red, and virtue consecrated.

After leaving the gallery of David, I visited la Place de la Concorde.
This ill fated spot, from its spaciousness, and beauty of situation, has
always been the theatre of the great fetes of the nation, as well as the
scene of its greatest calamities. When the nuptials of the late king and
queen were celebrated, the magnificent fireworks, shows, and
illuminations which followed, were here displayed. During the
exhibition, a numerous banditti, from Normandy, broke in upon the vast
assemblage of spectators: owing to the confusion which followed, and the
fall of some of the scaffolding, the supporters of which were sawed
through by these wretches, the disorder became dreadful, and universal;
many were crushed to death, and some hundreds of the people, whilst
endeavouring to make their escape, were stabbed, and robbed. The king
and queen, as a mark of their deep regret, ordered the dead to be
entombed in the new burial ground of l'Eglise de Madeleine, then
erecting at the entrance of the Boulevard des Italiens, in the
neighbourhood of the palace, under the immediate inspection and
patronage of the sovereign. This building was never finished, and still
presents to the eye, a naked pile of lofty walls and columns. Alas! the
gloomy auguries which followed this fatal spectacle, were too truly
realized. On _that_ spot perished the monarch and his queen, and the
flower of the french nobility, and many of the virtuous and enlightened
men of France, and in _this_ cemetery, their unhonoured remains were
thrown, amidst heaps of headless victims, into promiscuous graves of
unslacked lime!

How inscrutable are the ways of destiny!

This spot, which, from its enchanting scenery, is calculated only to
recall, or to inspire the most tender, and generous, and elegant
sentiments, which has been the favoured resort of so many kings, and the
scene of every gorgeous spectacle, was doomed to become the human
shambles of the brave and good, and the Golgotha of the guillotine! In
the centre, is an oblong square railing, which encloses the exact spot
where formerly stood that instrument of death, which was voted permanent
by its remorseless employers.

A temporary model in wood, of a lofty superb monument, two hundred feet
high, intended to be erected in honour of Bonaparte and the battle of
Marengo, was raised in this place, for his approval, but from policy or
modesty, he declined this distinguished mark of publi