On the 16th of October, 1793, the daughter of the Cæsars lost her life through the instrumentality of the machine which we saw Cagliostro exhibit to her in a glass of water at the Château de Taverney more than twenty years before. Then she was in the bloom of youth and beauty, a young queen coming to reign over a people who had just begun to realize their wrongs and their power. To-day she is a woman of thirty-eight, prematurely aged, but bearing about her still the noble dignity of her ancient race, and proving anew, as Charles I. had proved, and as her own husband had proved, that the near approach of death brings forth the noblest qualities in those of royal lineage.
We cannot better end this brief note than by quoting the characteristic but powerful apostrophe of Carlyle in his essay upon the "Diamond Necklace."
"Beautiful Highborn, thou wert so foully hurled low! For if thy being came to thee out of old Hapsburg dynasties, came it not also (like my own) out of Heaven? Sunt lachrymæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt. Oh, is there a man's heart that thinks without pity of those long months and years of slow-wasting ignominy: of thy birth, soft-cradled in imperial Schönbrunn, the winds of Heaven not to visit thy face too roughly, thy foot to light on softness, thy eye on splendor: and then of thy death, or hundred deaths, to which the guillotine and Fouquier-Tinville's judgment bar was but the merciful end? Look there, O man born of woman! The bloom of that fair face is wasted, the hair is gray with care: the brightness of those eyes is quenched, their lids hang drooping, the face is stony pale, as of one living in death. Mean weeds, which her own hand has mended, attire the Queen of the World. The death-hurdle, where thou sittest pale, motionless, which only curses environ, has to stop; a people, drunk with vengeance, will drink it again in full draught, looking at thee there. Far as the eye reaches, a multitudinous sea of maniac heads: the air deaf with their triumph yell! The living-dead must shudder with yet one other pang: her startled blood yet again suffuses with the hue of agony that pale face which she hides with her hands. There is, then, no heart to say, God pity thee? O think not of these: think of HIM whom thou worshippest, the Crucified,—who also treading the wine-press alone, fronted sorrow still deeper: and triumphed over it, and made it holy: and built of it a Sanctuary of Sorrow for thee and all the wretched! Thy path of thorns is nigh ended. One long last look at the Tuileries, where thy step was once so light,—where thy children shall not dwell. The head is on the block: the axe rushes—Dumb lies the World: that wild-yelling World and all its madness is behind thee."
LIST OF CHARACTERS.
| Period, 1793. | |
| Marie Antoinette, | } |
| The Dauphin, | } prisoners at the Temple. |
| Madame Royale, | } |
| The Princess Elizabeth, | } |
| Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, | } |
| M. Dixmer, | }engaged in an attempt to rescue the Queen. |
| Geneviève, his wife, | } |
| Sophie Tison, | } |
| Lieutenant Maurice Lindey, a patriot, | in love with Geneviève. |
| Maximilien-Jean Lorin, | his friend. |
| Santerre, | Commandant of the Parisian National Guard. |
| Simon, | a cobbler. |
| President Harmand, | of the Revolutionary Tribunal. |
| Fouquier-Tinville, | the public accuser. |
| M. Giraud, | the city architect. |
| Chauveau Lagarde, | counsel for the Queen. |
| Jean Paul Marot, | } |
| Robespierre, | } |
| Danton, | } |
| Chénier, | } Montagnards. |
| Hébert, | } |
| Fabre d'Églantine, | } |
| Collot d'Herbois, | } |
| Robert Lindet, | } |
| MM. Vergniaud, | } |
| Féraud, | } |
| Brissot, | } |
| Louvet, | }Girondins. |
| Pétion, | } |
| Valazé, | } |
| Lanjuinais, | } |
| Barbaroux, | } |
| MM. Roland, | } |
| Servien, | } |
| Clavières, | }of the French Ministry, August, 1793. |
| Le Brun, | } |
| and Monge, | } |
| Generals Dumouriez, | } |
| Miacrinski, | } |
| Steingel, | } |
| Neuilly, | }officers commanding the French armies on the frontiers. |
| Valence, | } |
| Dampierre, | } |
| Miranda, | } |
| Henriot, | Commandant-General of the National Guard. |
| Citizen Devaux, | of the National Guard. |
| Citizens Tonlan, | } |
| Lepître, | } |
| Agricola, | }of the Municipal Guard. |
| Mercevault, | } |
| Grammont, | Adjutant-Major. |
| Tison, | employed at the Temple Prison. |
| Madame Tison, | his wife. |
| Arthémise, | ex-dancer at the opera. |
| Abbé Girard. | |
| Dame Jacinthe, | his servant. |
| Turgy, | an old waiter of Louis XVI., attending the royal family at the Temple. |
| Muguet, | femme-de-chambre of Dixmer. |
| Madame Plumeau, | hostess of an alehouse near the Temple. |
| Agesilaus, | servant to Maurice Lindey. |
| Aristide, | concierge at Maurice's house. |
| Gracchus, | a turnkey at the Conciergerie. |
| Richard, | jailer at the Conciergerie. |
| Madame Richard, | his wife. |
| Duchesse, | }Gendarmes at the Conciergerie. |
| Gilbert, | } |
| Sanson, | the executioner. |
CONTENTS.
