LA VENDEE.


VOLUME I


CHAPTER I

THE POITEVINS

The history of France in 1792 has been too fully written, and too
generally read to leave the novelist any excuse for describing the state
of Paris at the close of the summer of that year. It is known to every
one that the palace of Louis XVI was sacked on the 10th of August. That
he himself with his family took refuge in the National Assembly, and
that he was taken thence to the prison of the Temple.

The doings on the fatal 10th of August, and the few following days had,
however, various effects in Paris, all of which we do not clearly trace
in history. We well know how the Mountain became powerful from that day;
that from that day Marat ceased to shun the light, and Danton to curb
the licence of his tongue that then, patriotism in France began to
totter, and that, from that time, Paris ceased to be a fitting abode for
aught that was virtuous, innocent, or high-minded; but the steady march
of history cannot stop to let us see the various lights in which the
inhabitants of Paris regarded the loss of a King, and the commencement
of the first French Republic.

The Assembly, though it had not contemplated the dethronement of the
King, acquiesced in it; and acted as it would have done, had the