this the king came out of his cabinet. "You have come to fetch me," he said to Santerre. "Yes." "I only ask for one minute," and he returned into his cabinet. His majesty came back immediately, followed by his confessor. The king had his will in his hand, and addressing him to a municipal named Jacques Roux, an ex-priest who happened to stand foremost, "I beg you to give this paper to the queen, my wife." "That is no business of mine," replied this priest, refusing to take the document. "I am here to conduct you to the scaffold." His majesty then turned to Gobeau, another municipal. "Give this paper, I pray you, to my wife; you may read it; it contains some dispositions which I wish to be known to the commune." I was behind the king, near the chimney-piece; he turned to me, and I held out his greatcoat to him. "I don't want it," he said to me; "give me only my hat.” I handed it to him. His hand met mine, which he pressed for the last time. "Gentlemen," he said, addressing himself to the municipals, "I should wish Clery to remain with my son, who is accustomed to his care. I hope that the commune will agree to this request." Then looking at Santerre, "Let us start!" These were the last words which he pronounced in his apartments. At the entry of the staircase he met Mathey, porter of the tower, and said to him, "I was a little too sharp with you the day before yesterday; don't bear any grudge against me." Mathey did not make any reply, and even affected to draw back when the king spoke to him. I remained alone in the chamber, overcome with grief and almost insensible. The drums and trumpets announced that his majesty had left the tower. . . . An hour afterwards, salvoes of artillery, cries of Vive la nation! Vive la republique! were heard... The best of kings was no more. THE FALL OF THE GIRONDISTS. (Alison's History of Europe.) A.D. 1793. Their ON this, the last day that they were to meet in the world, the Girondists dined together to deliberate on the means of defence which yet remained in the desperate state of their fortunes. opinions, as usual, were much divided. Some thought that they should remain firm at their posts, and die on their curule chairs, defending to the last extremity the sacred character with which they were invested. Petion, Buzot, and Gensonné, supported that mournful and magnanimous resolution. Barbaroux, consulting only his impetuous courage, was desirous to brave his enemies by his presence in the Convention. Others, among whom were Louvet, strenuously maintained that they should instantly abandon the Convention, where their deliberations were no longer free and the majority were intimidated by the daggers of the Jacobins, and retire each into his own department, to return to Paris with such a force as should avenge the cause of the national representation. The de | liberation was still going forward, when the clang of the tocsin and the rolling of the drums warned them that the insurrection had commenced; and they broke up without having come to any determination. At eight o'clock, Henriot put himself at the head of the immense columns of armed men assembled round the Hôtel de Ville, presented himself before the council of the municipality, and declared, in the name of the insurgent people, that they would not lay down their arms till they had obtained the arrest of the obnoxious deputies. The forces assembled on this occasion were most formidable. One hundred and sixty pieces of cannon, with tumbrils and waggons of balls complete, furnaces to heat them redhot, lighted matches and drawn swords in the hands of the gunners, resembled rather the preparations for the siege of a powerful fortress, than demonstrations against a pacific legislature. In addition to this, several battalions, who had marched that morning for La Vendée, received counter orders, and re-entered Paris in a state of extreme irrita a revolt, with a commander of the armed force to direct it; and you tolerate the insurrection, the com words, the cries of the Mountain drowned his voice, and the Jacobins rushed forward to drag him from the tribune; but he held fast, and the president at length succeeded in restoring silence. "I demand," he concluded, "that all the revolutionary authorities of Paris be instantly dissolved; and that everything done during the last three days be annulled; and that all who arrogate to themselves an illegal authority be declared out of the pale of the law." tion. They were instantly sup-mittee, the commander." At these plied with assignats, worth five francs each, and ranged themselves round Henriot, ready to execute his commands, even against the Convention. After haranguing them in the Place de Grève, he proceeded to the other insurgents, put himself at their head, and marched to the Carrousel. By ten o'clock, the whole avenues to the Tuileries were blockaded by dense columns and artillery; and eighty thousand armed men surrounded the defenceless representatives of the people. Few only of the proscribed deputies were present at this meeting. The intrepid Lanjuinais was among the number; from the tribune, he drew a picture, in true and frightful colours, of the state of the Assembly deliberating for three days under the poniards of assassins, threatened without by a furious multitude, domineered within by a faction who wielded at will its violence, descending from degradation to degradation, rewarded for its condescension with arrogance, for its submission by outrage. "As long as I am permitted to raise my voice in this place," said he, "I shall never suffer the national representation to be degraded in my person. Hitherto you have done nothing; you have only suffered; you have sanctioned everything required of An insurrection assembles, and names a committee to organise you. He had hardly concluded, when