treet shudders at it, for the moment; next moment forgets
it: The Aristocrats! They were guilty against the Republic; their death,
were it only that their goods are confiscated, will be useful to the
Republic; Vive la Republique!

In the last days of August, fell a notabler head: General Custine's.
Custine was accused of harshness, of unskilfulness, perfidiousness;
accused of many things: found guilty, we may say, of one thing,
unsuccessfulness. Hearing his unexpected Sentence, 'Custine fell down
before the Crucifix,' silent for the space of two hours: he fared, with
moist eyes and a book of prayer, towards the Place de la Revolution;
glanced upwards at the clear suspended axe; then mounted swiftly aloft,
(Deux Amis, xi. 148-188.) swiftly was struck away from the lists of the
Living. He had fought in America; he was a proud, brave man; and his
fortune led him hither.

On the 2nd of this same month, at three in the morning, a vehicle rolled
off, with closed blinds, from the Temple to the Conciergerie. Within it
were two Municipals; and Marie-Antoinette, once Queen of France! There
in that Conciergerie, in ignominious dreary cell, she, cut off from
children, kindred, friend and hope, sits long weeks; expecting when the
end will be. (See Memoires particuliers de la Captivite a la Tour du
Temple, by the Duchesse d'Angouleme, Paris, 21 Janvier 1817.)

The Guillotine, we find, gets always a quicker motion, as other things
are quickening. The Guillotine, by its speed of going, will give index
of the general velocity of the Republic. The clanking of its huge axe,
rising and falling there, in horrid systole-diastole, is portion of
the whole enormous Life-movement and pulsation of the Sansculottic
System!--'Orleans Conspirators' and Assaulters had to die, in spite of
much weeping and entreating; so sacred is the person of a Deputy. Yet
the sacred can become desecrated: your very Deputy is not greater
than the Guillotine. Poor Deputy Journalist Gorsas: we saw him hide at
Rennes, when the Calvados War burnt priming. He stole afterwards, in
August, to Paris; lurked several weeks about the Palais ci-devant Royal;
was seen there, one day; was clutched, identified, and without ceremony,
being already 'out of the Law,' was sent to the Place de la Revolution.
He died, recommending his wife and children to the pity of the Republic.
It is the ninth day of October 1793. Gorsas is the first Deputy that
dies on the scaffold; he will not be