e
paraded to the noonday. Fathers were reconciled to rebellious children
before the eyes of multitudes; wives received forgiveness from their
husbands in the midst of approving crowds; leave-takings the most
affecting; partings, for those never to meet again; the last utterings
of the death-bed; the faint whispers of expiring affection; the
imprecations of undying hate--all, all were exhibited in public, and the
gaze of the low, the vulgar, and the debauched associated with the most
agonising griefs that ever the heart endured. The scenes, which now are
shrouded in all the secrecy of domestic privacy, were then the daily
life of Paris; and to this cause alone can I attribute the hardened
indifference with which events the most terrible and heart-rending were
witnessed. Bred up amidst such examples, I saw little matter for emotion
in scenes of harrowing interest. An air of mockery was on everything,
and a bastard classicality destroyed every semblance of truth in
whatever would have been touching and affecting.

The commotion of Paris on that memorable morning was, then, to my
thinking, little more than usual If the crowds who pressed their way to
the Place de la Revolution were greater--if the cries of vengeance
were in louder utterance--if the imprecations were deeper and more
terrible--the ready answer that satisfied all curiosity was--it was
Robespierre who was on his way to be executed. Little knew I what hung
upon that life! and how the fate of millions depended upon the blood
that morning was to shed! Too full of myself and my own projects, I
disengaged myself from the crowds that pressed eagerly towards the
Tuileries, and took my way by less-frequented streets in the direction
of the Boulevard Mont Parnasse.

I wished, if possible, to see the pere once more, to take a last
farewell of him, and ask his blessing, too; for still a lingering faith
in the lessons he had taught me continued to haunt my mind amidst
all the evil influences with which my wayward life surrounded me. The
further I went from the quarter of the Tuileries, the more deserted
and solitary grew the streets. Not a carriage or horseman was to be
seen--scarcely a foot-passenger. All Paris had, apparently, assembled
on the Place de la Revolution; and the very beggars had quitted their
accustomed haunts to repair thither. Even the distant hum of the vast
multitude faded away, and it was only as the wind bore them that I could
catch the sounds of the