Beautiful, the Joyous, the Immortal. To others,
a land, a city, a hearth, has been a home; MY home has been wherever the
intellect could pierce, or the spirit could breathe the air."

He paused, and through the immeasurable space his eyes and his
heart, penetrating the dismal dungeon, rested on his child. He saw it
slumbering in the arms of the pale mother, and HIS soul spoke to the
sleeping soul. "Forgive me, if my desire was sin; I dreamed to have
reared and nurtured thee to the divinest destinies my visions could
foresee. Betimes, as the mortal part was strengthened against disease,
to have purified the spiritual from every sin; to have led thee, heaven
upon heaven, through the holy ecstasies which make up the existence
of the orders that dwell on high; to have formed, from thy sublime
affections, the pure and ever-living communication between thy mother
and myself. The dream was but a dream--it is no more! In sight myself of
the grave, I feel, at last, that through the portals of the grave lies
the true initiation into the holy and the wise. Beyond those portals I
await ye both, beloved pilgrims!"

From his numbers and his Cabala, in his cell, amidst the wrecks of Rome,
Mejnour, startled, looked up, and through the spirit, felt that the
spirit of his distant friend addressed him.

"Fare thee well forever upon this earth! Thy last companion forsakes thy
side. Thine age survives the youth of all; and the Final Day shall find
thee still the contemplator of our tombs. I go with my free will into
the land of darkness; but new suns and systems blaze around us from the
grave. I go where the souls of those for whom I resign the clay shall be
my co-mates through eternal youth. At last I recognise the true ordeal
and the real victory. Mejnour, cast down thy elixir; lay by thy load
of years! Wherever the soul can wander, the Eternal Soul of all things
protects it still!"

CHAPTER 7.XV.

Il ne veulent plus perdre un moment d'une nuit si precieuse.
Lacretelle, tom. xii.

(They would not lose another moment of so precious a night.)

It was late that night, and Rene-Francois Dumas, President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, had re-entered his cabinet, on his return from
the Jacobin Club. With him were two men who might be said to represent,
the one the moral, the other the physical force of the Reign of Terror:
Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Accuser, and Francois Henriot, the
General of the Parisian Nationa