have changed her character in a day. She never played
fast and loose with her principles. These were in many ways contrary to
the standard of the rest of mankind, but they were also equally opposed
to the conduct imputed to her. The testimony of her actions is her
acquittal. That she did not for a year produce any work of importance is
no argument against her. It was only after three years of uninterrupted
industry that she found time to write the "Rights of Women." On account
of the urgency of her every-day needs, she had no leisure for work whose
financial success was uncertain. Knowles's story is too absurdly out of
keeping with her character to be believed for a moment.

The other version of this affair is not so inconceivable. That her
affection may in the end have developed into a warmer feeling, and that
she would have married Fuseli had he been free, is just possible.
Allusions in her first letters to Imlay to a late "hapless love," and to
trouble, seem to confirm Godwin's statement. But it is quite as likely
that Fuseli, whose heart was, as his biographer admits, very susceptible,
felt for her a passion which as a married man he had no right to give,
and that she fled to France for his sake rather than for her own. In
either of these cases, she would deserve admiration and respect. But the
insufficiency of evidence reduces everything except the fact of her
friendship for him to mere surmise.

However this may have been, it is certain that Mr. Johnson and the
Fuselis decided to remain at home when Mary in December started for
Paris.

The excitement in the French capital was then at fever heat. But the
outside world hardly comprehended how serious the troubles were. Princes
and their adherents trembled at the blow given to royalty in the person
of Louis XVI. Liberals rejoiced at the successful revolt against
monarchical tyranny. But neither one party nor the other for a moment
foresaw what a terrible weapon reform was to become in the hands of the
excitable French people. If, in the city where the tragedy was being
enacted, the customary baking and brewing, the promenading under the
trees, and the dog-dancing and the shoe-blacking on the _Pont-Neuf_ could
still continue, it is not strange that those who watched it from afar
mistook its real weight.

The terrible night of the 10th of August had come and gone. The September
massacres, the details of which had not yet reached England, were over.
The Girondists