La Vendee, _this_ is the conclusion we have arrived at: To put down
Anarchy by Civil War! _Durum et durum_, the Proverb says, _non faciunt
murum_. La Vendee burns; Santerre can do nothing there; he may return
home and brew beer. Cimmerian bombshells fly all along the North. That
Siege of Mentz is become famed;--lovers of the Picturesque (as Goethe
will testify), washed country-people of both sexes, stroll thither on
Sundays, to see the artillery work and counter-work; "you only duck a
little while the shot whizzes past." Conde is capitulating to the
Austrians; Royal Highness of York, these several weeks, fiercely
batters Valenciennes. For, alas, our fortified Camp of Famars was
stormed; General Dampierre was killed; General Custine was
blamed,--and indeed is now come to Paris to give "explanations."

Against all which the Mountain and atrocious Marat must even make head
as they can. They, anarchic Convention as they are, publish Decrees,
expostulatory, explanatory, yet not without severity: they ray-forth
Commissioners, singly or in pairs, the olive-branch in one hand, yet
the sword in the other. Commissioners come even to Caen; but without
effect. Mathematical Romme, and Prieur named of the Cote d'Or,
venturing thither, with their olive and sword, are packed into prison:
there may Romme lie, under lock and key, "for fifty days"; and
meditate his New Calendar, if he please. Cimmeria, La Vendee, and
Civil War! Never was Republic One and Indivisible at a lower ebb.

Amid which dim ferment of Caen and the World, History specially
notices one thing: in the lobby of the Mansion de l'Intendance, where
busy Deputies are coming and going, a young Lady with an aged valet,
taking grave graceful leave of Deputy Barbaroux. She is of stately
Norman figure: in her twenty-fifth year; of beautiful still
countenance: her name is Charlotte Corday, heretofore styled D'Armans,
while Nobility still was. Barbaroux has given her a Note to Deputy
Duperret,--him who once drew his sword in the effervescence.
Apparently she will to Paris on some errand? "She was a Republican
before the Revolution, and never wanted energy." A completeness, a
decision is in this fair female Figure: "By energy she means the
spirit that will prompt one to sacrifice himself for his country."
What if she, this fair young Charlotte, had emerged from her secluded
stillness, suddenly like a Star; cruel-lovely, with half-angelic,
half-demonic splendor; to gleam for a mo