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of a war. Their pioneers have gone before them, and demolished and laid everything level at their feet. Not one drop of their blood have they shed in the cause of the country they have ruined. They have made no sacrifices to their projects of greater consequence than their shoe buckles, whilst they were imprisoning their king, murdering their fellow-citizens, and bathing in tears, and plunging in poverty and distress, thousands of worthy men and worthy families. Their cruelty has not even been the base result of fear. It has been the effect of their sense of perfect safety, in authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and burnings throughout their harassed land. But the cause of all was plain from the beginning.

THE YOUNG CAPTIVE.

BY ANDRÉ CHÉNIER.

(Translated by Henry Curwen.)

LET a stoic with tearless eyes hastily clutch at death,

But I with my tears and prayers at the chilly North wind's breath
Will shiver and hide and flee.

There may be sorrowful days, but then there are hours of joy -
Ah! was there ever a sweet but sooner or late must cloy -
Or ever a stormless sea?

Illusions and hopes and dreams are fluttering thro' my brain,
Till the dreary dungeon walls would fetter my soul in vain,
For I borrow me airy wings;

O joy for heaven's free air, as merrily up I fly,

Away from the snarer's nets, to the blue fields of the sky,
Where Philomel soaring sings!

Why should I die so young, when the lingering, peaceful years,
Full of soft lulling delights, are waiting to still my tears
In their dreamless depths profound?
Laughing his love in my eyes, my darling kissed me to-day,
Till my own joy overflows, to conjure and soothe away
The sorrows of all around.

O Death! thou canst wait awhile, for a moment let me hide,
There are weary hearts eno', whose dolorous shame and pride
Hail thee with pitiful cry;

For me the summer has still such tremulous green delights,
And Love such soft caresses, and my songs such wild delights,
That I do not wish to die!

LAST NIGHT AND EXECUTION OF THE GIRONDISTS.

BY A. DE LAMARTINE.

[ALPHONSE MARIE LOUIS DE LAMARTINE, French poet, historian, Academician, and statesman, was born at Mâcon, October 21, 1790, and spent much of his youth in Italy. In 1820 appeared his "Méditations Poétiques," containing the famous elegy "Le Lac" (The Lake). The success of this work helped to open up for him a diplomatic career. He held several posts in Italy to the accession of Louis Philippe, and sat in the National Assembly from 1833 to the revolution of 1848, when he became minister of foreign affairs, and exercised a great influence over the first movements of the new republic. A pension of 25,000 francs was granted to him by the government in 1867. Lamartine's important prose works are: "History of the Girondins" (1847), which unquestionably had much influence in bringing about the events of 1848; "Graziella"; " History of the Restoration"; and "Souvenirs of the East." He died at Paris in 1869.]

THESE first symptoms of a return of popular feeling to the Gironde alarmed the Commune. Auduin, Pache's son-in-law, who had formerly been a priest, and was now one of the church's bitterest persecutors, called on the Committee of Safety to close the debate by allowing the president to declare that sufficient evidence had been heard. The jury, constrained by this declaration, closed the debate on the 30th of October, 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.

At this sentence a cry of astonishment and horror burst from the accused; the greater number, and especially Boileau, Ducos, Fonfrède, Antiboul, Mainvielle, expected an acquittal. One of the accused, who had made a motion with his hand as though to tear his garments, slipped from his seat on to the floor. It was Valazé. "What, Valazé, are you losing your courage?' said Brissot, striving to support him. "No, I am dying," re

turned Valazé ; and he expired, his hand on the poniard with which he had pierced his heart.

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

Boileau alone protesting against the sentence which confounded him with the Gironde, cast his hat into the air, exclaiming, "I am innocent; I am a Jacobin; I am a Montagnard." The sarcasms of the spectators were the sole reply, and, instead of pity, he only met with contempt. Brissot inclined his head on his breast, and appeared immersed in reflection. Fauchet and Lasource clasped their hands, and raised their eyes to heaven. Vergniaud, seated on the highest bench, gazed on the tribunal, his colleagues, and the crowd, with a look that seemed to scan the scene, and to seek in the past an example of such a decision of destiny, and such ingratitude on the part of the people. Sillery cast away his crutch, and exclaimed, "This is the most glorious day of my life." Fonfrède threw his arms round Ducos, and burst into tears. "Mon ami," said he, "I cause your death, but console yourself, we shall die together."

At this moment a cry was heard, and a young man in vain strove to force his way through the crowd. "Let me fly from this spectacle," cried he, covering his eyes with his hands. "Wretch that I am, it is I who have killed them. It is my 'Brissot dévoilé' which has killed them. I cannot bear the sight of my work. I feel their blood fall on the hand that has denounced them." This young man was Camille Desmoulins, inconsiderate in his pity as his hatred, and whom the crowd detained and silenced as though he had been a child.

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 République!

The Girondists, as they quitted their places, assembled round the corpse of Valazé, extended on a bench; touched it respectfully, to assure themselves that life was extinct, and then, as though seized with an electric inspiration by contact with the republican who had perished by his own hand, they exclaimed simultaneously, "We die innocent. Vive la République !" Some of them threw amongst the crowd handfuls of assignats, not, as it has been supposed, to excite the people to revolt and

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La Marseillaise

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