THE REIGN O F THE PEOPLE.

NUMBER TWO.

HENRI Graubner was a native of Lyons. His father was a member of that anomalous body, the Parliament of Paris, in the year 1756. On the day when Louis the Fifteenth came down to the Hall of Assembly, and 'in a bed of justice' commanded them to register his arbitrary edicts against the Jansenists, he resigned his place. He thus incurred the displeasure of the sovereign, and speedily suffered in the confiscation of his estates. With the little which he contrived to rescue from the general wreck of his patrimony, he retired to Lyons, and sought occupation and support in trade. He never returned to public life, but in his last days he found a rare delight in infusing into the mind of his son his own principles, and striving to implant in his breast a personal and vindictive hatred of the royal family.

The exclusiveness of the Great had already at this time been compelled to relax; and it was not surprising therefore that the youth descended from a family originally noble should have been received on familiar terms at the chateau of the Count de Chabotte. In his boyhood he was the play-mate of Auguste, and his rival in every manly exercise. When they were separated by the departure of Auguste to study in a German University, Henri found in the daughter of the baron a companion. They were nearly of the same age, and in the innocence of youth they frolicked and chatted together without restraint. But as their understandings developed, a vague suspicion simultaneously entered their minds, at first to mar and then to interrupt their frank intercourse; and so it was not long before Emilie discovered that her feelings were fast becoming enlisted too warmly in her handsome and manly associate. This discovery gave her infinite pain, both on her own account and on his. Carefully trained, and being much loved by her father, she had imperceptibly imbibed his intensely loyal spirit, and felt all his reverence for high lineal descent. Being possessed of self-respect in an eminent degree by nature, its union with the family pride of education rendered her haughty and sometimes even supercilious. It may readily be conceived then that she could regard with little complacency a suitor whose house in its palmy days had never been on an equality with hers, and now could hardly resent the title of plebeian. She endeavored therefore to stifle the rising sentiment in her bosom, and the change in her deportment which followed awoke Henri to his attachment and its hopelessness. Nature had bestowed on him all that ardor of passion which usually accompanies a generous spirit, while no early discipline had given him its control.

Mingled wrath and sorrow now agitated his impetuous bosom,

but his ire was directed chiefly against the monarch whose grandfather had ruined his house. Amid this storm of contending emotions, with no purpose but escape from the scenes of his unhappiness, he had come up to Paris. The unsettled state of the capital was ill-calculated to restore his mental equilibrium, but his excited feelings found some relief in exhausting his energy against the government. He soon became influential in some of the affiliated clubs of the Jacobins, and in the year 1791 he ventured to raise his voice in the parent society. At the time we encounter him on the eve of the tenth of August, in his garret, awaiting the rising of the communes, his long-continued and morbid excitement was at its height, and threatened, if not diverted or checked, to eventuate in permanent derangement.

We have heard his voice in the Jacobins, crying for the death of the king. Nerved by the fell purpose of regicide, he was among the foremost in the attack on the palace, and performed exploits to which in his calmer mood he had been utterly incompetent. In the confusion of the struggle, having struck down with his own hand one of the most intrepid of the Swiss guards, whose heroism on that day will never be forgotten, he forced his way into the Tuilleries, and found himself in that long and elegant suite of chambers, where the luxurious gayeties of the court had so often been displayed. It led directly to the private apartments of the queen. The last military defenders of the doors had fallen, but there still remained some of the faithful royalists, who early in the day had gathered around the king, and who had lingered in the palace after his departure to the Assembly.

While Henri was bursting into every apartment, with the determination of killing the king, though he sacrificed himself upon the swords of his attendants, a side-door from an ante-chamber opened, and an old noble passed out. Without a moment's deliberation or inquiry, the insurgent, enraged by his ineffectual search for his des tined victim, struck at him with his pike. Thus attacked, the veteran drew his sword, and they clashed arms at once. The skill and energy of the noble was impaired by age, but the rashness with which the younger assailant exposed himself rendered the contest for a long time doubtful. It was at the moment when Henri, who had received a cut in his sword-arm, had collected himself for a decisive attack, and the baron's failing strength had begun to yield to the onset, that the door by which he had entered was violently thrown back, and a fair girl rushed in. It was Emilie, the daughter of the baron. Her quick ear had caught the sharp clang of weapons, and in an agony of apprehension she had ventured to follow him. As she saw at a glance his faltering condition, she threw herself between the combatants, and falling before the foe, she besought him to spare her parent. But what!-could it be? In the begrimed and bloody desperado whom she supplicated did she behold him whose features pride and time and absence had in vain striven to efface from her soul! He saw her; he staggered back; the pallor

of death overspread his face; his arm dropped nerveless, and with a faint cry, Emilie!' he sank apparently lifeless on the floor.

