en, as they deemed, long their oppressors, and
where vengeance ceased, cupidity began. They longed to seize upon the
confiscated estates, and revel as masters in the halls where so oft they
had waited as lackeys. But the evil ended not here. Wherever private
hate or secret malice lurked, an opportunity for revenge now offered;
and for one head that fell under the supposed guilt of treason to
France, a hundred dropped beneath the axe from causes of personal
animosity and long-nurtured vengeance: and thus many an idle word
uttered in haste or carelessness, some passing slight, some chance
neglect, met now its retribution, and that retribution was ever death.

"It chanced that in the South, in one of those remote districts where
intelligence is always slow in arriving, and where political movements
rarely disturb the quiet current of daily life, there lived one of those
old seigneurs who at that period were deemed sovereign princes in the
little locale they inhabited. The soil had been their own for centuries;
long custom had made them respected and looked up to; while the acts of
kindness and benevolence in which, from father to son, their education
consisted, formed even a stronger tie to the affections of the
peasantry. The Church, too, contributed not a little to the maintenance
of this feudalism; and the chateau' entered into the subject of the
village prayers as naturally as though a very principle of their faith.
There was something beautifully touching in the intercourse between the
lord of the soil and its tillers: in the kindly interest of the one,
repaid in reverence and devotion by the others; his foresight for their
benefit, their attachment and fidelity,--the paternal care, the filial
love,--made a picture of rural happiness such as no land ever equalled,
such as perhaps none will ever see again. The seigneur of whom I speak
was a true type of this class. He had been in his boyhood a page at
the gorgeous court of Louis the Fifteenth, mixed in the voluptuous
fascinations of the period; but, early disgusted by the sensuality of
the day, retired to his distant chateau, bringing with him a wife,--one
of the most beautiful and accomplished persons of the Court, but one
who, like himself, preferred the peace and tranquillity of a country
life to the whirlwind pleasures of a vicious capital. For year's they
lived childless; but at last, after a long lapse of time, two children
were born to this union, a boy and girl,