harangues; each orator exceeding his predecessor in blasphemy, till all was execration, cries of vengeance against kings and priests, and roars of massacre. I there heard the names of men long suspected, but of whom they now spoke openly as the true leaders of the national movement; and of others marked for assassination. They drank toasts to Death, to Queen Poissarde, and to Goddess Guillotine. It was a pandemonium.

"A drum at length beat the 'Alarme' in the streets; the orgie was at an end, and amid a crash of bottles and glasses, they staggered, as well as their feet could carry them, out of the house. They were received by the mob with shouts of laughter. But the column moved forward; to the amount of thousands, as I could judge by their trampling, and the clashing of their arms. When the sound had died away in the distance, my humble friend entered my room, thanking his stars that he had contrived to escape this march.'

"Where are they gone?' I asked. "To Versailles,' was his shuddering answer.

Their

'courier of the Aristocrats.'
sagacity, once at work, found out a
hundred names for me:-I was a
'spy of Pitt,' an agent of the Aus-
trians,' a disguised priest,' and an
'emigrant noble;' my protestations
were in vain, and they held a court-
martial, on me and my horse, on the
road; and ordered me to deliver up
my despatches, on pain of being piked
on the spot. But I could give up none;
for the best of all possible reasons.
Every fold of my drapery was search-
ed, and then I was to be piked for not
having despatches; it being clear that
I was more than a courier, and that
my message was too important to be
trusted to pen and ink. I was now in
real peril; for the party had continued
to sing and drink until they had nearly
made themselves frantic; and as Ver-
sailles was still a dozen miles off, and
they were unlikely to annihilate the
garrison before nightfall, they pre-
pared to render their share of service
to their country by annihilating me. In
this real dilemma, my good genius in-
terposed, in the shape of an enormous
poissarde; who, rushing through the
crowd, which she smote with much
the same effect as an elephant would
with his trunk, threw her huge arms
round me, called me her cher Jacques,
poured out a volley of professional
eloquence on the shrinking heroes,
and proclaimed me her son returning
from the army! All now was senti-
ment. The poissarde was probably in
earnest, for her faculties were in
nearly the same condition with those
of her fellow patriots. I was honour-

"Nothing could now detain me. After one or two helpless efforts to rise from my bed, and an hour or two of almost despair, I succeeded in getting on my feet, and procuring a horse. Versailles was now my only object. I knew all the importance of arriving at the palace at the earliest moment; I knew the unprotected state of the king, and knew that it was my place to be near his person in all chances. I was on the point of sal-ed with a general embrace, and shared lying forth in my uniform, when the precaution of my friend forced me back; telling me, truly enough, that, in the ferment of the public mind, it would be impossible for me to reach Versailles as a garde du corps, and that my being killed or taken, would effectually prevent me from bearing any information of the state of the capital. This decided me; and, disguised as a courier, I set out by a cross-road in hope to arrive before the multitude.

"But I had not gone above a league when I fell in with a scattered platoon of the mob, who were rambling along as if on a party of pleasure; tossing their pikes and clashing their sabres to all kinds of revolutionary songs. I was instantly seized, as a

the privilege of the travelling bottle. As the night was now rapidly falling, an orator proposed that the overthrow of the monarchy should be deferred till the next day. A Fédéré uniform was provided for me; I was hailed as a brother; we pitched a tent, lighted fires, cooked a supper, and bivouacked for the night. This was, I acknowledge, the first night of my seeing actual service since the commencement of my soldiership.

"In ten minutes the whole party were asleep. I arose, stole away, left my newly found mother to lament her lost son again, and with a heavy heart took the road to Versailles. The night had changed to sudden tempest, and the sky grown dark as death. It was a night for the fall of a dynasty. But

1843.]

there was a lurid blaze in the distant horizon, and from time to time a shout, or a sound of musketry, which told me only too well where Versailles lay. I need not say what my feelings were while I was traversing that solitary road, yet within hearing of this tremendous mass of revolt; or what I imagined in every roar, as it came mingled with the bellowing of the thunder. The attack might be commencing at the moment; the blaze that I saw might be the conflagration of the palace; the roar might be the battle over the bodies of the royal family. I never passed three hours in such real anxiety of mind, and they were deepened by the total loneliness of the whole road. I did not meet a single human being; for the inhabitants of the few cottages had fled, or put out all their lights, and shut themselves up The multitude had in their houses. rushed on, leaving nothing but silence and terror behind.

"The church clocks were striking three in the morning when I arrived at Versailles, after the most exhausting journey that I had ever made. But there, what a scene met my eye! It was beyond all that I had ever imagined of ferocity and rabble triumph. Though it was still night, the multitude thronged the streets; the windows were all lighted up, huge fires were blazing in all directions, torches were carried about at the head of every troop of the banditti; it was the bivouac of a hundred thousand bedlamites. It was now that I owned the lucky chance which had made me a Fédéré. In any other dress I should have been a suspicious person, and have probably been put to death; but in the brown coat, sabre, and red cap of the Sectionaire, I was fraternized with in all quarters. My first object was to approach the palace, if possible. But there I found a cordon of the national guard drawn up, who had no faith even in my mob costume; and was repelled. I could only see at a distance, drawn up in front of the palace, a strong line of troops-the regiment of Flanders and the Swiss battalion. All in the palace was dark

ness.

It struck me as the most funereal sight that I had ever beheld.

