deeply loved. My wife and my sister Lucile were awaiting their sentence in the dungeons of Rennes; it had been proposed to imprison them in the château of Combourg, now turned into a state prison; their innocence was charged with the crime of my emigration. What were our sufferings in a foreign land, when compared with those of our countrymen who had remained in their own country? And yet what an additional misery amidst the other hardships of exile, to know that that very exile has been made a pretext for the persecution of those dear to us! Two years ago my sister-in-law's wedding-ring was found in the gutter of the Rue Cassette, and brought to me; it was broken; but the two hoops hung twisted together; the names engraved on them were still perfectly legible. How had this ring again come to light? Where and when had it been lost? Had the victim, imprisoned in the Luxembourg, passed along the Rue Cassette on her way to execution? Had she let the ring fall from the cart? or had it been taken from her lifeless finger after her death? I was deeply affected at the sight of this broken ring, with its still legible inscription; it brought vividly to my mind the recollection of so cruel a fate. Something mysterious and fatal seemed attached to this ring, sent as it were from the habitations of the dead, in memory of her and of my brother. I gave it to her son; may it not bring misfortune on him! Cher orphelin, image de ta mère, This, and two or three other bad stanzas, were the only wedding-present which I was able to make to my nephew when he married. One other monument of these misfortunes is in my possession. I give the letter written to me by M. de Contencin, who, in searching among the archives of Paris, found the order of the Revolutionary Tribunal, which sent my brother and his family to the scaffold: "MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE, "There is a sort of cruelty in reviving in a mind which has suffered deeply, the recollection of the misfortunes which have so painfully affected it. This feeling made me hesitate for some time to offer you a very melancholy document which came into hands during my my historical researches. It is a death-warrant, signed before his own decease, by a man who always showed himself as implacable as death itself towards any in whom he found rank and virtue united. "I hope you will not be displeased with me for adding to your family archives a document reviving such painful images; I supposed it would have an interest in your eyes, because it had value in mine, and it immediately occurred to me to offer it to you. If I have not been indiscreet, I shall be doubly happy, inasmuch as this step affords me an opportunity of expressing the sentiments of profound respect and sincere admiration with which you have long inspired me, and with which I am, "Your very humble and obedient servant, "Hôtel de la Préfecture de la Seine. "Paris, March 23rd, 1835." I replied as follows: "SIR, "A. DE CONTENCIN." "I had caused search to be made in the Sainte-Chapelle for the documents relating to the trial of my unfortunate brother and of his wife, but the order which you have had the kindness to send me was not found among them. This order, and many others, with their erasures, and their ill-written names, must surely have been presented to Fouquier, at the Supreme Tribunal; he would know the signature well. And yet these are the times looked back upon in the present day with regret, and praised to the skies in volumes of eulogium! For myself, I envy my brother; it has been his fortune to be long since set free from this miserable world. I thank you sincerely for the sentiments you express in your good and noble letter, and beg you to be assured of the high esteem with which I am, &c., &c." This death-warrant is especially remarkable for the evidence it affords of the levity with which murders were committed; some names are wrong spelled; others are effaced; but these defects in form, which would in justice have sufficed to annul the simplest sentence, arrested not the bloody executioners; they were only careful to attend to the precise hour of death: at five o'clock precisely. I give a faithful copy of the authentic document : "Executioners of Criminal Sentences. "Revolutionary Tribunal. "The executioner of criminal sentences will not fail to go to the prison of the Conciergerie, there to put into execution the sentence which condemns Mousset, d'Esprémenil, Chapelier, Thouret, Hell, Lamoignon Malsherbes, the woman Lepelletier Rosambo, Chateau Brian and his wife (the proper name is effaced and illegible), the widow Duchatelet, the wife of Grammont, formerly Duke, the woman Rochechuart (Rochechouart), and Parmentier :-14, to the punishment of death. The execution will take place to-day, at five o'clock precisely, on the Place de la Revolution, in this town. "Given at the Tribunal, the 3rd Floréal, in the second of the Republic. "Two conveyances." year but she was The 9th of Thermidor saved mother's life; my forgotten at the Conciergerie. The commissary of the Convention