, from interested connexions, or the prejudices of
education, preferred exile and comparative poverty in foreign lands,
to the reign of liberty and reason at home, came to reside on this
spot. Here was acted the terrible tragedy of the #Count# and #Countess
D'Antraigues#. These famous intriguants, after traversing Europe to
enlist the vain prejudices of kings, and the sycophant spirit of
courtiers, against the unalterable principles of the rights of man,
settled themselves in a small house near the upper end of this
terrace. Here their establishment consisted only of a single Italian
footman, and two maid-servants. One day in every week they went to
London, in a hired coach, to confer with their partizans; and it was
on the morning of one of these excursions that these unhappy persons
were suddenly butchered by their Italian footman. The coach stood at
the door, and the Count and Countess had descended the stairs, when
the servant, rushing from the parlour, fired a pistol at the Count;
the ball of which struck, but did not injure him. It, however, so much
surprised him as to throw him off his guard, when the wretch struck
him with a stiletto between the shoulders. The Count at first reeled
on the step of the door, but instantly rushed up stairs, as is
supposed, to get arms from his bed-chamber, which he reached, but only
to fall dead on the floor. In the mean time, the Countess, who was two
or three paces in advance, and had reached the carriage-door, not
aware of the cause of the report of the pistol, and of the Count's
precipitate retreat, asked the man, peevishly, why he did not open the
door? He advanced as if to do it; but instantly stabbed her in the
breast to the hilt of his weapon: she shrieked, reeled a few yards,
and fell dead beside the post which adjoins the house to the West, on
the pavement near which her blood was lately visible. The villain
himself fled up-stairs to the room where his master lay weltering in
his blood, and then, with a razor, cut his own throat. I saw the
coachman, who told me that scarcely five minutes elapsed between the
time when he heard them approach the carriage and beheld them corpses!
The several acts were begun and over in an instant. At first he could
not conceive what was passing; and, though he leaped from the box to
the aid of the dying lady, he had then no suspicion of the fate of the
Count. I took pains to ascertain the assassin's motive for committing
such horrid deeds; bu