dreaming not of Love-paradises, and the light of Life; but of Codrus'-sacrifices, and Death well-earned? That twenty-five million hearts have got to such temper, this is the Anarchy; the soul of it lies in this: whereof not peace can be the embodi ment! The death of Marat, whetting old animosities tenfold, will be worse than any life. O, ye hapless Two, mutually extinctive, the Beautiful and the Squalid, sleep ye well-in the Mother's bosom that bore you both!

This is the History of Charlotte Corday; most definite, most complete; angelic-demonic: like a Star! Adam Lux goes home, half-delirious; to pour forth his Apotheosis of her, in paper and print; to propose that she have a statue with this inscription, Greater than Brutus. Friends represent his danger; Lux is reckless; thinks it were beautiful to die with her.

French Revolution, vol. iii., pp. 200-206.

LEVY IN MASS.

On the twenty-third of August, Committee of Public Salvation, as usual through Barrère, had promulgated, in words not unworthy of remembering, their Report, which is soon made. into a Law, of Levy in Mass. All France, and whatsoever it contains of men or resources, is put under requisition,' says Barrère; really in Tyrtæan words, the best we know of his. "The Republic is one vast besieged city.' Two hundred and fifty Forges shall, in these days, be set up in the Luxembourg Garden, and round the outer wall of the Tuileries; to make gun-barrels; in sight of Earth and Heaven! From all hamlets, towards their Departmental Town; from all Departmental Towns, towards the appointed Camp and seat of war, the Sons of Freedom shall march; their banner is to bear: Le Peuple Français debout contre les Tyrans, The French People risen against Tyrants.' 'The young men shall go to the 'battle; it is their task to conquer: the married men shall

forge arms, transport baggage and artillery; provide subsistence: the women shall work at soldiers' clothes, make tents; serve in the hospitals: the children shall scrape old linen into 'surgeons'-lint: the aged men shall have themselves carried into 'public places; and, there, by their words, excite the courage of 'the young; preach hatred to Kings and unity to the Republic.' Tyrtaan words, which tingle through all French hearts.

In this humour, then, since no other serves, will France rush against its enemies. Headlong, reckoning no cost or consequence; heading no law or rule but that supreme law, Salvation of the People! The weapons are, all the iron that is in France; the strength is, that of all the men, women, and children that are in France. There, in their two hundred and fifty shed-smithies, in Garden of Luxembourg or Tuileries, let them forge gun-barrels, in sight of Heaven and Earth.

French Revolution, vol. iii., p. 227.

MADAME ROLAND.

A victim follows who will claim remembrance from several centuries: Jeanne-Marie Phlipon, the Wife of Roland. Queenly, sublime in her uncomplaining sorrow, seemed she to Riouffe in her Prison. Something more than is usually found ' in the looks of women painted itself,' says Riouffe, 'in those 'large black eyes of hers, full of expression and sweetness. 'She spoke to me often, at the Grate: we were all attentive 'round her, in a sort of admiration and astonishment; she 'expressed herself with a purity, with a harmony and prosody 'that made her language like music, of which the ear could 'never have enough. Her conversation was serious, not cold; coming from the mouth of a beautiful woman, it was frank and courageous as that of a great man.' 'And yet her maid said: "Before you, she collects her strength; but in her own room, 'she will sit three hours sometimes leaning on the window, and weeping." " She has been in Prison, liberated once, but recaptured the same hour: ever since the first of June, in agitation

and uncertainty; which has gradually settled down into the last stern certainty, that of death. In the Abbaye Prison she occupied Charlotte Corday's apartment. Here in the Conciergerie, she speaks with Riouffe, with Ex-Minister Clavière; calls the beheaded Twenty-two " Nos amis, our Friends,"-whom we are soon to follow. During these five months, those Memoirs of hers were written, which all the world still reads.

But now, on the 8th of November, 'clad in white,' says Riouffe, with her long black hair hanging down to her girdle; she is gone to the Judgment-bar. She returned with a quick step; lifted her finger, to signify to us that she was doomed: her eyes seemed to have been wet. Fouquier-Tinville's questions had been 'brutal;' offended female honour flung them back on him, with scorn, not without tears. And now, short preparation soon done, she too shall go her last road. There went with her a certain Lamarche, 'Director of Assignatprinting;' whose dejection she endeavoured to cheer. Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, she asked for pen and paper, "to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her: "a remarkable request; which was refused. Looking at the Statue of Liberty which stands there, she says bitterly: "O Liberty, what things are done in thy name!" For Lamarche's sake, she will die first; show him how easy it is to die : "Contrary to the order," said Samson.-" Pshaw, you cannot refuse the last request of a Lady;" and Samson yielded.

