be called out by the officers. Those who were named embraced their companions in misfortune, and received their last adieus: often the most heartrending separations were witnessed; a father tore himself from the arms of his children, a husband from his shrieking wife. Such as survived had reason to envy the lot of those conducted to the den of Fouquier Tinville; restored to their cells, they remained in a state of suspense worse than death itself till the same hour on the following night, when the rolling of the chariot-wheels renewed the universal agony of the captives. 43. To such a degree did the torture of suspense prey upon the minds of the prisoners, that they became not only reckless of life, but anxious for death. They realised the terrible * Immense sums of money were given, by such of the captives as had succeeded in secreting any, to these wretches to procure even a temporary respite from insertion in the fatal lists, nor did they despise the smallest bribes. Sometimes their gratuities were as high as brandy.Tableau Historique de la Maison St 400 louis; sometimes as low as a bottle of Lazare, p. 53. F peculiarity which Dante describes as | getic terms; and when those next her the last aggravation of the infernal regions exclaimed that she had lost her reason, she repeated the same words in a "Che è tanto greve calmer voice, so as to leave no room A lor, che lamentar gli fa sì forte? for doubt as to her deliberate intenRispose; Dicrolti molto breve. tion. She obtained the recompense Questi non hanno speranza di morte."* she desired in dying beside her husThe inhabitants who had reason to band. Soon after a sister followed the apprehend detention became indiffer- same method to avoid surviving her ent to all the precautions requisite to brother, and a young woman, to acsecure their safety; many who had es- company the object of her affection to caped, voluntarily surrendered them- another world. Madame de Grammont, selves to their persecutors, or waited, disdaining to employ words in her own on the high-road, the first band of the defence, which she well knew would national guard to apprehend them. be unavailing, protested only the innoThe young Princess of Monaco, in the cence of Mademoiselle du Chatelet, who flower of youth and beauty, after re- sat at the bar beside her. Servants ceiving her sentence, declared herself frequently insisted upon accompanying pregnant, and obtained a respite; the their masters to prison, and perished horrors of surviving those she loved, with them on the scaffold. Many however, so preyed upon her mind, daughters went on their knees to the that the next day she retracted her de- members of the Revolutionary Comclaration. "Citizens," said she, "I go mittee, to be allowed to join their pato death with all the tranquillity which rents in captivity, and, when brought innocence inspires." Soon after, turn- to trial, pleaded guilty to the same ing to the jailer who accompanied her, charges. The efforts of the court and she gave him a packet, containing a jury were unable to make them sepalock of her beautiful hair, and said, rate their cases; the tears of their "I have only one favour to implore of parents even were unavailing in the you, that you will give this to my son: generous contention, filial affection prepromise this as my last and dying re- vailed over parental love. A father quest.' Then, turning to a young wo- and son were confined together in the man near her, recently condemned, she Maison St Lazare; the latter was involvexclaimed, "Courage, my dear friend! ed in one of the fabricated conspiracies courage! Crime alone can show weak- of the prison: when his name was called ness!" She died with sublime devo-out to stand his trial, his father came tion, evincing in her last moments, forward, and, by personating his son, like Madame Roland and Charlotte was the means of saving his life, by Corday, a serenity rarely witnessed in dying in his stead. "Do you know," the other sex. said the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal to Isabeau, "in whose presence you are standing ?"—"Yes," re 44. Madame Lavergne had hoped that, by her intercession, she would move the hearts of the judges in favour of her husband, the commandant of Longwy. When she saw that all was unavailing, and that sentence of death was pronounced, a cry of "Vive le Roi!" was heard; all the spectators trembled at the fatal words. "Vive le Roi!" exclaimed Madame in more ener * "What doth aggrieve them thus, That they lament so loud? He straight repliedThat will I tell thee briefly: these of death No hope may entertain." CARY'S DANTE, Inferno, iii. 43. "I am aware," said she, "it would be useless to speak about myself; but what has this angel done? (pointing to Madame du Chatelet)-she who never took any part in public strife, who belonged to no party, was involved in no intrigues, but was devoted only to works of conscious benevolence. There are others as innocent; none so little liable to suspicion as she."