the consequences of such an event, but
the hopes and anxieties of all parties seem directed thither, as if the
fate of the war depended on it. As for my own wishes on the subject,
they are not national, and if I secretly invoke the God of Armies for the
success of my countrymen, it is because I think all that tends to destroy
the present French government may be beneficial to mankind. Indeed, the
successes of war can at no time gratify a thinking mind farther than as
they tend to the establishment of peace.

After several days of a mockery which was called a trial, though the
witnesses were afraid to appear, or the Counsel to plead in his favour,
Custine has suffered at the Guillotine. I can be no judge of his
military conduct, and Heaven alone can judge of his intentions. None of
the charges were, however, substantiated, and many of them were absurd or
frivolous. Most likely, he has been sacrificed to a cabal, and his
destruction makes a part of that system of policy, which, by agitating
the minds of the people with suspicions of universal treason and
unfathomable plots, leaves them no resource but implicit submission to
their popular leaders.

The death of Custine seems rather to have stimulated than appeased the
barbarity of the Parisian mob. At every defeat of their armies they call
for executions, and several of those on whom the lot has fallen to march
against the enemy have stipulated, at the tribune of the Jacobins, for
the heads they exact as a condition of their departure,* or as the reward
for their labours. The laurel has no attraction for heroes like these,
who invest themselves with the baneful yew and inauspicious cypress, and
go to the field of honour with the dagger of the assassin yet
ensanguined.

* Many insisted they would not depart until after the death of the
Queen--some claimed the death of one General, some that of another,
and all, the lives or banishment of the gentry and clergy.

"Fair steeds, gay shields, bright arms," [Spencer.] the fancy-created
deity, the wreath of fame, and all that poets have imagined to decorate
the horrors of war, are not necessary to tempt the gross barbarity of the
Parisian: he seeks not glory, but carnage--his incentive is the groans of
defenceless victims--he inlists under the standard of the Guillotine, and
acknowledges the executioner for his tutelary Mars.

In remarking the difficulties that have occurred in carrying into
execution th