friend
refuses to admit them. They stood therefore under trees, in the pouring
rain. Flying desperate, Louvet thereupon will to Paris. He sets forth,
there and then, splashing the mud on each side of him, with a fresh
strength gathered from fury or frenzy. He passes villages, finding 'the
sentry asleep in his box in the thick rain;' he is gone, before the
man can call after him. He bilks Revolutionary Committees; rides in
carriers' carts, covered carts and open; lies hidden in one, under
knapsacks and cloaks of soldiers' wives on the Street of Orleans,
while men search for him: has hairbreadth escapes that would fill
three romances: finally he gets to Paris to his fair Helpmate; gets to
Switzerland, and waits better days.

Poor Guadet and Salles were both taken, ere long; they died by the
Guillotine in Bourdeaux; drums beating to drown their voice. Valady also
is caught, and guillotined. Barbaroux and his two comrades weathered it
longer, into the summer of 1794; but not long enough. One July morning,
changing their hiding place, as they have often to do, 'about a league
from Saint-Emilion, they observe a great crowd of country-people;'
doubtless Jacobins come to take them? Barbaroux draws a pistol, shoots
himself dead. Alas, and it was not Jacobins; it was harmless villagers
going to a village wake. Two days afterwards, Buzot and Petion were
found in a Cornfield, their bodies half-eaten with dogs. (Recherches
Historiques sur les Girondins in Memoires de Buzot, p. 107.)

Such was the end of Girondism. They arose to regenerate France, these
men; and have accomplished this. Alas, whatever quarrel we had with
them, has not their cruel fate abolished it? Pity only survives. So many
excellent souls of heroes sent down to Hades; they themselves given as
a prey of dogs and all manner of birds! But, here too, the will of the
Supreme Power was accomplished. As Vergniaud said: 'The Revolution, like
Saturn, is devouring its own children.'

BOOK 3.V.

TERROR THE ORDER OF THE DAY

Chapter 3.5.I.

Rushing down.

We are now, therefore, got to that black precipitous Abyss; whither all
things have long been tending; where, having now arrived on the giddy
verge, they hurl down, in confused ruin; headlong, pellmell, down,
down;--till Sansculottism have consummated itself; and in this wondrous
French Revolution, as in a Doomsday, a World have been rapidly, if not
born again, yet destroyed and engulphed. Terror has long be