-SENAC DE MEILHAN, 147. "O miracle! O strife of wondrous kind! Where love and virtue such contention wrought, Where death the victor had for meed assign'd, Their own neglect each other's safety sought." Jerusalem Delivered, ii. 31. plied the undaunted young man; "it bound. Florian, the eloquent novelist, pleaded, in vain, in a touching petition from prison, that his life had been devoted to the service of mankind, that he had been threatened with the Bastile for some of his productions, and that the hand which had drawn the romance of William Tell, and depicted a paternal government under Numa, could not be suspected of a leaning to despotism. He was not executed, as the fall of Robespierre prevented it; but he was so horror-struck with the scenes he had witnessed in prison, that he died after the hour of deliverance had arrived. Lavoisier was cut off in the midst of his profound chemical researches ; he pleaded in vain for a respite to complete a scientific discovery. Almost all the members of the French Academy were in jail, in hourly expectation of their fate. Roucher, an amiable poet, a few hours before his death, sent his miniature to his children, accompanied by these touching lines:"Ne vous étonnez pas, objets charmans et doux, Si quelque air de tristesse obscurcit mon visage; Lorsqu'un crayon savant dessinait mon image, found the following " J'attendais l'échafaud et je songeais à vous.' André Chénier, a young man whose eloquent writings pointed him out as the future historian of the Revolution, and Chamfort, one of its earliest and ablest supporters, were executed at the same time. The former was engaged, 45. The vengeance of the tyrants fell immediately before his execution, in with peculiar severity upon all whose composing some pathetic stanzas, adtalents or descent distinguished them dressed to Mademoiselle de Coigny, for from the rest of mankind. The son of whom he had conceived a romantic atBuffon, the daughter of Vernet, perish-tachment in prison, among which is to ed without regard to the illustrious names they bore. When the former was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, on the charge of being implicated in the conspiracy in the Luxembourg, he said, "I was confined in the St Lazare, and could not have conspired in the Luxembourg." -"No matter," said Fouquier Tinville, "you have conspired somewhere; and he was executed with the prisoners from the Luxembourg. On being placed on the scaffold, he said, "I am the son of Buffon," and presented his arms to be "Peut-être avant que l'heure en cercle pro- Ait posé sur l'émail brillant, At this unfinished stanza the poet was the first feelings of nature. Roucher | the chariot: he said with a smileand André Chénier were seated together "That is a bad omen: a Roman would in the chariot, and discoursed there, have turned back." Recollecting, with like Cato, on the immortality of the the malice of demons, the heroic mansoul. Chénier, when on the scaffold, ner in which he had come forward to struck his head against one of the defend the unhappy Louis, the monsters beams of the guillotine, exclaiming, applied to him the cruel privilege in"'Tis a pity! there was something vented in those days of woe, for such there." A few weeks longer would as were esteemed the greatest criminals. have swept off the whole literary talent He was selected as the last victim for as well as dignified names of France. In execution, and had the agony of seeing a single night three hundred families of his daughter, Madame Rozambo, and the Faubourg St Germain were thrown granddaughter, Madame de Châteauinto prison. Their only crimes were briand, with her husband, guillotined the historic names which they bore, before his eyes, ere death put a period embracing all that was illustrious in to his sufferings.* When bound to the the military, parliamentary, or ecclesi- plank, his grey hairs were observed to astical history of France. There was be sprinkled with the blood of the no difficulty in finding crimes to charge children he had seen suffer before him. them with their names, their rank, With him was included in the indicttheir historic celebrity, were sufficient. ment M. d'Espréménil, so long the idol 46. In the midst of the general mas- of the populace of Paris, and who had sacre, Malesherbes, the generous and done so much in its earlier stages to intrepid defender of Louis XVI., was urge on the Revolution. He was contoo immaculate a character to escape demned and executed with Malesherbes, destruction. For some time he had and evinced the same sublime constancy lived in the country, in the closest re- in his last moments. tirement; a young man accused of being an emigrant, concealed in his house, furnished