did so, the sound of a distant drum,
the well-known muffled roll, floated on the air, and I remembered it was
the day of the guillotine--that day in which my feverish spirit turned,
as it were in relief, to the reality of blood. Remote as was the part
of the city we lived in, I could still mark the hastening steps of the
foot-passengers, as they listened to the far-off summons, and see the
tide was setting towards the fatal Place de Greve. It was a lowering,
heavy morning, overcast with clouds, and on its loaded atmosphere sounds
moved slowly and indistinctly; yet I could trace through all the din
of the great city, the incessant roll of the drums, and the loud shouts
that burst forth, from time to time, from some great multitude.

Forgetting everything save my intense passion for scenes of terror, I
hastened down the stairs into the street, and at the top of my speed
hurried to the place of execution. As I went along, the crowded streets
and thronged avenues told of some event of more than common interest;
and in the words which fell from those around me, I could trace
that some deep Royalist plot had just been discovered, and that the
conspirators would all on that day be executed. Whether it was that the
frequent sight of blood was beginning to pall upon the popular appetite,
or that these wholesale massacres interested less than the sight of
individual suffering, I know not; but certainly there was less of
exultation, less of triumphant scorn in the tone of the speakers. They
talked of the coming event as of a common occurrence, which, from mere
repetition, was gradually losing interest.

'I thought we had done with these Chouans,' said a man in a blouse, with
a paper cap on his head. '_Pardie!_ they must have been more numerous
than we ever suspected.'

'That they were, citizen,' said a haggard-looking fellow, whose features
showed the signs of recent strife; 'they were the millions who gorged
and fed upon us for centuries--who sipped the red grape of Bordeaux,
while you and I drank the water of the Seine.'

'Well, their time is come now,' cried a third.

'And when will ours come?' asked a fresh-looking, dark-eyed girl, whose
dress bespoke her trade as a flower-girl, 'or do you call this our time,
my masters, when Paris has no more pleasant sight than blood, nor any
music save the "Ca ira" that drowns the cries of the guillotine? Is this
our time, when we have lost those who gave us bread, and got in their
pla