"In my disappointment I wandered through the town. The night was rainy, and gusts of wind tore every thing before them, yet the armed po

pulace remained carousing in the
streets-all was shouting, oaths, and
execrations against the royal family.
Some groups were feasting on the
plunder of the houses of entertain-
ment, others were dancing and roar-
ing the Carmagnole.' One party had
broken into the theatre, and dressed
themselves in the spoils of the ward-
robe; others were drilling, and exhi-
biting their skill by firing at the
king's arms hung over the shops of
Those shops were
the restaurateurs.
crowded with hundreds eating and
All the cafés
drinking at free cost.
and gaming-houses were lighted from
top to bottom. The streets were a
solid throng, and almost as bright as
at noonday, and the jangling of all the
Savoyard organs, horns, and voices,
the riot and roar of the multitude, and
the frequent and desperate quarrels of
the different sections, who challenged
each other to fight during this linger.
ing period, were absolutely distract-
ing. Versailles looked alternately like
one vast masquerade, like an encamp-
ment of savages, and like a city taken
by storm. Wild work, too, had been
done during the day.

"As, wearied to death, I threw my-
self down to rest on the steps of one
of the churches, a procession of pa-
triots happened to fix its quarters on
the spot. Its leader, an old grotesque-
looking fellow, dressed in a priest's
vestments-doubtless a part of the
plunder of the night-and seated on
a barrel on wheels, like a Silenus,
from which, at their several halts, he
harangued his followers, and drank to
the downfal of the Bourbons,' soon
let me into the history of the last
Brave Frenchmen,'
twelve hours.
exclaimed the ruffian, the eyes of
the world are fixed upon you; and
this night you have done what the
world has never rivalled. You have
shaken the throne of the tyrant. What
cared you for the satellites of the
Bourbon? You scorned their bayo-
nets; you laughed at their bullets.
Nothing can resist the energy of
This flourish was, of
The
Frenchmen.'
course, received with a roar.
orator now produced a scarf which
he had wrapped round his waist,
and waved it in the light before
them.

'Look here, citizen soldiers,' he cried ; brave Fédérés, see this It is the blood of the monsters gore. who would extinguish the liberty of

1843.] Marston; or, the Memoirs of a Statesman.

ther Fédéré, did I not tell you how it would be? The play is only beginning; all that we have seen is the farce. He laughed, and disappeared among the crowd.

"There was one misery to come, and it was the worst; the procession to It Paris lasted almost twelve hours. was like the march of American savages, with their scalps and prisoners, to their wigwams. The crowd had been largely increased by the national guards of the neighbouring villages, and by thousands flocking from Paris on the intelligence of the rabble victory. Our escort was useless; we ourselves were prisoners. Surrounding the carriage of the king, thousands of the most profligate refuse of Paris, men and women, railed and revelled, sang and shouted the most furious insults to their majesties. And in front of this mass were carried on pikes, as standards, the heads of two of our corps, who had fallen fighting at the door of the queen's chamber. Loaves, borne on pikes, and dipped in blood, formed others of their standards. Huge placards, with the words, Down with the tyrant! Down with the priests! Down with the nobles!' waved above the heads of the multitude. Make way for the baker, his wife, and the little apprentice,' was shouted, with every addition of obloquy and insolence; and in this agony we were forced to drag on our weary steps till midnight. One abomination more was to signalize the Within inhuman spirit of the time. about a league of Paris, the royal equipages were ordered to halt; and ? It for what inconceivable purpose was, that the bleeding heads of our unfortunate comrades might be dressed and powdered by the village barber-to render them fit to enter Paris. heads were then brought to the carriage windows, for the approval of the royal prisoners; and the huge procession moved onward with all its old bellowings again.

The

"We entered the city by torchlight, amid the firing of cannon; the streets were all illuminated, and the mob and the multitude maddened with brandy. Yet the scene was unlike that of the night before. There was something in the extravagances of Versailles wholly different from the sullen and frowning aspect of Paris. The one had the look of a melodrame ;

Part II.

the other the look of an execution. All
We marched with the
was funereal.
king to the Place du Carrousel, and when
the gates of the palace closed on him,
I felt as if they were the gates of
the tomb. Perhaps it would be best
that they were; that a king of France
should never suffer such another day;
that he should never look on the face
of man again. He had drained the
cup of agony; he had tasted all the
bitterness of death; human nature
could not sustain such another day;
and, loyal as I was, I wished that the
descendant of so many kings should
rather die by the hand of nature than
by the hand of traitors and villains;
or should rather mingle his ashes
with the last flame of the Tuileries,
than glut the thirst of rebellion with
his blood on the scaffold."

The story left us all melancholy for a while; bright eyes again overflowed, as well they might; and stately bosoms heaved with evident emotion. Yet, after all, the night was wound up with a capital cotillon, danced with as much grace, and as much gaiety too, as if it had been in the Salle d'Opera.

I rose early next morning, and felt the spirit-stirring power of the sea breeze. In those days, Brighton covered but the borders of the shore. It was scarcely more than a little line of fishermen's cottages, fenced against the surge by the remaining timbers of boats which had long seen their last adventure. Scattered at distances of at least a quarter of a mile from each other, lay some houses of a better description, a few deeply embosomed in trees, or rather in such thickets as could grow in the perpetual exposure to the rough winds and saline exhalations of the Channel. Of those, the one in which I had taken up my present residence was amongst the best; though its exterior was so unpresuming, that I was inclined to give Mordecai, or rather his gay heiress, credit for humility, or perhaps for the refinement of striking their visiters with the contrast between its simplicity of exterior and richness of decoration within.

It was a brisk, bright morning, and the waves were curling before a lively breeze, the sun was glowing above, and clusters of vessels, floating down the Channel, spread their sails like