become their gloomy creed. They looked forward to the slide of the
guillotine as ending all thought, and consigning them back to that
non-existence from which they had emerged at their creation. "No!"
replied Fauchet, Carru, and others, "annihilation is not our destiny.
We are immortal. These bodies may perish. These living thoughts, these
boundless aspirations, can never die. To-morrow, far away in other
worlds, we shall think, and feel, and act and solve the problems of
the immaterial destiny of the human mind." Immortality was the theme.
The song was hushed upon these dying lips. The forced laughter fainted
away. Standing upon the brink of that dread abyss from whence no one
has returned with tidings, every soul felt a longing for immortality.
They turned to Vergniaud, whose brilliant intellect, whose
soul-moving eloquence, whose spotless life commanded their reverence,
and appealed to him for light, and truth, and consolation. His words
are lost. The effect of his discourse alone is described. "Never,"
said the abbe "had his look, his gesture, his language, and his voice
more profoundly affected his hearers." In the conclusion of a
discourse which is described as one of almost superhuman eloquence,
during which some were aroused to the most exalted enthusiasm, all
were deeply moved, and many wept, Vergniaud exclaimed,

"Death is but the greatest act of life, since it gives birth to a
higher state of existence. Were it not thus there would be something
greater than God. It would be the just man immolating himself
uselessly and hopelessly for his country. This supposition is a folly
of blasphemy, and I repel it with contempt and horror. No! Vergniaud
is not greater than God, but God is more just than Vergniaud; and He
will not to-morrow suffer him to ascend a scaffold but to justify and
avenge him in future ages."

And now the light of day began to stream in at the windows. "Let us go
to bed," said one, "and sleep until we are called to go forth to our
last sleep. Life is a thing so trifling that it is not worth the hour
of sleep we lose in regretting it."

"Let us rather watch," said another, "during the few moments which
remain to us. Eternity is so certain and so terrible that a thousand
lives would not suffice to prepare for it."

They rose from the table, and most of them retired to their cells and
threw themselves upon their beds for a few moments of bodily repose
and meditation. Thirteen, however, remained