r Lucille.'

'That is the old Marquise d'Estelles, the very essence of our old
nobility. They used to talk of their _mesalliance_ with the Bourbons as
the first misfortune of their house.' '_Pardi!_ they have lived to learn
deeper sorrows.' I had by this time discovered her they were speaking
of, whom I recognised at once as the old marquise of the chapel of St.
Blois. My hands nearly gave up their grasp as I gazed on those features,
which so often I had seen fixed in prayer, and which now--a thought
paler, perhaps--wore the self-same calm expression. With what
intense agony I peered into the mass, to see if the little girl, her
granddaughter, were with her; and, oh! the deep relief I felt as I saw
nothing but strange faces on every side. It was terrible to feel, as
my eyes ranged over that vast mass, where grief, and despair, and
heart-sinking terror were depicted, that I should experience a spirit
of joy and thankfulness; and yet I did so, and with my lips I uttered my
gratitude that she was spared! But I had not time for many reflections
like this; already the terrible business of the day had begun, and the
prisoners were now descending from the cart, ranging themselves, as
their names were called, in a line below the scaffold. With a
few exceptions, they took their places in all the calm of seeming
indifference. Death had long familiarised itself to their minds in a
thousand shapes. Day by day they had seen the vacant places left
by those led out to die, and if their sorrows had not rendered them
careless of life, the world itself had grown distasteful to them. In
some cases a spirit of proud scorn was manifested to the very last; and,
strange inconsistency of human nature! the very men whose licentiousness
and frivolity first evoked the terrible storm of popular fury, were the
first to display the most chivalrous courage in the terrible face of the
guillotine. Beautiful women, too, in all the pride of their loveliness,
met the inhuman stare of that mob undismayed. Nor were these traits
without their fruits. This noble spirit--this triumphant victory of the
well born and the great--was a continual insult to the populace, who saw
themselves defrauded of half their promised vengeance, and they learned
that they might kill, but they could never humiliate them. In vain they
dipped their hands in the red life-blood, and, holding up their dripping
fingers, asked--'How did it differ from that of the people?' Their
hearts g