u
are too young to die. If you are sacrificed, I am convinced that you
will die like a gentleman and a man of honour. And yet I have some
feeling, some presentiment, nay almost a consciousness, that you will
not be cut off, at least until you are as weary of the world as I am."

I endeavoured to put on a face of resignation, if not of cheerfulness,
and said, "That though my country might revenge my death, my being
engaged in its service would only make my condemnation inevitable. But
I was prepared."

"At all events, my young friend," said he, "if you escape from this
pandemonium of France, take this paper, and vindicate the memory of
Cassini."

He gave me a memoir, which I could not help receiving with a smile,
from the brevity of the period during which the trust was likely to
hold. The gendarme now came up to demand my attendance. I shook hands
with the marquis, who at that moment was certainly no philosopher, and
followed the train.

We were about fifty in number; and after being placed in open
artillery waggons, the procession moved rapidly through the suburb,
until we reached one of those dilapidated and hideous-looking
buildings which were then to be found startling the stranger's eye
with the recollections of the St Bartholomew and the Fronde.

A crowd, assembled round the door of one of these melancholy shades,
and the bayonets of a company of the national guard glittering above
their heads, at length indicated the place of our destination. The
crowd shouted, and called us "aristocrats, thirsting for the blood of
the good citizens." The line of the guard opened, and we were rapidly
passed through several halls, the very dwelling of decay, until we
reached a large court, where the prisoners remained while the judges
were occupied in deciding on the fate of the train which the morning
had already provided. I say nothing of the insults which were
intended, if not to add new bitterness to death, to indulge the
wretched men and women who could find an existence in attending on the
offices of the tribunal, with opportunities of triumphing over those
born to better things. While we remained in the court exposed to the
weather, which was now cold and gusty, shouts were heard at intervals,
which, as the turnkeys informed us, arose from the spectators of the
executions--death, in these fearful days, immediately following
sentence. Yet, to the last the ludicrous often mingled with the
melancholy. While I was taking