have enveloped them.

Not a few of the deputies were young men, in the morning of their
energetic being, their bosoms glowing with all the passions of this
tumultuous world, buoyant with hope, stimulated by love, invigorated
by perfect health. And they found themselves thus suddenly plunged
from the heights of honor and power to the dismal darkness of the
dungeon, from whence they could emerge only to be led to the scaffold.
All the bright hopes of life had gone down amid the gloom of midnight
darkness. Several months lingered slowly away while these men were
awaiting their trial. Day after day they heard the tolling of the
tocsin, the reverberations of the alarm gun, and the beating of the
insurrection drum, as the demon of lawless violence rioted through the
streets of the blood-stained metropolis. The execrations of the mob,
loud and fiend-like, accompanied the cart of the condemned, as it
rumbled upon the pavements above their heads, bearing the victims of
popular fury to the guillotine; and still, most stoically, they
struggled to nerve their souls with fortitude to meet their fate.

From these massive stone walls, guarded by triple doors of iron and
watched by numerous sentinels, answerable for the safe custody of
their prisoners with their lives, there was no possibility of escape.
The rigor of their imprisonment was, consequently, somewhat softened
as weeks passed on, and they were occasionally permitted to see their
friends through the iron wicket. Books, also, aided to relieve the
tedium of confinement. The brother-in-law of Vergniaud came to visit
him, and brought with him his son, a child ten years of age. The
features of the fair boy reminded Vergniaud of his beloved sister, and
awoke mournfully in his heart the remembrance of departed joys. When
the child saw his uncle imprisoned like a malefactor, his cheeks
haggard and sunken, his matted hair straggling over his forehead, his
long beard disfiguring his face, and his clothes hanging in tatters,
he clung to his father, affrighted by the sad sight, and burst into
tears.

"My child," said Vergniaud, kindly, taking him in his arms, "look well
at me. When you are a man, you can say that you saw Vergniaud, the
founder of the Republic, at the most glorious period, and in the most
splendid costume he ever wore--that in which he suffered unmerited
persecution, and in which he prepared to die for liberty." These words
produced a deep impression upon the mind of