found her there : "What are you doing here, citoyenne?" said he; "who are you? why do you remain here?" My mother replied, that having lost her son, she cared not what was passing beyond her prison walls, and that it was matter of indifference to her whether she died in the prison or elsewhere. "But perhaps you have other children,” replied the commissary. My mother named my wife and sisters, confined in the dungeons of Rennes. An order for their liberation was sent off, and my mother was sent out of the prison. A great omission has been made in every history of the Revolution; side by side with the delineation of interior France, should have been traced one of exterior France, a picture of that great colony of exiles, varying its industry and its sufferings with the diversities of climate and the differences of national manners. Without France, all was effected by indi vidual effort; state changes, obscure afflictions, silent, unrewarded sacrifices; and one fixed idea preserved in the minds of this variety of individuals of every rank, age, and sex; old France wandering on the face of the earth with its prejudices and its faithful adherents, as in ancient times the Church of God with its virtues and its martyrs. Within France, all was effected by the efforts of the masses; Barrère announcing murders and conquests, civil wars and foreign wars; the gigantic combats in La Vendée and on the banks of the Rhine; thrones crumbling at the tread of our armies; our fleets engulphed in the waves; the people disinterring the monarchs at St. Denis, and blinding living beings with the dust of their dead predecessors; new France glorying in her fresh liberty, proud even of her crimes, firm on her own territory, although enlarging her boundaries, doubly armed with the executioner's axe and the soldier's sword. Amidst my grief for the misfortunes of my own family, I received letters from my friend Hingant, which at least re-assured me on the subject of his fate; the letters were very remarkable ones; he wrote in the month of September, 1795: "Your letter of the 23rd of August is full of the most touching sensibility. I have shown it to several persons, whose eyes filled with tears on reading it. I was almost tempted to say to them what Diderot said on the day when J. J. Rousseau came to weep in his prison at Vincennes: See how my friends love me! My illness was in reality only one of those nervous fevers which give one a great deal of suffering, and for which time and patience are the best remedies. During my illness I read extracts from the Phado and Timæus. These books give one a desire to die, and I said like Cato :— It must be so: Plato, thou reasonest well! I pictured to myself my journey to the shades, as one would imagine a journey to the Indies. I thought I should see many new objects in the world of spirits (as Swedenborg calls it), and, above all, should be exempt from the fatigues and dangers of travel." London, from April till September, 1822. CHARLOTTE. FOUR leagues from Beccles, in the small town of Bungay, lived the Rev. Mr. —, a clergyman of the Church of Eng land, remarkable for his knowledge of Greek and mathematics. His family consisted of his wife, still young and agreeable in person, mind, and manners, and an only daughter, about fifteen. Having been introduced to the family, I was better received there than anywhere else. We drank after the old English fashion, and remained two hours at table after the departure of the ladies. Mr. who had been in America, took great delight in relating his travels and listening to accounts of mine, as well as in conversing about Newton and Homer. His daughter, who had become learned in order to gratify him, was an excellent musician, and sang as well as Madame Pasta does She apppeared again at tea, and charmed away the infectious drowsiness of the old clergyman. Leaning on the end of the piano I listened to her in silence. now. When the music was finished, the young lady questioned me about France, and about literature; she asked me for plans of study; was particularly anxious to become acquainted with the Italian authors, and begged me to give her some readings and remarks on the Divina Commedia and the Gerusalemme. By degrees I felt the timid charm of an attachment proceeding from the soul; I had decked out my Floridans, but I could not have ventured to pick up this lady's glove; I was embarrassed when I attempted to translate a passage in Tasso, while much more at ease with the chaster and more masculine genius of Dante. We were relatively of suitable ages. There is always something melancholy in those attachments which are not formed till middle life; if persons do not meet in the prime of youth, the recollections of the person beloved are not mixed up with those years when one has lived without knowing her: those days which belong to other associations, are painful to the memory, and cut off, as it were, from our existence. Is there a disproportion in age? inconveniences are increased the elder has begun life before the younger was born; the younger |