serene. 'Feel,' said Louis, placing his hand on his bosom, 'feel
whether this is the beating of a heart shaken by fear.' Ah, my
friend, your heart would have clamped in misery to hear the Queen
cry: 'What have I to fear? Death? it is as well to-day as to-
morrow; they can do no more!' Their lives were saved, the day
passed, but worse came after.

"The tenth of August came. With it too, the end-the dark and bloody
end-of the Swiss Guard. The Jacobins had their way at last. The
Swiss Guard died in the Court of the Carrousel as they marched to
the Assembly to save the King. Thus the last circle of defence
round the throne was broken. The palace was given over to flame and
the sword. Of twenty nobles of the court I alone escaped. France
is become a slaughter-house. The people cried out for more liberty,
and their liberators gave them the freedom of death. A fortnight
ago, Danton, the incomparable fiend, let loose his assassins upon
the priests of God. Now Paris is made a theatre where the people
whom Louis and his nobles would have died to save have turned every
street into a stable of carnage, every prison and hospital into a
vast charnel-house. One last revolting thing alone remains to be
done--the murder of the King; then this France that we have loved
will have no name and no place in our generation. She will rise
again, but we shall not see her, for our eyes have been blinded with
blood, for ever darkened by disaster. Like a mistress upon whom we
have lavished the days of our youth and the strength of our days,
she has deceived us; she has stricken us while we slept. Behold a
Caliban now for her paramour!

"Weep with me, for France despoils me. One by one my friends have
fallen beneath the axe. Of my four sons but one remains. Henri was