he whom we heard
saying, long since, with a loud voice, "The Constituent Assembly has
fulfilled its mission!" And the noble old Malesherbes, who defended
Louis and could not speak, like a grey old rock dissolving into sudden
water: he journeys here now, with his kindred, daughters, sons and
grandsons, his Lamoignons, Chateaubriands; silent, towards Death.--One
young Chateaubriand alone is wandering amid the Natchez, by the roar of
Niagara Falls, the moan of endless forests: Welcome thou great Nature,
savage, but not false, not unkind, unmotherly; no Formula thou, or rapid
jangle of Hypothesis, Parliamentary Eloquence, Constitution-building and
the Guillotine; speak thou to me, O Mother, and sing my sick heart thy
mystic everlasting lullaby-song, and let all the rest be far!--

Another row of Tumbrils we must notice: that which holds Elizabeth, the
Sister of Louis. Her Trial was like the rest; for Plots, for Plots. She
was among the kindliest, most innocent of women. There sat with her,
amid four-and-twenty others, a once timorous Marchioness de Crussol;
courageous now; expressing towards her the liveliest loyalty. At the
foot of the Scaffold, Elizabeth with tears in her eyes, thanked this
Marchioness; said she was grieved she could not reward her. "Ah,
Madame, would your Royal Highness deign to embrace me, my wishes were
complete!"--"Right willingly, Marquise de Crussol, and with my whole
heart." (Montgaillard, iv. 200.) Thus they: at the foot of the Scaffold.
The Royal Family is now reduced to two: a girl and a little boy. The
boy, once named Dauphin, was taken from his Mother while she yet lived;
and given to one Simon, by trade a Cordwainer, on service then about
the Temple-Prison, to bring him up in principles of Sansculottism. Simon
taught him to drink, to swear, to sing the carmagnole. Simon is now gone
to the Municipality: and the poor boy, hidden in a tower of the Temple,
from which in his fright and bewilderment and early decrepitude he
wishes not to stir out, lies perishing, 'his shirt not changed for six
months;' amid squalor and darkness, lamentably, (Duchesse d'Angouleme,
Captivite a la Tour du Temple, pp. 37-71.)--so as none but poor Factory
Children and the like are wont to perish, unlamented!

The Spring sends its green leaves and bright weather, bright May
brighter than ever: Death pauses not. Lavoisier famed Chemist, shall die
and not live: Chemist Lavoisier was Farmer-General Lavoisier too, and
now '