is hour, thy beams fall slant on
reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on old women spinning in cottages;
on ships far out on the silent main; on Balls at the Orangerie of
Versailles, where high-rouged Dames of the Palace are even now
dancing with double-jacketed Hussar-Officers;--and also on this
roaring Hell-porch of a Hotel-de-Ville! Babel Tower, with the
confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam added with the conflagration of
thoughts, was no type of it. One forest of distracted steel bristles,
endless, in front of an Electoral Committee; points itself, in horrid
radii, against this and the other accused breast. It was the Titans
warring with Olympus; and they, scarcely crediting it, have
_conquered_; prodigy of prodigies; delirious,--as it could not but be.
Denunciation, vengeance; blaze of triumph on a dark ground of terror;
all outward, all inward things fallen into one general wreck of
madness!

CHARLOTTE CORDAY

From 'The French Revolution'

In the leafy months of June and July, several French Departments
germinate a set of rebellious _paper_-leaves, named Proclamations,
Resolutions, Journals, or Diurnals, "of the Union for Resistance to
Oppression." In particular, the Town of Caen, in Calvados, sees its
paper-leaf of Bulletin de Caen suddenly bud, suddenly establish itself
as Newspaper there; under the Editorship of Girondin National
Representatives!

[Illustration: _CHARLOTTE CORDAY IN PRISON._

Photogravure from a painting by C. L. Muller.

Original in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

Marie Anne Charlotte Corday d'Armans, a French young woman of
noble birth, filled with horror at the excesses of the Reign
of Terror, gained admission to the private apartments of Marat
and stabbed him to death July 13, 1793. She was convicted by
the Revolutionary tribunal and died by the guillotine July 17,
1793.]

For among the proscribed Girondins are certain of a more desperate
humor. Some, as Vergniaud, Valaze, Gensonne, "arrested in their own
houses," will await with stoical resignation what the issue may be.
Some, as Brissot, Rabaut, will take to flight, to concealment; which,
as the Paris Barriers are opened again in a day or two, is not yet
difficult. But others there are who will rush, with Buzot, to
Calvados; or far over France, to Lyons, Toulon, Nantes and
elsewhither, and then rendezvous at Caen: to awaken as with
war-trumpet the respectable Department