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When he recovered his consciousness he found himself still lying on the marble pavement, but there were now corpses around him, and it was evident that a sanguinary struggle had taken place over his body, and that he had been regarded as dead by both parties. Bound lightly about his clotted forehead was a lady's handkerchief. He took it off; as he did so, a paper dropped from the folds. He took it up. It simply said: They have broken down the gates. I must leave you. GOD have mercy on you!' He rose and tottered to the window. It looked out on the broad court of the Carousel. The signs of carnage were recent: here a confused heap of bodies showed where the mob had first been checked by the steady fire of the Swiss; there the long line of corpses marked the spot of their own martyrdom. A few hours before, he would have contemplated the sad tokens with fiendish exultation; but now he felt other sentiments rising within him. The man of blood was become humane. And what had worked this wondrous transformation? It was the secret and mysterious influence of woman. Her tone, her look, her words of interest. The outcast felt that the ban of society was not on him, for the heart of another far above him, and whom he had deemed indifferent, if not scornful, beat in unison with his own: he had read it in her earnest gaze of recognition; he was assured of it by her brief message. The declarations of affection have a language of their own. With this delightful consciousness came also a perception of his inhumanity. Rage had made him see things through a distorted medium, and had congealed all his tender feelings. He discovered at the same moment the groundlessness of his despair, and the horrible conclusion to which it was tending. Even had he felt no love for Emilie, yet the intimate presence of a fair high-minded woman, the companion of his boyhood, would have had a mollifying effect on him. An involuntary comparison would have forced itself into his mind, and he would have realized at once the distance he had wandered, not only from the paths of propriety, but of humanity.

When the judgment of a man whom hasty impulses naturally guide is overborne by passion, all his evil promptings have unchecked sway. If we look at this man at such a time, we shall vote him the most wicked of his race. We shall err, however; for when circumstances raise Reason a little from her subjection, the transition to her former ascendancy is rapid. No lingering struggle is gone through with, but at once, like a rightful lord, judgment presides. But a due balance of mind is not gained at once, for there is frequently an error in the very opposite direction, from the former lapse; and thus it was that as Henri emerged from the palace he felt a rising repugnance, not only to the excesses of the revolution, but to the revolution itself. Joy and sorrow, hope and fear, now alternately elevated and depressed him; and unconsciously he suffered himself to be borne along by a crowd which issued from a street which is now the Rue-Royale. Throwing on high their brawny

arms, and brandishing their rude weapons, yet dripping with gore, they sang the Ca Ira' and shouted Death to the king!' The shout roused Henri. He trembled as he thought that such had been his own watch-word only the night before, and he endeavored to extricate himself from the mass. But his efforts were unsuccessful, and he was carried with them toward the Assembly: there it was said the king was. As they approached the place, the very crowd verified the rumor, and with difficulty the first of this new column, among whom was Henri, gained entrance to the galleries.

It was the twilight of evening. As he entered a faint light was glimmering through the glass in the high dome. It grew more clear and intense. Then the broad sashes were flung open, and the great chandelier descended. Its glare flashed into every corner of the gloomy building, and revealed a scene altogether unique in history. Opposite to him, on the long and rising benches, sat the representatives of that renowned party, so often traduced, so little understood, the Girondists. But they were at this time a splendid company, for they were apparently in the zenith of their fame and success. Joy diffused itself among them as they heard of the great victory. Hope brightened their anxious countenances.

There were the intellectual heads of those philosophers who had started the revolution; whose writings had wrung and urged to madness the hearts of millions; whose speculations, modified and corrected by nothing but classic experience, contemplated with rapture a pure democracy as a model republic, and whose philanthropy would embrace under its beneficent influence all the world. Sad indeed was it that their ignorance of practical detail not only made the country a sufferer, but themselves martyrs. And there too was that fair array of orators whose eloquence, lingered over even now with mournful admiration, adorned and illustrated a philosophy so humane, so mistaken.

Glowing with no generous emotions, but darkly lowering like the legions of the lost, the ranks of the Jacobins frowned down from their lofty seats on all below. The success of republicanism brought but little satisfaction to them. The triumph of all was not the victory of a party. Already the insatiable craving for sole domination was gnawing within; already the fierce thirst for blood, which, as in beasts, grows by indulgence, was consuming them. Their whole. being was engrossed by one absorbing contemplation; their eyes gleamed with an unnatural fire. The firm compression of the lip, the knitted brow, every lineament, bespoke that resolute determination, so awful, so invincible, and which, in an hour of unexampled confusion, a reign of terror, was to make them supreme.

Prominent among them stood Robespierre. Emerging from his concealment when the dropping fire of the musketry told that the heat of conflict was over, he came to claim the credit of the day. His melancholy face exhibited no trace of feeling; hard, passionless, like a statue, his very smile froze as the smile of death. No conjuncture bewildered his clear sagacity, no adversity appalled his steady will. Around this solemn man the dread cohorts gathered.

VOL. XXIX.

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