| Chapter | Page | |
| [I.] | The Enrolled Volunteers | [1] |
| [II.] | The Unknown | [13] |
| [III.] | The Rue des Fossés Saint Victor | [22] |
| [IV.] | Manners of the Times | [30] |
| [V.] | What Sort of Man the Citizen Maurice Lindey was | [40] |
| [VI.] | The Temple | [46] |
| [VII.] | The Oath of the Gamester | [57] |
| [VIII.] | Geneviève | [68] |
| [IX.] | The Supper | [79] |
| [X.] | Simon the Shoemaker | [90] |
| [XI.] | The Billet | [100] |
| [XII.] | Love | [110] |
| [XIII.] | The Thirty-First of May | [141] |
| [XIV.] | Devotion | [148] |
| [XV.] | The Goddess Reason | [157] |
| [XVI.] | The Prodigal Child | [163] |
| [XVII.] | The Miners | [171] |
| [XVIII.] | Clouds | [182] |
| [XIX.] | The Request | [191] |
| [XX.] | The Flower-Girl | [200] |
| [XXI.] | The Crimson Carnation | [207] |
| [XXII.] | Simon the Censor | [215] |
| [XXIII.] | Arthémise | [222] |
| [XXIV.] | The Mother and Daughter | [231] |
| [XXV.] | The Conspiracy | [240] |
| [XXVI.] | The Little Dog Jet | [252] |
| [XXVII.] | The Muscadin | [263] |
| [XXVIII.] | The Chevalier de Maison-Rouge | [273] |
| [XXIX.] | The Patrol | [282] |
| [XXX.] | The Password | [292] |
| [XXXI.] | The Search | [300] |
| [XXXII.] | The Fire | [309] |
| [XXXIII.] | The Morrow | [322] |
| [XXXIV.] | The Conciergerie | [326] |
| [XXXV.] | La Salle des Pas-Perdus | [337] |
| [XXXVI.] | The Citizen Théodore | [347] |
| [XXXVII.] | The Citizen Gracchus | [355] |
| [XXXVIII.] | The Royal Child | [361] |
| [XXXIX.] | The Bouquet of Violets | [372] |
| [XL.] | The Tavern of Noah's Well | [384] |
| [XLI.] | The Registrar of the Minister of War | [392] |
| [XLII.] | The Two Billets | [399] |
| [XLIII.] | The Preparations of Dixmer | [405] |
| [XLIV.] | The Preparations of the Chevalier | [412] |
| [XLV.] | The Inquiry | [420] |
| [XLVI.] | The Sentence | [429] |
| [XLVII.] | The Priest and the Executioner | [437] |
| [XLVIII.] | The Cart | [445] |
| [XLIX.] | The Scaffold | [453] |
| [L.] | The Visit to the Domicile | [461] |
| [LI.] | Lorin | [466] |
| [LII.] | Sequel to the Preceding | [475] |
| [LIII.] | The Duel | [482] |
| [LIV.] | The Salle des Morts | [490] |
| [LV.] | Why Lorin went out | [502] |
| [LVI.] | Long Live Simon! | [505] |
LE
CHEVALIER DE MAISON-ROUGE.