kept the drunken rabble at a distance;
and the five franc piece, with which I tempted the incorruptibility of a
peculiarly ferocious-looking patriot, admitted me without delay.

What a scene there presented itself to my eyes! The "Salle" was large
and showy; and when I had attended it in former debates, it exhibited
the taste and skill which the French, more than any other people on
earth, exhibit in temporary things. Nothing could exceed the elegance
with which the Parisian decorators had fitted up this silk and tinsel
abode, which was to be superseded, within a few months, by the solid
majesty of marble. But, on this memorable and melancholy night, the
ornaments bore, to me, the look of those sad frivolities with which
France is fond of ornamenting her tombs. The chandeliers burned dim; the
busts and statues looked ghostlike; the chief part of the members had
thrown themselves drowsily on the benches; and the debate had languished
into the murmurs of a speech, to which no one listened. If the loaded
table, with its pile of petitions and ordonnances, in the midst of the
hall, could have been imagined into a bier; the whole had the aspect of
a _chapelle ardente_; there, indeed, lay in state the monarchy of
France. My unlucky friend, of course, was not there; but I saw, in a
narrow box, on the right of the president, a group, from which, when
once seen, I found it impossible to withdraw my gaze--the first and most
exalted victims of the Revolution, the king and his family. All but one
were apparently overcome with fatigue; for they had sat there fifteen
hours. But that one sat with a steady eye and an erect front, as if
superior to all suffering. I had seen Marie Antoinette, the most
splendid figure, in all the splendours of her court. I had seen her
unshaken before vast popular assemblages, in which any rash or ruffian
hand might have taken her life at the instant; but she now gave me an
impression of a still higher order. Sitting in calm resignation and
unstained dignity, her stately form and countenance, pale and pure as
marble, looked like some noble statue on a tomb; or rather, sitting in
that chamber of death, like some pure spirit, awaiting the summons to
ascend from the relics of human guilt, infirmity, and passion before
her.

But the slumbers of the Assembly were soon to be broken. A tumult, and
the tramping of many feet, was heard at the door. It was followed by the
thunder of clubs and hammers breaking it i