monial!

And yet if the Reader fancy it of a funereal, sorrowful or even grave
character, he is far mistaken. 'The Ushers in the Mountain quarter,'
says Mercier, 'had become as Box-openers at the Opera;' opening and
shutting of Galleries for privileged persons, for 'd'Orleans Egalite's
mistresses,' or other high-dizened women of condition, rustling with
laces and tricolor. Gallant Deputies pass and repass thitherward,
treating them with ices, refreshments and small-talk; the high-dizened
heads beck responsive; some have their card and pin, pricking down the
Ayes and Noes, as at a game of Rouge-et-Noir. Further aloft reigns Mere
Duchesse with her unrouged Amazons; she cannot be prevented making
long Hahas, when the vote is not La Mort. In these Galleries there is
refection, drinking of wine and brandy 'as in open tavern, en pleine
tabagie.' Betting goes on in all coffeehouses of the neighbourhood. But
within doors, fatigue, impatience, uttermost weariness sits now on
all visages; lighted up only from time to time, by turns of the game.
Members have fallen asleep; Ushers come and awaken them to vote: other
Members calculate whether they shall not have time to run and dine.
Figures rise, like phantoms, pale in the dusky lamp-light; utter from
this Tribune, only one word: Death. 'Tout est optique,' says Mercier,
'the world is all an optical shadow.' (Mercier, Nouveau Paris, vi.
156-59; Montgaillard, iii. 348-87; Moore, &c.) Deep in the Thursday
night, when the Voting is done, and Secretaries are summing it up, sick
Duchatel, more spectral than another, comes borne on a chair, wrapt in
blankets, 'in nightgown and nightcap,' to vote for Mercy: one vote it is
thought may turn the scale.

Ah no! In profoundest silence, President Vergniaud, with a voice full of
sorrow, has to say: "I declare, in the name of the Convention, that the
Punishment it pronounces on Louis Capet is that of Death." Death by a
small majority of Fifty-three. Nay, if we deduct from the one side, and
add to the other, a certain Twenty-six, who said Death but coupled some
faintest ineffectual surmise of mercy with it, the majority will be but
One.

Death is the sentence: but its execution? It is not executed yet!
Scarcely is the vote declared when Louis's Three Advocates enter; with
Protest in his name, with demand for Delay, for Appeal to the People.
For this do Deseze and Tronchet plead, with brief eloquence: brave old
Malesherbes pleads for it with eloq