d and died away upon the air. Here and
there some friendly voice among the populace ventured to swell the
volume of sound as the significant words were uttered,

"Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'etendard sanglant est leve."

"And tyranny has wide unfurl'd
Her blood-stain'd banner in the sky."

At the end of each verse their voices sank for a moment into silence.
The strain was then again renewed, loud and sonorous. On arriving at
the scaffold, they all embraced in one long, last adieu. It was a
token of their communion in death as in life. They then, in concert,
loudly and firmly resumed their funereal chant. One ascended the
scaffold, continuing the song with his companions. He was bound to the
plank. Still his voice was heard full and strong. The plank slowly
fell. Still his voice, without a tremor, joined in the triumphant
chorus. The glittering ax glided like lightning down the groove. His
head fell into the basket, and one voice was hushed forever. Another
ascended, and another, and another, each with the song bursting loudly
from his lips, till death ended the strain. There was no weakness. No
step trembled, no cheek paled, no voice faltered. But each succeeding
moment the song grew more faint as head after head fell, and the
bleeding bodies were piled side by side. At last one voice alone
continued the song. It was that of Vergniaud, the most illustrious of
them all. Long confinement had spread deathly pallor over his
intellectual features, but firm and dauntless, and with a voice of
surpassing richness, he continued the solo into which the chorus had
now died away. Without the tremor of a nerve, he mounted the scaffold.
For a moment he stood in silence, as he looked down upon the lifeless
bodies of his friends, and around upon the overawed multitude gazing
in silent admiration upon this heroic enthusiasm. As he then
surrendered himself to the executioner, he commenced anew the strain,

"Allons! enfans de la patrie,
Le jour de glorie est arrive."

"Come! children of your country, come!
The day of glory dawns on high."

In the midst of the exultant tones, the ax glided on its bloody
mission, and those lips, which had guided the storm of revolution, and
whose patriotic appeals had thrilled upon the ear of France, were
silent in death. Thus perished the Girondists, the founders of the
Republic and its victims. Their votes consigned Louis and Maria to the
guilloti