et durum_, the Proverb says, _non faciunt murum_. La
Vendee burns: Santerre can do nothing there; he may return home and brew
beer. Cimmerian bombshells fly all along the North. That Siege of Mainz
is become famed; lovers of the Picturesque (as Goethe will testify),
washed country-people of both sexes, stroll thither on Sundays, to see
the artillery work and counterwork; "you only duck a little while the
shot whizzes past." Conde is capitulating to the Austrians; Royal
Highness of York, these several weeks, fiercely batters Valenciennes.
For, alas, our fortified Camp of Famars was stormed; General Dampierre
was killed; General Custine was blamed--and indeed is now come to Paris
to give "explanations."

Against all which the Mountain and atrocious Marat must even make head
as they can. They, anarchic Convention as they are, publish Decrees,
expostulatory, explanatory, yet not without severity; they ray forth
Commissioners, singly or in pairs, the olive-branch in one hand, yet
the sword in the other. Commissioners come even to Caen; but without
effect. Mathematical Romme, and Prieur named of the _Cote d'Or_,
venturing thither, with their olive and sword, are packed into prison:
there may Romme lie, under lock and key, "for fifty days"; and meditate
his New Calendar, if he please. Cimmeria, La Vendee, and Civil War!
Never was Republic One and Indivisible at a lower ebb.

Amid which dim ferment of Caen and the World, History specially notices
one thing: in the lobby of the Mansion de l'Intendance, where busy
Deputies are coming and going, a young Lady with an aged valet, taking
grave, graceful leave of Deputy Barbaroux. She is of stately Norman
figure; in her twenty-fifth year; of beautiful still countenance: her
name is Charlotte Corday, heretofore styled D'Armans, while Nobility
still was. Barbaroux has given her a Note to Deputy Duperret--he who
once drew his sword in the effervescence. Apparently she will to Paris
on some errand? "She was a Republican before the Revolution, and never
wanted energy."

A completeness, a decision is in this fair female Figure: "by energy she
means the spirit that will prompt one to sacrifice himself for his
country." What if she, this fair young Charlotte, had emerged from her
secluded stillness, suddenly like a Star; cruel-lovely, with
half-angelic, half-daemonic splendor; to gleam for a moment, and in a
moment be extinguished: to be held in memory, so bright complete was
she, through