lacards to the
crowd below, and often adding some savage comment on their meaning, which
produced a general laugh. Flags inscribed with "Liberty Bread or
Blood--Down with the Tyrant"--and that comprehensive and peculiarly
favourite motto of the mob--"May the last of the kings be strangled with
the entrails of the last of the priests," were hung from the walls in all
quarters; and in the centre of the floor were ranged three pieces of
artillery surrounded by their gunners. I now fully acknowledged the
exactness of Mendoza's information; and began to feel considerable
uncertainty about my own fate in the midst of a horde of armed ruffians,
who came pouring in more thickly every moment, and seemed continually more
ferocious. At length I was ordered to go forward to a sort of platform at
the head of the hall, where some candles were still burning, and the
remnants of a supper gave signs that there had been gathered the chief
persons of this tremendous assemblage. A brief interrogatory from one of
them armed to the teeth, and with a red cap so low down on his bushy brows
as almost wholly to disguise his physiognomy, enquired my name, my
business in Paris, and especially what I had to allege against my being
shot as a spy in the pay of the Tuileries. My answers were drowned in the
roar of the multitude. Still, I protested firmly against this summary
trial, and at length threatened them with the vengeance of my country.
This might be heroic, but it was injudicious. Patriotism is a fiery affair,
and a circle of pistols and daggers ready prepared for action, and roused
by the word to execute popular justice on me, waited but the signal from
the platform. Their leader rose with some solemnity, and taking off his
cap, to give the ceremonial a more authentic aspect, declared me to have
forfeited the right to live, by acting the part of an _espion_, and
ordered me to be shot in "front of the leading battalion of the army of
vengeance." The decree was so unexpected, that for the instant I felt
absolutely paralyzed. The sight left my eyes, my ears tingled with strange
sounds, and I almost felt as if I had received the shots of the ruffians,
who now, incontrollable in their first triumph, were firing their pistols
in all directions in the air. But at the moment, so formidable to my
future career, I heard the sound of the clock of Notre Dame. I felt a
sudden return of my powers and recollections, but the hands of my
assassins were already