Noble white Vision, with its high queenly face, its soft proud eyes, long black hair flowing down to the girdle; and as brave a heart as ever beat in woman's bosom! Like a white Grecian Statue, serenely complete, she shines in that black wreck of things;-long memorable. Honour to great Nature, who, in Paris City, in the Era of Noble-Sentiment and Pompadourism, can make a Jeanne Phlipon, and nourish her to clear perennial Womanhood, though but on Logics, Encyclopédies, and the Gospel according to Jean-Jacques! Biography will long remember that trait of asking for a pen "to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her." It is as a little lightbeam, shedding softness, and a kind of sacredness, over

IN CARMAGNOLE COMPLETE.

155

all that preceded: so in her too there was an Unnameable; she too was a Daughter of the Infinite; there were mysteries which Philosophism had not dreamt of!-She left long written counsels to her little Girl; she said her Husband would not survive her.

French Revolution, vol. iii., p. 251.

IN CARMAGNOLE COMPLETE.

The suspect may well tremble; but how much more the open rebels; the Girondin Cities of the South! Revolutionary Army is gone forth, under Ronsin the Playwright; six thousand strong; in red nightcap, in tricolor waistcoat, in black-shag 'trousers, black-shag spencer, with enormous mustachios, enor'mous sabre, in carmagnole complète;' and has portable guillotines. Representative Carrier has got to Nantes, by the edge of blazing La Vendée, which Rossignol has literally set on fire: Carrier will try what captives you make; what accomplices they have, Royalist or Girondin: his guillotine goes always, va toujours; and his wool-capped Company of Marat.' Little children are guillotined, and aged men. Swift as the machine is, it will not serve; the Headsman and all his valets sink, worn down with work; declare that the human muscles can no more. Whereupon you must try fusillading; to which perhaps still frightfuller methods may succeed.

In Brest, to like purpose, rules Jean-Bon Saint André, with an Army of Red Nightcaps. In Bourdeaux rules Tallien, with his Isabeau and henchmen; Guadets, Cussys, Salleses, many fall; the bloody Pike and Nightcap bearing supreme sway; the Guillotine coining money. Bristly fox-haired Tallien, once Able Editor, still young in years, is now become most gloomy, potent; a Pluto on earth, and has the Keys of Tartarus. One remarks however, that a certain Senhorina Cabarus, or call her rather Senhora and wedded not yet widowed Dame de Fontenai, brown beautiful woman, daughter of Cabarus the Spanish. Merchant, has softened the red bristly countenance; plead

ing for herself and friends; and prevailing. The Keys of Tartarus, or any kind of power, are something to a woman; gloomy Pluto himself is not insensible to love. Like a new Proserpine, she, by this red gloomy Dis, is gathered; and, they say, softens his stone heart a little.

Maignet, at Orange in the south; Lebon, at Arras in the north, become world's wonders. Jacobin Popular Tribunal, with its National Representative, perhaps where Girondin Popular Tribunal had lately been, rises here and rises there; wheresoever needed. Fouchés, Maignets, Barrases, Frèrons scour the Southern Departments; like reapers, with their guillotinesickle. Many are the labourers, great is the harvest. By the hundred and the thousand, men's lives are cropt; cast like brands into the burning.

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But of the marchings and retreatings of these six thousand no Xenophon exists. Nothing, but an inarticulate hum, of cursing, and sooty frenzy, surviving dubious in the memory of ages! They scour the country round Paris; seeking Prisoners; raising Requisitions; seeing that edicts are executed, that the Farmers have thrashed sufficiently; lowering Church-bells or metallic Virgins. Detachments shoot forth dim, towards remote parts of France; nay, new Provincial Revolutionary Armies rise dim, here and there, as Carrier's Company of Marat, as Tallien's Bourdeaux Troop; like sympathetic clouds in an atmosphere all electric. Ronsin, they say, admitted, in candid moments, that his troops were the elixir of the Rascality of the Earth. One sees them drawn up in market-places; travelsplashed, rough-bearded, in carmagnole complète: the first exploit is to prostrate what Royal or Ecclesiastical monument, crucifix or the like, there may be to plant a cannon at the steeple; fetch down the bell without climbing for it, bell and belfry together. This, however, it is said, depends somewhat on the size of the town: if the town contains much population, and these perhaps of a dubious choleric aspect, the Revolutionary Army will do its work gently, by ladder and wrench; nay perhaps will take its billet without work at all; and,