e of the law, let them penetrate all hearts, and {30} teach
all who dwell there, that our Constitution accords inviolability to the
King alone. Let them know that the law will overtake all the guilty
without exception, and that there will not be a single head convicted
of crime which can escape its sword." The decree of impeachment
against the ministers was voted by a very large majority. De Lessart
was advised to take flight, but he refused. "I owe it to my country,"
said he, "I owe it to my King and to myself to make my innocence and
the regularity of my conduct plain before the tribunal of the high
court, and I have decided to give myself up at Orleans." He was
conducted by gendarmes to that city, where he was imprisoned. Louis
XVI. dared not do anything to save his favorite minister. On March 11,
Petion, the mayor of Paris, came to the bar of the Assembly, and read,
in the name of the Commune, an address in which it was said: "When the
atmosphere surrounding us is heavy with noisome vapors, Nature can
relieve herself only by a thunder-storm. So, too, society can purge
itself from the abuses which disturb it only by a formidable
explosion.... It is true, then, that responsibility is not an idle
word; that all men, whatever may be their stations, are equal before
the law; that the sword of justice is poised over all heads without
distinction." Was not this language like a prognostic of the 21st of
January and the 16th of October? Encompassed by a thousand snares,
hated by each of the extreme parties, by the {31} _emigres_ as well as
by the Jacobins, Marie Antoinette no longer beheld anything but aspects
of sorrow. Abroad, as in France, her gaze fell on dismal spectacles
only. Her imagination was affected. She hardly dared taste the dishes
served at her table. All had conspired to betray her. She had
experienced so many deceptions and so much anguish; fate had pursued
her with so much bitterness, that her heart, exhausted with emotions,
and overwhelmed with sadness, was weary of all things, even of hope.

{32}

IV.

THE DEATH OF GUSTAVUS III.

The drama of the Revolution is not French alone; it is European. It
has its afterclap in every empire, in every kingdom, even to the most
distant lands. It excites minds in Stockholm almost as much as in
Paris. Among the Swedes there are people whose greatest desire would
be to parody the October Days, and to carry about on pikes the bleeding
heads o