the insurgent petitioners entered, and demanded his own arrest and that of the other Girondists. Their language was brief and decisive. “The citizens of Paris," said they, "have been four days under arms; for four days they have demanded from their mandatories redress of their rights so scandalously violated; and for four days their mandatories have done nothing to satisfy them. The conspirators must instantly be placed under arrest: you must instantly save the people, or they will take their safety into their own hands." "Save the people," exclaimed the Jacobins ; "save your colleagues, by agreeing to their provisional arrest." Barère and the neutral party urged the proscribed deputies to have the generosity to give in their resignations in order to tranquillise the public mind. Isnard, Lanthenas, and others com forth, and awe the rebels by the plied with the request; Lanjuinais positively refused. "Hitherto," said he, "I have shown some courage; I will not fail at the last extremity you need not expect from me either suspension or resignation." Being violently interrupted by the Left, he added, "When the ancients prepared a sacrifice, they crowned the victim with flowers and garlands when they conducted him to the altar; demand?" said the President, the priest sacrificed him, but add- | Hérault de Séchelles; "the Coned not insult or injury. But you, vention is occupied with nothing more cruel than they, commit out- but their welfare." "Hérault," rages on the victim, who is making replied Henriot, "the people are no efforts to avert his fate." "I not to be deceived with fine have sworn to die at my post," words; they demand that foursaid Barbaroux; "I will keep my and-twenty culpable deputies be oath. Bend, if you please, before given up." "Demand rather that the municipality, you who refused we should be given up," exclaimed to arrest their wickedness; those who surrounded the Presirather imitate us, whom their fury dent. "Cannoniers ! to your immediately demands: wait, and brave their fury. You may compel me to sink under their daggers: you shall not make me fall at their feet." or While the Assembly was in the utmost agitation, and swayed alternately by terror and admiration, Lacroix, an intimate friend of Danton's, entered with a haggard air, and announced that he had been stopped at the gate, and that the Convention was imprisoned in its walls. The secret of the revolt became now evident; it was not conducted by Danton and the Mountain, but by Robespierre, Marat, and the municipality. "We must instantly avenge," said Danton, "this outrage on the national representation: let us go Two pieces!" replied Henriot. When the members were seated, Couthon rose. "You have now had convincing evidence," said he, "that the Convention is perfectly free; the indignation of the people is only pointed against certain unworthy members: we are surrounded by their homage and affection: let us obey alike our wa eccscience and their wishes. I propose that Lanjuinais, Vergmand, Sillery, Gensonné, Le Hardi, Guadet, Petion, Erissot, Boileau, Fimean. Valaré, Gornaise, Berthod Gardes, Keverlegan, MelDemand, Berben. Barbaroux, Ledon, But, Lascurte, Rabant, Salles, Chamben, Gersas, Grangeneve, Le Sace. Vizie, Loaves, and Henri Laviere, be immediately put under arrest. With the dagger at their throats, the Convention passed the decree. A large body had the curage to protest against the violence, and refuse to vote. This submial measure was carried ly the sole votes of the Mountain and a few alberents: the great roj rity refused to have any share in . The multitude gave tumult uns cheers and dispersed; their victory was complete; the maniepality of Paris had overthrown the Nanomal Assembly. The political career of the Garvadists was terminated by this day; thenceforward they were known only as individuals, by their heroic conduct in adversity, and death. Their strife with the Jacobins was a long struggle be tween two classes, who invariably succeed each other in the lead of revolutionary convulsions. The rash and reckless but able and generous party, which trusted to the force of reason in popular assemblies, perished because they strove to arrest the torrent they had let loose, to avenge the massacres of September, avoid the execution of the king, resist the institution of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the Committee of Public Safety. With the excitement of more vehement passions, with the approach of more pressing dangers, with the advent of times when moderation seemed almost a crime, they expired. Thereafter, when every legal form was violated, every appeal against violence stifled by the imprisonment of the Girondiste, democratic despotism marched in its career without an obstacle; and the terrible dictatorship, composed of the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribanal, was erected in resistless sovereignty. The proscribed members were first put under arrest in their own houses. Several found the means of escape before the order for their imprisonment was issued. Barbaroux, Pétion, Lanjuinais, Henri Larivière, arrived at Caen, in Normandy, where a feeble attempt at resistance to the usurped authority of the Parisian mob was made, which speedily yielded to the efforts of the Jacobin emissaries. Louvet escaped to Bordeaux, and subsequently wandered for months among the forests and caverns of the Jura, where he employed his hours of solitude in composing the able memoirs of his life. Vergniand, Guadet, Brissot, and the other leaders, were soon afterwards consigned to prison, from whence, after a painful interval, they were conducted to the scaffold. Their trial and condemnation took place in October, before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The Convention passed a decree autho |