ll estate of his forefathers.

Gensonne followed them: he was a man of five-and-thirty, but the
ripeness of his intellect, and the resolution that dictated his opinions
gave his features that look of energy and decision that belongs to
maturer age.

Next came Lasource, a man of high-flown language and tragical
imagination. His unpowdered and closely-cut hair, his black coat, his
austere demeanour, and grave and ascetic features, recalled the minister
of the Holy Gospel and those Puritans of the time of Cromwell who sought
for God in liberty, and in their trial, martyrdom.

Valaze seemed like a soldier under fire; his conscience told him it was
his duty to die, and he died.

The Abbe Fauchet came immediately after Valaze. He was in his fiftieth
year, but the beauty of his features, the elevation of his stature, and
the freshness of his colour, made him appear much younger. His dress,
from its colour and make, befitted his sacred profession, and his hair
was so cut as to show the tonsure of the priest, so long covered by the
red bonnet of the revolutionist.

Brissot was the last but one.

Last came Vergniaud, the greatest and most illustrious of them all. All
Paris knew, and had beheld him in the tribune, and was now curious to
gaze not only on the orator on a level with his enemies, but the man
reduced to take his place on the bench of the accused. His prestige
still followed him, and he was one of those men from whom everything,
even impossibilities, are expected.

_IV.--The Banquet of Death_

The jury closed the debate on October 30, at eight o'clock in the
evening. All the accused were declared guilty of having conspired
against the unity and indivisibility of the republic, and condemned to
death. One of them, who had made a motion with his hand as though to
tear his garments, slipped from his seat on to the floor. It was Valaze.

"What, Valaze, are you losing your courage?" said Brissot, striving to
support him.

"No, I am dying," returned Valaze. And he expired, his hand on the
poignard with which he had pierced his heart.

At this spectacle silence instantly prevailed, and the example of Valaze
made the young Girondists blush for their momentary weakness.

It was eleven o'clock at night. After a moment's pause, occasioned by
the unexpectedness of the sentence and the emotion of the prisoners, the
sitting was closed amidst cries of "Vive la Republique!"

The Girondists, as they quitted their plac