ack door, but Marat's
murderers were too quick for them, and the poor youth was torn to
pieces. While this was doing the Procureur-Syndic provided another
victim. He arrested on some pretext a retired officer of the army, M. de
Montrosier, ex-commandant of Lille, then in the house of his
father-in-law, M. Andrieux, one of the first magistrates of Reims. M. de
Montrosier being taken to prison, the Maratist mob broke again into the
prison, dragged him out, killed him, and carried his head all over Reims
on a pike. Meanwhile a detachment went out to a neighbouring village in
quest of two of the canons of Reims, who had taken refuge there, brought
them back to the city, and shot them dead in the street. Night now
coming on, the apostles of the 'moral unity of France,' many of them by
this time being exceedingly drunk, kindled a huge bonfire in front of
the Hotel de Ville, flung into it the mutilated corpses of their
victims, and towards midnight laying hands upon two priests, MM. Romain
and Alexandre, threw them into the flames! Another band during the
evening broke into the venerable church of St.-Remi, and tearing down
the shields and banners which for fourteen centuries had hung above the
tomb of the great Archbishop who made France a Christian kingdom,
brought these to the bonfire and consumed them.

During this day of horrors, the electors of the department had been in
session. As the news reached them of what was going on in the streets,
one thought came into the minds of all the decent men among them, to get
through as fast as possible and quit the city. At the first ballot 442
electors were present. At the seventh only 203 remained. Of these 135,
being the compact 'Republican' minority, gave their votes on that ballot
to Drouet, the postmaster's son of Ste-Menehould, Mr. Carlyle's 'bold
old dragoon,' who stopped the carriage of Louis XVI. at Varennes. He was
one of the special adherents of Marat, and a most vicious and venal
creature, as his own memoirs, giving among other matters an account of
his grotesque attempt to fly down out of his Austrian prison with a pair
of paper wings, abundantly attest. He escaped the guillotine, and
naturally enough turned up under the empire as an obsequious sub-prefect
at Ste-Menehould. The whole of the elections, which in normal
circumstances would have occupied at least three days, were hurried
through before midnight of the first day.

Couplet, called Beaucourt, was satisfied. B