a pretext for the apprehension of the venerable old man and all his family. When he arrived at the prison, all the captives rose up and crowded round him: they brought him I thank you," said he, "for the attention you pay to my age; but I perceive one amongst you feebler than myself give it to him." He was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal along with his whole family: even the judges of that sanguinary court turned aside their heads to avoid beholding the heart-rending spectacle. They were all condemned together. His daughter, Madame de Rozambo, when preparing to mount the fatal chariot, perceived Mademoiselle Sombreuil, whose heroic devotion had saved her father on the 2d of September, but who had again followed him to prison. Throwing herself into her arms, she exclaimed, "You have had the good fortune to save your father, and I have the glory of dying with mine!" Malesherbes stumbled over a stone as he crossed the court, with his arms bound, to mount a seat. 47. The next trial of note, and perhaps the most iniquitous of the many iniquitous ones which took place before the Revolutionary Tribunal, was that of the farmers-general of the revenue. The only motive for their prosecution appears to have been the hope of obtaining something considerable from the confiscation of their estates; but the Committee of Public Salvation had much difficulty in finding any charge to prefer against them. On 5th May, Dupin read a long report to the Convention, concluding with a motion, which, like all the others at that period, was unanimously adopted, that all the farmers-general then living should be sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal. Thither they were accordingly brought on the 8th, and at once condemned to be executed. The only thing like a criminal act adduced against them was that of having realised usurious profits, * "Oh gioja! più gran pena che la morte Dar ti, poss' io? Saveneti innanzi dunque, Cadangli, Elettra pria, Pilade poscia; Quandi ei sovr' essi cada." ALFIERI, Oreste, Act iv. scene 4. How identical is the infernal spirit of cruelty in all ages! and mixed water with their tobacco prior | Versailles." Like the king and queen, to 1776 to make it weigh heavier. On she manifested the utmost composure these charges they were all straightway condemned. When going to the scaffold, it was discovered that in the hurry three subordinate officers had been sentenced instead of three farmers-general, and twenty-eight only were executed; but the three missing ones were soon after got, all between seventy and eighty years of age, and guillotined without mercy.* Shortly after, the Abbé de Fénélon, grand-nephew of the illustrious prelate of the same name, was led forth to execution. He was eightynine years old, and had spent his long life in deeds of beneficence. He went to death surrounded by a crowd of orphan Savoyard children, to whom he had acted as a father. Such was his bodily weakness, owing to his great age, that he required to be helped up the steps of the scaffold but the firmness of his mind was unshaken; and his last request was, that his arms should be unbound, that he might give his last blessing to his numerous protégés. The request was granted, and they received the benediction kneeling and in tears around the scaffold. 48. Madame Elizabeth, sister to Louis XVI., was the next victim. When she was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, the judges and the jury manifested an unusual degree of impatience for her condemnation. She was brought into court with twenty-four other persons, most of them of high birth or descent. "What has she to complain of?" said Fouquier Tinville, casting his eyes on the illustrious group: "when she sees herself at the foot of the scaffold surrounded by that faithful noblesse, she will believe herself still at The sentence was in these terms: It is clear that a plot has existed against the | French people, tending to aid in every possible way the enemies of France, notably by the exercise of every kind of exaction and oppression, by mixing tobacco with water, and ingredients ruinous to health, and extorting from six to ten per cent."-Bulletin du Tribunal Révolutionnaire, May 8, 1794. It appears from Dupin's evidence, when afterwards Fouquier Tinville was charged with this iniquity, that their death had previously been arranged by the Committee of Public Salvation. Procès de FOUQUIER TINVILLE; Bull. du Trib. Rév.; Reponse de Dupin, p. 2. and serenity when under examination; + « Η δε καὶ θνησκουσ' ὁμῶς A similar instance of heroic virtue in death occurred in a female martyr in the early Christian church. Perpetua and Felicitas, both Christians, were sentenced, in the year 203, to be killed by wild cattle at Carthage. They were both attacked, accordingly, by furious bulls, who tossed them on their |