ding
round the guillotine or the tumbrel in pictures of the French
Revolution.

It is very odd that one can not write or read those two words without a
boiling of the blood, a tingling at the fingers' ends, and a tightening
of the muscles of the forearm--ineffably absurd when excited by a
recollection seventy years old! Yet so it is. You may talk of oppression
till you are tired; you may catalogue all the wrongs that _Jacques
Bonhomme_ endured before his day of retaliation came; you may bring in
your pet illustration of "the storm that was necessary to clear the
atmosphere;" but you will never make some of us feel that the guilt of
an Order--had it been blacker by a hundred shades--palliated the
Massacre of its Innocents. If the _Marquis_ and _Mousquetaire_ only had
suffered, they might have laid down their lives cheerfully, as they
would have done the stake of any other lost game; and as for the
priests, it was their privilege to be martyrs. But think of those fair
matrons, and gentle girls, and delicate _mignonnes_, that had been
petted from their childhood, cooped up in the foul courts of the Abbaye
and La Force, with even the necessaries of life begrudged them, till the
light died in their eyes and the gloss faded from their tresses; and
then brought out to die in the chill, misty _Brumaire_ morning, howled
at and derided by the swarm of bloodsuckers, till they cowered down, not
in fear, but sickening horror, welcoming Samson and his satellites as
friends and saviors. Remember, too, that there was scarcely an exception
to the rule of patient courage, calm self-sacrifice, and pride of birth
that never belied itself. Dubarry might shriek on the scaffold, but the
Rohans died mute.

Of all the digressions we have indulged in, this is perhaps the most
unwarrantable; and, though it has relieved me unspeakably, I hereby
tender a certain amount of contrition for the same. _Revenons a nos
moutons_--though there was very little of the sheep in the appearance of
Jean Duchesne, whose demeanor (when we left him) you will recollect was
decidedly aggressive. It was evident that the mule-boy thought mischief
was brewing, for he twisted his features--irregular and _tumbled_ enough
already--into divers remarkable contortions expressive of remorse and
terror.

"Who, then, dares to trespass on my lands? Do you think we sow our crops
for your cursed mules to trample on?"

He spoke in a hoarse, thick voice (suggestive of spirituous